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Do we need to memorize the "words to help" in Minimus?


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I'm looking over and planning lessons for dd's (8,6,5) - I figure the younger ones will be listening.

 

They have Words To Help boxes for each cartoon and then the Words to Remember box at the end of the lesson. I was going to write the words and meanings on index cards for us to review. Should I focus on the end lesson words or should I really include all of the words? - just seems like a lot. This is our "intro" to latin.

 

ty

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I'm not familiar with Minimus because we use Prima Latina . But I include all the words with index cards , even our prayers . BUT , with a big but I focus on the words we are learning in the chapter more . I just throw in those 'other' words from time to time to keep them fresh in their minds .

Hope that suggestion helps .

 

I even make word searches and word puzzles from www.puzzle-maker.com

This also is fun and helps too . Now if I could find a good way to help my girls learn to spell their Latin words on their own without constantly asking me how to spell them ... but that's for another thread :>)

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Well, we did Minimus as an intro to Latin and I did not have dd memorize all the words for it. But dd was young, so that made a difference in how I approached it. For an 8 year old, I would probably have my dc learn more of the vocabulary, but that's just me. And yes, it is a lot.

 

We are going to start Lively Latin soon and when dd was looking through it, she said, "Hey, I know some of these words!" So she got out of Minimus exactly what I wanted her to, it appears.

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I have used Minimus only briefly, but am very familiar with Cambridge, which Minimus leads onto. The way these programs are designed, although it helps to review and memorise some of the words, just using the program regularly gains familiarity with a lot of vocabulary. I think its up to you how much you choose to really memorise- my kids found it pretty easy to memorise at that age. We do not spend a lot of time memorsing with Cambridge, because the words come up so frequently in the translations that they are automatically memorised. because they are seen in context over and over again.

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I'm looking over and planning lessons for dd's (8,6,5) - I figure the younger ones will be listening.

 

They have Words To Help boxes for each cartoon and then the Words to Remember box at the end of the lesson. I was going to write the words and meanings on index cards for us to review. Should I focus on the end lesson words or should I really include all of the words? - just seems like a lot. This is our "intro" to latin.

 

ty

 

Concentrate on the "Words to Remember." It's probably a good idea to include the "Words to Help" with your flashcards, but I'd work on knowing the "Words to Remember" first. As you read the stories, I think you'll find that you'll remember the "Words to Help" anyway. A strength of the Minimus (and Cambridge) series is that the context and storyline do help you to remember the vocabulary. It's a good idea to go back and re-read old stories. That will help you remember vocabulary.

 

Here's something you can do with your flashcards other than simply drill: have your child sort the cards into categories. Ie. "Find all the Latin nouns" or "Find all the words that relate to people." (amicus, ancilla, servi, miles, etc) "Find all the family words (soror, mater, pater, frater, etc.)

 

Do you know about the Minimus Et Cetera website? LOTS of helpful stuff there!

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