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Looking for advice for 5th grade Latin


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I am starting to work on plans for next year when my dd wil be in 5th grade. I am not normally this forward-thinking, but I am nervous about moving from the grammar stage to the logic stage. Planning make me feel better:) Dd also likes to know the grand plan. She has been asking about next year and I really have not had much to tell her yet.

 

Dd has been homeschooled from day one. We have been using Latin for Children. We are on target to finish Primer B this year.

 

I am looking for two pieces of advice:

 

1. What logic stage Latin curriculum have you had good experiences with? And what was you own Latin knowledge? I am learning along with dd. She is definitely "winning" the race so I suspect that I will continue to be involved but will need to rely heavily on the curriculum.

 

2. If you used LFC, or another three-year program, would you recommend finishing up Primer C before moving on to the next step or would you just move on? My impression is that many programs will begin from the beginning anyway so I am unsure of the value of finishing up the third year only to start all over again in 6th grade. However this is my only child and I will freely admit that I really know nothing about all of this! Especially Latin.

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My 5th grader is using Memoria Press' First Form. She did their Prima Latina and their Latina Christiana I in the 2 previous years. But it is a start at the beginning program, so most 5th graders could jump right in. It goes faster than LCI did last year, and I am glad she has the background, but it can be a beginner course. I had no latin background either, just Spanish. I am learning as we go. I even teach it in co-op since I am the only one brave enough to do it :) And it is going fine. I watch the videos and do reading and learning on my own to keep up at home. The T.Ms and videos make it easy to learn and teach the lesson. Then the kids have worksheets to do each day at home, which keeps them working on the week's lesson, so they do well with it IMO.

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I've not used anything you are using, but we did Lively Latin in 4th grade, and moved to Latin Prep for 5th grade. We really, really like it. We use the text and the workbook for extra practice, and we are moving very slowly, but I think we are getting a lot out of it. It has a ton of translating - English-Latin and Latin-English, and it is very challenging.

 

I had never studied Latin before, but I have studied French and Spanish, thank goodness! This is the only reason I can stay ahead of dd. She is definitely quicker at rote memorizing than I am, but I have advanced grammar and vocab skills, and experience with other languages, so thus far I've been able to keep just ahead. I don't see that lasting much beyond this first book, though, so I will at some point have to make a choice . . .

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I don't have any more experience than you do (we too have Done LFC A and B) but I hadn't considered moving on until the LFC program was exhausted. The format is familiar at that point, and it specifically builds on A and B. Personally, I would (and will) just finish up C before moving on.

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I used Latin Prep, from Galore Park and it worked very well. Calvin is top of his class now he is in school. It starts from the beginning but you could move a little faster if you had some background. It provides lots of translation from Latin to English and English to Latin. There's a little humour and some cartoons, but basically it's a rigorous, traditional programme.

 

I had studied three years of Latin at school, but I'm 49 so that was a long time ago.

 

Laura

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  • 3 weeks later...

On Laura Corin's recommendation several years ago, we went with Galore Park Latin Prep. It is wonderful. If you continue to study Latin, you can follow the series through middle years. Ds is in grade 8 at the moment and we will be finishing LP3.

 

FWIW, I had 4 years of Latin in high school and 4 semesters in university.

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We are a Latin Prep family too. My ds is in 5th grade this year. I have had no Latin myself, but I am lucky that my Dad was a Catholic alter boy in the 50's and is helping us with it once a week.

 

We use the text, and then to the workbook at the end of each chapter as a test. I was not happy after the first test as DS got about 65%. I thought we had been teaching well, and I didn't want to move on as we had not "mastered" chapter 1 yet. I read through, and then I found something at the end of the chapter 5 workbook. That by the end of chapter 5 they should be scoring 80% on each chapter. It is a different way of teaching. From MP, I was used to them giving the work and the student learning and being tested on that. In Latin Prep, you have not been given every word that is used on a vocab list. They will have to use the words around an unknown to try and figure out the translation. It has been really good, and ds is much more engaged because of it.

 

We have a cd that reads the translations. We are going to do the online sample of the game over the holiday, and might get that next year.

http://www.galorepark.co.uk/product/home_schoolers/1517/latin-galore-demo.html

 

We order from Horrible Ray, and he has been great. If you have any 5th grade questions, pm me. I would be happy to share what we have been doing. I was in a panic. I even flew to California to go to a convention. We are really enjoying 5th grade.

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We are a Latin Prep family too. My ds is in 5th grade this year. I have had no Latin myself, but I am lucky that my Dad was a Catholic alter boy in the 50's and is helping us with it once a week.

 

We use the text, and then to the workbook at the end of each chapter as a test. I was not happy after the first test as DS got about 65%. I thought we had been teaching well, and I didn't want to move on as we had not "mastered" chapter 1 yet. I read through, and then I found something at the end of the chapter 5 workbook. That by the end of chapter 5 they should be scoring 80% on each chapter. It is a different way of teaching.

 

It is different, you are right. In a UK GCSE public exam (roughly equivalent to SAT subject tests) an A grade will be around 75%, an A* (A+) will be in the 80s. There is more 'room at the top' of exams.

 

Laura

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It is different, you are right. In a UK GCSE public exam (roughly equivalent to SAT subject tests) an A grade will be around 75%, an A* (A+) will be in the 80s. There is more 'room at the top' of exams.

 

Laura

 

 

Yeah, that threw me for a loop to start with. Once I understood (and I think you might have helped with that way back when), I then saw what a great method it was for Latin. We are really loving the science to btw, thanks for all the GP advice. You are my GP guru :hurray:

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Yeah, that threw me for a loop to start with. Once I understood (and I think you might have helped with that way back when), I then saw what a great method it was for Latin. We are really loving the science to btw, thanks for all the GP advice. You are my GP guru :hurray:

 

Glad it's working for you. Now if only the rest of the world recognised my value.....

 

Laura

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How do you use Latin Prep? Do you do it with the kids orally or they do it independently?

 

 

We used to do a mixture. We would go through the grammar orally together then attack the translation exercises. The Latin-to-English exercises he used to do in written form on his own. The English to Latin was tougher and he used to do it orally with me.

 

Laura

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We do it together, orally for the most part, but using the whiteboard for longer & more complex translations. I've gotten better about *just* scribing for her, and making her look up cases, etc. herself on her notecards. I may ask a question, like "Oh, is it a plural verb?" that directs her to where her mistake is in an LtoE translation, or direct her to check her case in an EtoL translation. That's making me feel better about my level of involvement.

 

I've thought about just sending her off with it to do the translations and then come back and check it with me, but frankly I think it would be too frustrating for her - she likes immediate feedback and hates "practicing wrong".

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May I jump in with a grammar stage question? We've done Song School Latin 1 & are working through Getting Started with Latin now, but I've been looking for something that teaches the grammar a bit more. Prima Latina didn't work for us.

DD really does not have much of a foundation in Latin at this point. Would Latin Prep be a good program to start more solid instruction with? I've been debating LfC and Lively Latin, but having seen only samples of all the programs, I like the looks of Latin Prep the best.

Thanks, and sorry to hijack!

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Well, Laura is the expert on Latin Prep, but I know she has said that it is really best used with a kid 10 and up. I agree with her - we started using it this year, 5th grade, when dd was a few months from turning 10. I definitely wouldn't have wanted to do it earlier, it moves very quickly, *much* more quickly than programs targeted at younger kids.

 

We did Lively Latin in 4th grade. It would be great for a 2nd or 3rd grader, too. I didn't love it, but it was fine, and it was good preparation for Latin Prep in 5th.

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LP starts at the beginning, but it does move really fast. If it's your very first exposure to Latin, I would plan to read ahead! I've been able to keep up so far, because I remember what we learned in LL, and I have studied French & Spanish.

 

I think the fact that dd did LL already means we're probably moving faster than we would have otherwise . . . but I do think it's possible for a 5th or 6th grader to start Latin Prep without any other background.

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We're almost done with GSWL, after trying 2 other programs, and will be moving to Galore Park's So You Really Want to Learn Latin soon. After doing GSWL, Indy will probably be able to whip through it and then we'll move on to LP. Indy loves Latin. He can translate a sentence like nobody's business. For some reason, GSWL really clicked things for him and he's excited to move on to another set of books. Yay Latin! Of course he also wants to add French, Spanish, and after our trip to Egypt, Arabic, in addition to the Greek we're already doing! I told him I could get on board with French next year, and maybe Spanish the following year, but he's probably going to have to hold off on the Arabic until college. :)

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