How many books for Getting Started with Latin

[lgliser]

I am seriously considering this for my 10 year old triplets. Do I need to get a book for each of them, or do we just sit together and look over it or what? It's kind of hard to tell from the online sample, but I guess they have a list of things to translate each lesson? So they could just do the writing on a piece of paper and not in the book (since it doesn't really look like there are any spaces for writing in the book anyway).

[TheAttachedMama]

I am using "Getting Started with French" with two kids during our morning time.  (The lessons are set up the same way as GSWL.)   I write the translations exercises on the board and do them that way.   It would be much quicker if they each had their own book, but I was looking to save money.   :)

Edited December 7, 2016 by TheAttachedMama

[Miss Tick]

I did GSWL with my twins out of one book. We wrote on separate pages. GSWL isn't set up for writing in anyway.

 

At some point we started dividing up some of the lessons.

 

Also, I added in regular English-to-Latin oral exercises by flipping a few lessons back and giving the English answer from a previous lesson.

[happypamama]

We do it orally, so no writing at all. We have just one book, but I'm only using it for one child at a time. To use with three children, I'd go with two books. Two of them can share, and you and another one can share.

 

ETA: if you use a whiteboard for other things, you could use one book and write the exercises on that.

Edited December 7, 2016 by happypamama

[Hobbes]

We use GSWF orally. I want to start writing the sentences on a whiteboard, but I wouldn't buy another book for that. (I am actually working on the iPad from the Kindle version, which has been great).

[UCF612]

We do GSWL. Some days we do it orally, other days they translate into a notebook. We share 1 book.

[RootAnn]

With Getting Started With Spanish, dd#1 and I were self-teaching. We used the same book, but did it at different times of day. With Getting Started with French,  Quizzes I wrote myself were both Spanish-to-English and English-to-Spanish (opposite of the book).

 

I am teaching dd#2 and dd#3 and we do it orally, with the audio from the website, and I write the exercises on the board. The kids just translate what I write (not write the French). Once we were around 50 lessons in, I would occasionally mix in dictation from 10-20 lessons back to see if they could write the french from just hearing it. I'm also having them go back once every other week and use their English translations to write the original French exercise sentences. Both of these have been ideal for helping them solidify their spelling of French and translate from French-back-to-English.

 

So, I advocate 1 book in total. If you want to splurge, one e-book and one hard copy, but you really only need one hard copy (for you).

 

Hardest part is if one kid moves faster than the other(s). I don't have this problem with my two (yet, anyway), but I'd just encourage the faster-mover to translate a previous lesson back into Latin.

 

Good luck!

[lgliser]

Thanks - great tips guys!

[MiMi 4under3]

I did GSWL with all four dc at the same time. 

 

I made 4 copies of the day's lesson, and they either wrote the translations on the bottom of the sheet, or on looseleaf. 

 

 

[blondchen]

There is no need to do any writing in the book at all, nor is there space for it. Each student just needs a notebook in which to write the translations (I have DD copy the Latin sentence first, then translate).

 

The book contains the instruction, 10 sentences per lesson to be translated, and the answer key, which is in the back.

 

If you want to teach the lessons (which are very brief) to all of them at once and write the sentences on a white board for them to translate, you'd only need one book.

 

If you want to let them do the lessons independently at different times, you'd only need one book.

 

Otherwise, I'm not sure how you'd manage with only one book shared by three children (and yourself), unless you're doing all of it orally (which I wouldn't recommend). DD9 works mostly independently, and then checks her answers herself with the answer key in the back. She couldn't do that efficiently if she were sharing a book with someone else at the same time.

 

Hope that helps a bit.

 

 

[deBij]

I did GSWL with young kids and created a page for most lessons where typed out the sentences with response lines along with the new word and a declension or conjugation exercise.

 

The kids needed the space to label the parts of speech which is insufficient in the book and copying about the latin sentences would have been too much work (thereby causing me headaches).