Best Latin curriculum for the littles?

[shawthorne44]

DD is 6 and first grade.  DH is reading her SOTW#1. they are mostly done.   DH and I are both big time Romanophiles.   So, we can talk to DD about that from memory.   DD just expressed an interest in learning latin.    (squee with happiness)   So, what should we get?   I feel a bit silly asking because we have WTM#3 on kindle and WTM#4 in print, and they must have a recommendation.   But, I want to know NOW, and the books are at home.  

 

In case it matters, DH is quite good with Latin. In Mel Gibson's Passion movie he understood the spoken latin enough to laugh at the funny parts.  I had a year or two of Latin but I learned next to nothing.   

[HomeAgain]

We are starting with Latin's Not So Tough in the spring, along with a read through of Minimus (because our library has it and I don't have to buy it).  LNST starts with just the alphabet, then adds vocabulary, then grammar, so we can go at his pace and slow down whenever we need to.  

[Homeschoolmom3]

We have used Sing Song Latin (games and CD) etc. haven't used the book as written but have used the music CD along side of making up some games for 5 and under crowd.  I did use the book for my 1st grader though and it worked well.  :)

[jjeepa]

We used Latin For Children through Classical Academic Press and thought it was a wonderful program.  My dd was older than yours we when started, so not sure it's a great fit for a 6 year old.  Hope someone else can respond to that.  I would highly recommend that curriculum though.  There's LFC A, B, and C.  

[shawthorne44]

The Sing Song Latin is also by Classical Academic Press.   I like the look of Sing Song Latin for DD.   We love games.  Some of the reviews say they are moving onto to Latin for Children when done with this.  

Edited December 5, 2016 by shawthorne44

[SarahW]

SSL1 could work. You could concentrate on the "extras" like the coloring pages and activities, and scale back the writing. I think Headventureland is now "full version" for SSL1, though I'm not sure what's all in it. If she's a computer-phile she might enjoy that.

 

We moved from SSL1 & 2 to LfC. We took a detour last year with Minimus and Little Latin Readers, not sure how worthwhile that was. My kid seems to respond well to CAP's Latin. He likes the songs in SSL, and now he's liking headventureland for LfCA.

 

The only other thing I might suggest you look into is I Speak Latin by Campbell. Especially since you have fluent speakers in the house, and it is designed for young children.

[Incognito]

CAP's Song School Latin 1 & 2 were fun for our kids.  They liked the DVDs because of the silly monkey story.  It's very gentle and fun.

[Hunter]

There is a vintage book that keeps a child in 1st declension for awhile. It was written by a grandmother for her grandsons. It is similar and better than what I wrote for my son, when I didn't have any access to curriculum for a young child.

 

My son composed a lot of silly stories using just 1st declension words and drew pictures and we hung them on the fridge. He would read the stories and then translate them for visitors, and that gave him more practice. You know those visitors that insist on quizzing your kids? :banghead:

 

I just wrote my own stuff until he was ready for Henle.

[Hunter]

I know Loebs are controversial, but I personally love them. I like to start students on them as soon as they can read the English, and even if I never intend to teach them a word of Latin or Greek. With Loebs they understand there were classical writers that wrote books that are just as relevant now as they were when written.

 

http://www.ilearnlatin.com/loeb-latin-books

 

I still remember the day when my son was reading from a a couple Loebs to his younger cousin and how fascinated the little boy was and just hero worshipping his older cousin. I saw the light bulbs goin off in his head, understanding that these people wrote books and lots of them. They are not just characters in modern books.

 

I have recreated that moment with low functioning tutoring students and always see the same light bulb moment for them. There is nothing like it.

 

Not that you are teaching Greek, but the Plutarch translation is better than other modern translation.

 

For yourself, you might like the Quintilian volumes. I'm not aware of any older teacher manual type book. Quintilian is a must red for homeschooling Romanophiles.

[SarahW]

There is a vintage book that keeps a child in 1st declension for awhile. It was written by a grandmother for her grandsons. It is similar and better than what I wrote for my son, when I didn't have any access to curriculum for a young child.

 

 

 

 

Now, you KNOW you can't just say something like that without giving the full title, and links to google books or archive, right?  :smash:

[shawthorne44]

I ended up getting the Sing Song Latin book 1 yesterday because my mom sent me a one-day only $5 amazon code on any new book.   That brought the price down to the used price.   I'll probably end up getting the DVD and game too.   Although it looks like I could just print the words on heavy paper and get the same thing.   

 

I'll be learning along with her.  She had taken a sign language class at co-op, did quite good with it, and wanted to practice with us.  But, we don't know sign language.   But, with this hopefully we can practice together.  

[shawthorne44]

That Sing Song Latin is a darn cute book!   

[Slache]

There is a vintage book that keeps a child in 1st declension for awhile. It was written by a grandmother for her grandsons. It is similar and better than what I wrote for my son, when I didn't have any access to curriculum for a young child.

My son composed a lot of silly stories using just 1st declension words and drew pictures and we hung them on the fridge. He would read the stories and then translate them for visitors, and that gave him more practice. You know those visitors that insist on quizzing your kids? :banghead:

I just wrote my own stuff until he was ready for Henle.

  

Now, you KNOW you can't just say something like that without giving the full title, and links to google books or archive, right?  :smash:

*cough*

[SarahW]

  

*cough*

 

Maybe Hunter's referring to Julia?

 

I came across that in my gdrive yesterday, and remember it was mentioned here sometime.

 

The problem I have with these vintage readers is that they almost always stick the glossary in the back of the book. It makes sense for a printed book, but for an ebook it's very cumbersome. I prefer facing page, or better, verso, glosses in readers anyways. I suppose I could print one of these vintage books that way, but..... that's a pita too.

 

 

 

ETA: Or maybe one of these?

Edited December 10, 2016 by SarahW

[Slache]

Maybe Hunter's referring to Julia?

 

I came across that in my gdrive yesterday, and remember it was mentioned here sometime.

 

The problem I have with these vintage readers is that they almost always stick the glossary in the back of the book. It makes sense for a printed book, but for an ebook it's very cumbersome. I prefer facing page, or better, verso, glosses in readers anyways. I suppose I could print one of these vintage books that way, but..... that's a pita too.

 

 

 

ETA: Or maybe one of these?

Wow, that's a neat link! I plan to print out all of the glossaries, answer keys and table of contents and put them in a binder.

[Zoo Keeper]

I think Hunter is referring to this book. https://archive.org/details/latinwithouttea00picagoog

 

HTH!

[SarahW]

I think Hunter is referring to this book. https://archive.org/details/latinwithouttea00picagoog

 

HTH!

 

 

Ha, archive's url shortens the title to latin without tea, and my first thought was "Wow, that's disappointing."  :lol:

 

Latin Without Tears, right. Except the sentences on page two include "Wild beast devours the slave," "Viper kills the sailor," and "Eagle devours the she-goat." That might be a bit sad.  :laugh:  They had different ideas of what was suitable topics for children back then, didn't they?

 

But it's a very interesting book. I like how it explains the cases and goes through the different sentence structures.

 

Thanks!

[Hunter]

Yes! That is the book! I tried looking for it, couldn't find it, and then even forgot I was even looking for it. Man, I could have used that book years ago!

 

Add to that vocabulary

 

Ghost: larva

 

She-wolf: Lupa

 

My son just stayed with first declension and present tense for awhile and wrote and illustrated his little stories.

 

December is a bad month for me. I tend to get very disorganized and experience a lot of memory loss. Sorry. My social worker is on top of it. Everything that can be done is being done. It is December and this is how December often goes. Parts of my brain are inaccessible, and I'm not going to know stuff that I'm likely to know again by mid January. It is what it is.

 

Zoo Keeper thanks! I've learned over the years, when I'm at my most confused, that if I throw out enough clues, sometimes someone else will fill in the missing pieces.

 

I remember years ago, there was a really fascinating thread going on that I really wanted to participate in and I'd just suffered a seizure and was missing really basic vocabulary and when I didn't know a word, would just post .... and another member with a family member with epilpsy knowing how that works was filling the words in for me when they were not obvious.

 

I talk about you all to my social worker sometimes and how you all have been so gracious to me over the years.

 

When we work together we can accomplish great things. That book is awesome for the little ones.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Hunter

[Hunter]

Maybe Hunter's referring to Julia?

 

I came across that in my gdrive yesterday, and remember it was mentioned here sometime.

 

The problem I have with these vintage readers is that they almost always stick the glossary in the back of the book. It makes sense for a printed book, but for an ebook it's very cumbersome. I prefer facing page, or better, verso, glosses in readers anyways. I suppose I could print one of these vintage books that way, but..... that's a pita too.

 

 

 

ETA: Or maybe one of these?

These are good!

 

Sometimes, I have more than one device open to the same eBook. One open to the key/glossary and the other open to the main text. At times, when I have owned them, I have had 3 or 4 devices all open at the same time, the same way I would have multiple books open at the same time.

 

If a device is slow and lags, I have saved just the pages I need as a new document and just used those pages.

 

I have sometimes printed a table of contents or glossary, even though I didn't print the main text.

[Hunter]

Ha, archive's url shortens the title to latin without tea, and my first thought was "Wow, that's disappointing." :lol:

 

Latin Without Tears, right. Except the sentences on page two include "Wild beast devours the slave," "Viper kills the sailor," and "Eagle devours the she-goat." That might be a bit sad. :laugh: They had different ideas of what was suitable topics for children back then, didn't they?

 

But it's a very interesting book. I like how it explains the cases and goes through the different sentence structures.

 

Thanks!

DS's stories were sometimes violent. Hey, it was the 90s and kids still ran around with toy guns and candy cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. And well, yeah, real life included violence. His stories reflected what he knew.

[Guest]

*posting so I don't lose this thread*

 

I started Latin really, really early with my caboose baby because it is part of our family culture and it just felt rude not to. I didn't spend a lot of money. I ILL'd Song School and quickly realized it just wasn't going to fly with this particular child--too cute and written for a group setting and he had NO knowledge of the culture of group settings, such as having to sit still, shut up, and raise his manus before asking a question.

 

We've just been doing GSWL until it isn't fun any more and then putting it back on the shelf and taking it down later and starting back at the beginning again. He also does the chants, quotes, and selected vocabulary from my late-20s kids' old Martha Wilson Primer, which I found out after the wallet hemorrhage is nothing but watered down Wheelocks anyway.

 

dd27 really DID have an easier time in thirdish grade than her three years younger brother and her thirtysomething mother so I'm not sure if starting early means they'll get further before they have to worry about things like paying off student loan debts and filling out employment applications, but that was never my goal for my littles. They study Latin because it's fun and it makes traditional academic subjects easier.

 

Anyway, thank you all SOOOOO much for the links to the public domain books! I'll shut up now. This is me shutting up....

Edited December 12, 2016 by Guest

[shawthorne44]

In our case, Latin hadn't even been on the horizon.   Being personally language-adverse I was thinking Better Late Than Early being applied to learning a language.  So, years in the future.  But, what is a parent to do when their child says, 'i'd like to learn Latin"?   In our case the answer is

1. Send mother a message so she can brag to her friends.
2. Ask WTM what to buy
3. Buy one of the recommends
4. Start on one of the recommends.  

[Hunter]

Sorry, I moved the post to the other Latin thread.

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/630222-latin-training-for-teachers-great-courses-latin-101/?p=7337711

Edited December 12, 2016 by Hunter

[Hunter]

*posting so I don't lose this thread*

 

I started Latin really, really early with my caboose baby because it is part of our family culture and it just felt rude not to. I didn't spend a lot of money. I ILL'd Song School and quickly realized it just wasn't going to fly with this particular child--too cute and written for a group setting and he had NO knowledge of the culture of group settings, such as having to sit still, shut up, and raise his manus before asking a question.

 

We've just been doing GSWL until it isn't fun any more and then putting it back on the shelf and taking it down later and starting back at the beginning again. He also does the chants, quotes, and selected vocabulary from my late-20s kids' old Martha Wilson Primer, which I found out after the wallet hemorrhage is nothing but watered down Wheelocks anyway.

 

dd27 really DID have an easier time in thirdish grade than her three years younger brother and her thirtysomething mother so I'm not sure if starting early means they'll get further before they have to worry about things like paying off student loan debts and filling out employment applications, but that was never my goal for my littles. They study Latin because it's fun and it makes traditional academic subjects easier.

 

Anyway, thank you all SOOOOO much for the links to the public domain books! I'll shut up now. This is me shutting up....

Sarah, thank you again for those links. I just got a look at some of them tonight.

 

My oldest did just enough Latin at his charter school to teach him some English grammar. My youngest preferred Greek to Latin, and we slacked off from the Latin to spend more time on Greek. I took a couple years of dumbed down Latin in high school. I loved that class. It was quiet and slow and no surprises, and a break from the rest of my less settled life.

 

We all started with some Latin, but either dropped it or moved onto Greek.

 

I'm in the mood for some serious Latin study this winter I think. Just because I want to. Like IEF said about family culture, Latin is part of MY childhood, and not even something I just did with the boys, like Greek. It part of my history before them, and part of my history that was good.

 

December is a yucky month for me. The Latin, at least today, feels good for some reason. I'm going to play around with it until I don't want to anymore.

 

The Mango course is really helping my pronunciation. The wall are super thin in my building. My neighbor must be ready to wring my neck. I keep hitting a single word over and over and over and practicing listening and saying it.

 

I'm looking at all the expensive kids stuff, and wouldn't use it if I had little ones. I'd just put my money into educating myself better. I had nothing for DS for Latin or anything else. And after having some money to waste on similar stuff for tutoring students for phonics and trying out flashy and expensive, I'm so not impressed with that type of teaching. At least I don't teach better that way. I just don't.

 

IEF said about her kid not knowing that group culture. Maybe that is it. Maybe I and students I have taught over the decades feel more estranged from prepared curriculum, and what I make up myself feels more like us. I need to think about that a bit.

[Hunter]

I watched the rest of the Latin Dinosaur cartoon on Hoopla last night. Does the smiley face burp, moon us, and then fart? I rewinded 3 times. I think it does. If it doesn't, there will be kids that think it does. And will probably rewind it over and over like I did.

 

Why are children's foreign language videos so vulgar? I have seen stuff like this before. Why don't I use kids stuff for kids? Hmm. Well.

[SarahW]

Hunter, have you also looked at this site?

 

Lots more google books, but organized by date and author. So helpful.

[Zoo Keeper]

Hunter, have you also looked at this site?

 

Lots more google books, but organized by date and author. So helpful.

 

:drool: Wow!  Some of them even have ANSWER KEYS!  Be still my heart...

 

Lots of good stuff there. Thanks for that link. :)

[Hunter]

Hunter, have you also looked at this site?

 

Lots more google books, but organized by date and author. So helpful.

Thanks!!!!

 

Latin is just such a great distraction for me right now.

[Guest]

 

Hunter, have you also looked at this site?

 

Lots more google books, but organized by date and author. So helpful.

 

 

Thanks, Sarah. There are alternate download links from archive dot org right there on the page, for the information of any anyone else who isn't a google fan.

[shawthorne44]

Update, Sing Song Latin is totally perfect for a 6-year-old.  We are really enjoying it.  
I think that the teaching mommy what she learned will be helpful to her.   Since I am genuinely dense when it comes to languages and pronunciation, she has to repeat the words several times.  

[Guest]

All you guys talking about Sing Song Latin....are you referring to Song School Latin???

[Guest]

I'll put up a link for Catholic Heritage Latin primers, though I haven't used them yet just because when I posted to ask about them, I got the feeling most people didn't even know they existed.

 

We start tomorrow, Lord willing and the creek don't rise :) So I should have a review in a few months, if nothing else :laugh:

Edited January 17, 2017 by OKBud