Mixing Song School Latin 2 and Prima Latina

[Sarah0000]

For an accelerated, fluent reader who has a strong foundation in grammar and has done SSL1 with DVDs independently and is doing The Fun Spanish independently, what do you think about combining Prima Latina with Song School Latin 2 for end of first and second grade? My thought is to switch to PL primarily for the grammar heavy workbook (two birds) that isn't as babyish as the SSL workbook but use the SSL 2 DVDs for the animated stories, derivative river and grammar explanations (is there more grammar taught in the DVDs in SSL2 compared to SSL1?) that my sons enjoy. I know the vocab wouldn't match up but we wouldn't be attempting to memorize the SSL 2 vocab, and at this stage I'm not working towards Latin vocab mastery anyway.

I've read the PL DVDs aren't very well done and are basically just a teacher going over the lesson. My son has had no issue writing sentences in his Spanish workbook with only the provided written lesson and occasional help from me. The only Latin background I have is the SSL1 we've done together, but so far it's been pretty similar to Spanish. 

Thoughts?

[HomeAgain]

I think it could work well.
My ds is doing FFL for the grammar/bulk of the vocab, and Cambridge Latin for translation/exposure/vocab in context. He's really liking both right now.  We've got a good rhythm to his lesson: flashcards, FFL, curl up with a story from Cambridge.  We dropped the FFL dvds because it is mostly just going over the lesson and it required me to hit pause too often - the teacher is quicker than the students are and she's very brisk!
If it doesn't work out, you can always drop Prima to come back to after SSL2.

[SoCal_Bear]

Have you seen SSL2 already? It's a bit of a step up from SSL1. It's about 3 times as thick as SSL1. There's quite a bit of grammar in there. 

[Sarah0000]

2 hours ago, calbear said:

Have you seen SSL2 already? It's a bit of a step up from SSL1. It's about 3 times as thick as SSL1. There's quite a bit of grammar in there. 

No I haven't seen it. I'm not really concerned about length. Is the workbook still largely tracing, matching, and circling? He needs something more than that.

[SoCal_Bear]

For this one, you have to be able to write. You learn parts of speech, start learning declensions, and conjugating some verbs. There's fill in the blank, translate, crosswords, word search, multiple choice, choose the correct word, and stuff like that. If you haven't used Headventureland, I think the subscription is well worth the money. You can try out the first 3 chapters for free for both level 1 and 2. We went on to CAP LFC A after this. It was a great lead into that. He really loves using CAP as we are in LFC B. The revised version and the revised videos are pretty good for LFC if you are thinking of going forward. There are full versions of Headventureland for those levels as well. 

Edited January 10, 2019 by calbear

[Sarah0000]

4 hours ago, calbear said:

For this one, you have to be able to write. You learn parts of speech, start learning declensions, and conjugating some verbs. There's fill in the blank, translate, crosswords, word search, multiple choice, choose the correct word, and stuff like that. If you haven't used Headventureland, I think the subscription is well worth the money. You can try out the first 3 chapters for free for both level 1 and 2. We went on to CAP LFC A after this. It was a great lead into that. He really loves using CAP as we are in LFC B. The revised version and the revised videos are pretty good for LFC if you are thinking of going forward. There are full versions of Headventureland for those levels as well. 

That's the thing, the stuff most people seem to like about SSL/LFC are the parts he doesn't care for. He hates the songs, CD, and website. He flies through the workbook. He'll tolerate the flashcards but doesn't need them. His favorite parts are the DVD, stories, and any time you draw pictures in the workbook. 

He does like recitation (Living Memory) however so maybe he would do the chants in LFC. I'm not sure. He writes for workbook prompts fine (but is a reluctant writer when it comes to more open ended stuff). He's decent in grammar so I'm not worried about that part.

Perhaps I should print out samples from SSL 2/LFC and PL/LC and see what he says. 

[HomeAgain]

9 hours ago, Sarah0000 said:

That's the thing, the stuff most people seem to like about SSL/LFC are the parts he doesn't care for. He hates the songs, CD, and website. He flies through the workbook. He'll tolerate the flashcards but doesn't need them. His favorite parts are the DVD, stories, and any time you draw pictures in the workbook. 

He does like recitation (Living Memory) however so maybe he would do the chants in LFC. I'm not sure. He writes for workbook prompts fine (but is a reluctant writer when it comes to more open ended stuff). He's decent in grammar so I'm not worried about that part.

Perhaps I should print out samples from SSL 2/LFC and PL/LC and see what he says. 

Your kid sounds like mine.  And I showed mine LFC and he recoiled in horror.  He had no desire to have anything to do with a program that encouraged chants, songs, etc.

Have you considered something like Getting Started With Latin along with PL, if you wanted to mix two programs?

[Sarah0000]

1 hour ago, HomeAgain said:

Your kid sounds like mine.  And I showed mine LFC and he recoiled in horror.  He had no desire to have anything to do with a program that encouraged chants, songs, etc.

Have you considered something like Getting Started With Latin along with PL, if you wanted to mix two programs?

I'd like to stick with something fairly independent for Latin because we do Spanish together already.

[HomeAgain]

2 minutes ago, Sarah0000 said:

I'd like to stick with something fairly independent for Latin because we do Spanish together already.

I'm not sure what you're saying.  Which of those programs is not fairly independent: the program meant for self-taught learners or the program that you already have as one of your choices?

[Sarah0000]

1 hour ago, HomeAgain said:

I'm not sure what you're saying.  Which of those programs is not fairly independent: the program meant for self-taught learners or the program that you already have as one of your choices?

Getting Started With Latin...is it meant to be used independently by young learners? I looked at the preview and it looked like it would appeal more to older kids and adults or to be done together with an adult. My son hasn't learned to read from a book and write separately on paper yet, although I would like him to learn to somewhat soon.

[nixpix5]

This may have already been stated but PL uses a different pronunciation than SS. Probably minor but, for example, SS pronounces "v" as "w" and PL...if using the DVD and CDs uses the "v" pronunciation. I am sure there are other differences but it through my kids a bit.

[SoCal_Bear]

PL is ecclesiastical. SS has both classical and ecclesiastical.