Alicia64 Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 I have the book by William E. Linney and it just looks so. . . dry. How do you make this somewhat palatable to kids without totally turning them off to Latin? My boys are 8. Any ideas are very appreciated. Alley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 The fun is in the translations. They are not dry, IMO. You do not need any bells and whistles. The only recommendation I have is to do the translations orally, on the couch. Have fun!! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i.love.lucy Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 I'd do it orally. And I'd listen to his audio from his website for each lesson. I might try to add something fun, like a word search, or latin/english translation matching games, etc. You can also find some of the Classical Conversations latin stuff on youtube that you could add - songs and games. I like some things from this website: http://www.latinteach.com/Site/RESOURCES/Entries/2008/5/20_Teaching_Latin_Grammar.html Honestly, they might still be a little young. I started my dd in it, but she's 11. She does it completely independently and often begs to do 2 lessons. We'll be done by working through summer, then she will start Henle in 7th grade next year. I think she'll be ready for Henle because of GSWL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia64 Posted February 13, 2012 Author Share Posted February 13, 2012 I'd do it orally. And I'd listen to his audio from his website for each lesson. I might try to add something fun, like a word search, or latin/english translation matching games, etc. You can also find some of the Classical Conversations latin stuff on youtube that you could add - songs and games. I like some things from this website: http://www.latinteach.com/Site/RESOURCES/Entries/2008/5/20_Teaching_Latin_Grammar.html Honestly, they might still be a little young. I started my dd in it, but she's 11. She does it completely independently and often begs to do 2 lessons. We'll be done by working through summer, then she will start Henle in 7th grade next year. I think she'll be ready for Henle because of GSWL. Ahhh! I was told that GSWL was the perfect bridge from Song School Latin for third or fourth graders. Maybe what I'm hoping to find just doesn't exist. Alley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kipling Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 I started GSWL with my 8 year old this year after first trying LFC (that did NOT work for us!). I have felt that GSWL has been perfect for us. It starts off really slow, but builds every day. She is feeling confident in her Latin skills, and she's understanding what she's learning. We basically do 4 lessons/week with one day of review. We go over the new word together and then she writes it on an index card (Latin on one side, translation on the other). She keeps her Latin cards in an envelope to make it easy to review. Then, we do the translations orally. It's pretty quick but effective. She doesn't find it dry or boring. I realize the book doesn't look very kid-appealing, but she likes doing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudoMom Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 Ahhh! I was told that GSWL was the perfect bridge from Song School Latin for third or fourth graders. Maybe what I'm hoping to find just doesn't exist. Alley I think it is a great program for those ages, though you could add Minimus to it. My ds9 is doing it independently, along with Visual Latin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 My younger did it last year and enjoyed it. We didn't do much "extra" to jazz it up--you might be surprised at how much your kids enjoy it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tranquility7 Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 Ahhh! I was told that GSWL was the perfect bridge from Song School Latin for third or fourth graders. Maybe what I'm hoping to find just doesn't exist. Alley Don't worry, your boys aren't too young. I do GSWL with my 5 yr old, and he loves it (at least so far - we are on about lesson 32 I think). Yes, it looks dry! But as PP said, the fun is in the translations. We do everything orally, although sometimes if he is struggling with a translation it helps him to read the sentence in the book. We review all of his vocab at least once or twice a week. Now that we have learned the conjugations of a couple of verbs, I have him chant those as well, to reinforce the ending patterns. I am always surprised at how much he likes GSWL. It is truly *no frills*, but he is always excited to do it. We also like to try to teach Daddy our new Latin at dinner. DS is quite excited to be able to teach Daddy something! We do three lessons a week, sometimes more. I suspect later lessons will get harder for him so we will probably slow down. But for now he loves it and is an eager beaver. Just start doing it and you might be surprised! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThreeBlessings Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 We are using Getting Started With Spanish. I assume they are very similar. :) We haven't found it boring at all. My dd loves it! We love that the lessons are short and to the point. We also do the translations orally. It takes less than 10 minutes for a lesson, which helps us actually get to it every day. The short lessons keep it from being boring and doing it every day really does help her recall of the material. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyforlatin Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 We used this book when DD was very young and she didn't have any trouble with it. This was before she even knew any grammar. We did it orally and it only took about 10-15 minutes per day. I couldn't have asked Dd to write out the answers because it would have been physically impossible. Even now, if we were to re-do GSWL, it would be pure torture if I made her write out the translations, but then I don't have a kid that likes to write that much. We transitioned into Henle easily. The fun part of Latin is when the a kid can decline, conjugate, and translate. I don't find a need to create any kind of fun with Latin or Greek. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizaG Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Ditto what others have said. Our early elementary children liked it fine as is. We did the lessons as a group during mealtimes, using a combination of oral work and a small white board. Even the preschooler joined in. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia64 Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 Thanks everyone. I'm a little confused. Is there really retention with no writing or workbooking or coloring pictures of "lac" or anything? We'd been doing Song School Latin which has a cute workbook and then we played around w/ Lively Latin for a few months. But just gong oral feels -- excuse the pun -- foreign to me. Alley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Thanks everyone. I'm a little confused. Is there really retention with no writing or workbooking or coloring pictures of "lac" or anything? We'd been doing Song School Latin which has a cute workbook and then we played around w/ Lively Latin for a few months. But just gong oral feels -- excuse the pun -- foreign to me. Alley This is nothing like SSL. The retention comes from actually using the grammar and vocab, by doing the translations. As a PP mentioned, for retention, it may be better to do a smaller amount every single day than to do more but on fewer days. Another option is to try English to Latin translations once in a while, using the Answer Key and working backward, from exercises done on an earlier day. This is more difficult, and usually involves some writing (you could easily use a white board for such an activity). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudoMom Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 This is nothing like SSL. The retention comes from actually using the grammar and vocab, by doing the translations. As a PP mentioned, for retention, it may be better to do a smaller amount every single day than to do more but on fewer days. :iagree: GSWL will help them learn how to use the vocabulary they learned in SSL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoVanGogh Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 DS love GSWL and has retained a great deal, even after we took a 2 month break to study French. We do our lessons on a large whiteboard and DS often draws pictures or acts out the translations. He loves it. To (possibly?) help with retention, I sometimes have him translate from English to Latin a few days after we have completed a lesson. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyforlatin Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Thanks everyone. I'm a little confused. Is there really retention with no writing or workbooking or coloring pictures of "lac" or anything? We'd been doing Song School Latin which has a cute workbook and then we played around w/ Lively Latin for a few months. But just gong oral feels -- excuse the pun -- foreign to me. Alley Just in our case, yes there is retention because we went straight into Henle when DD was young and had no problems. The child should conjugate verbs and decline nouns on a daily basis. It doesn't have to be all the verbs and nouns, but choose a few per day. We're doing the same with Henle - all oral and no writing. Not even one sentence was written because I have a child that doesn't have the motor skills to sit down and write and write. In fact, since the font size is small in Henle, I won't even allow her to read it. Initially, I typed out all the exercises, but now I dropped that since someone kindly typed it all out and shared it online, so occasionally I let her read the pdf version. Dd generally remembers most of the words. The trick I found out is that the child needs to decline and conjugate frequently with different words throughout the week. With French, I do make her write down almost everything because not all letters are pronounced and the only way to remember the spelling is to copy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tranquility7 Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Another option is to try English to Latin translations once in a while, using the Answer Key and working backward, from exercises done on an earlier day. This is more difficult, and usually involves some writing (you could easily use a white board for such an activity). Oooh, I never thought of that twist. What a fabulous idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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