How did you schedule Memoria Press First Form Latin?

[pitterpatter]

I'm considering MP First Form Latin for DD, who will be in seventh grade this year. I can't quite tell from the samples how one should schedule the course. It looks like there are enough lessons for one a week for the school year. I'm fine with that pace, as DD has dyslexia, but I'm not sure of the best way to divide the course material for one lesson to fill a week.

Assuming you have the First Form complete set, how did you schedule it? TIA!

[HomeAgain]

Are you doing the tests?

The workbook is split into 4-6 pages per week covering 5 sections.  We started out doing dvd lesson+ grammar page on day one, and doing 1-2 pages a day, plus vocab cards and grammar recitation for 3 days, testing on the last.  It is enough for the entire school year at that pace.

We finished the year by dropping the dvds and setting a specific time allowance per day.  We made it through lesson 20, so a slower pace, but I wanted to be sure there was a firm foundation before moving on, especially on the conjugations.  By the last week or so he could complete over a page in 15 minutes, which was much different from October!

[pitterpatter]

Thank you! This is pretty much what I was thinking...hoping even. How many minutes per day did you schedule?

2 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

Are you doing the tests?

The workbook is split into 4-6 pages per week covering 5 sections.  We started out doing dvd lesson+ grammar page on day one, and doing 1-2 pages a day, plus vocab cards and grammar recitation for 3 days, testing on the last.  It is enough for the entire school year at that pace.

We finished the year by dropping the dvds and setting a specific time allowance per day.  We made it through lesson 20, so a slower pace, but I wanted to be sure there was a firm foundation before moving on, especially on the conjugations.  By the last week or so he could complete over a page in 15 minutes, which was much different from October!

 

[HomeAgain]

4 minutes ago, pitterpatter said:

Thank you! This is pretty much what I was thinking...hoping even. How many minutes per day did you schedule?

 

We started out at 45 (dvd day) and 30.  By the end we cut it down to alternating 20 (with flash cards) and 15 (without).  Some lessons he only got through half a page at a time but the slower pace really helped him retain the information.

[Meadowlark]

Do you know you can buy just the First Form Latin lesson plans from MP?

[HomeAgain]

Oh, there's that, too. 🙂
But if you buy the teacher's guide it has a weekly lesson plan already laid out for you on page xv, at the end of the Teaching Guidelines.

[pitterpatter]

I saw that but have no idea whether I would be throwing my money out the window without some sort of sample or explanation. Of course, I suppose that might give the product away.

1 hour ago, Meadowlark said:

Do you know you can buy just the First Form Latin lesson plans from MP?

 

[pitterpatter]

Excellent! Thank you. I plan on buying the bundle. I wonder what extras might be useful. I'm considering the desk charts.

48 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Oh, there's that, too. 🙂
But if you buy the teacher's guide it has a weekly lesson plan already laid out for you on page xv, at the end of the Teaching Guidelines.

 

[HomeAgain]

We found the desk charts invaluable when ds struggled with keeping all the conjugations straight in translations.  I put them in page protectors and stuck them in his notebook: available, but he had to actually get them out when he got stuck so that he relied on his memory first. 

[pitterpatter]

Adding them to my cart. Thank you, once again. Sharing your knowledge has been very helpful in my decision-making. 👍

18 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

We found the desk charts invaluable when ds struggled with keeping all the conjugations straight in translations.  I put them in page protectors and stuck them in his notebook: available, but he had to actually get them out when he got stuck so that he relied on his memory first. 

 

[2_girls_mommy]

I made my own desk charts and laminated them.  I do think you need something to reference on the walls or in their hands.

I taught First Form in co-op fir years, so I taught it on every Friday. I went over the lesson and recitations from the teacher's book. We tried to.get at least the grammar page done in class, leaving 3-5 pages for the upcoming four days at home. We also created flashcards in class of the vocab words.

So on Mon-thurs I expected them to practice with their flashcards and finish at least one page of work.

When they came back to class I gave them the weekly quiz the first 10 min of class. Then recitations, the new grammar lesson and sayings along with a few examples on board, the oral drills from the textbook, and then a few minutes to work on the grammar workbook pages with me there to help.

It does help to work at least one example from all sections of work ok whenever possible. A lit if times the kids couldn't quite get what they were asking for. 

And I expected them to grade their own daily work before class. 

If I were just doing this at home, I'd rearrange that my Friday class was on Monday. 

[TheAttachedMama]

Here is a "copy and paste" of my son's assignment checklist for First Form Latin Lesson 15.   Just to give you an example of how I scheduled it.   My son also has dyslexia, so we schedule an hour per day to work on it.    He needs more practice and drill than most kids.     He is also in 6th grade.  He already completed Latina Christiana and 2 years of Song School Latin prior to this.   (That made things A LOT easier for him.) 

This is based on a schedule posted on the Memoria Press forum by a lady named Jessica.    I usually *LOVE* the lesson plans published by Memoria Press, but I found it lacking for First Form Latin.   My son needs very specific instructions on his assignment checklist...or things can start to slip.    I modified the plans posted online by adding a DVD Lesson and condensing everything into 4 days per week.   We also added in a "Daily Spelling Practice" for the vocabulary.  (Daily Spelling Practice is an activity that he does with Spelling Plus.  We just also do it with Latin.)   

I added in Lingua Angelica because I think it helps to have some more "beauty" worked into the subject.   This keeps things from becoming too tedious IMHO.  This way you can hear the language being sung and spoken and prayed instead of just learning vocabulary and grammar all year.     For recitation, we ignore the scheduled recitation in the teacher's guide and I have him quickly recite ALL grammar learned for the year plus the current lesson's vocab and saying.

Grammar Questions are in the back of the student book as are the vocabulary drills.    I actually made the grammar questions into flashcards for my son because reading through them wasn't working when it came to actually learning the questions/answers.   

Day 1: 

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Edited May 28, 2019 by TheAttachedMama

[pitterpatter]

Thank you for this. My DD has dyslexia too. She studied Spanish in her early years, but we had to drop it several years ago. This will be our first foray in Latin, which she wants to learn. (I want her too as well.) Hopefully, we'll make it through at least two years. Then, we might take a serious look at ASL.

30 minutes ago, TheAttachedMama said:

Here is a "copy and paste" of my son's assignment checklist for First Form Latin Lesson 15.   Just to give you an example of how I scheduled it.   My son also has dyslexia, so we schedule an hour per day to work on it.    He needs more practice and drill than most kids.     He is also in 6th grade.  He already completed Latina Christiana and 2 years of Song School Latin prior to this.   (That made things A LOT easier for him.)

 

[~Victoria~]

On 5/28/2019 at 10:02 AM, TheAttachedMama said:

Here is a "copy and paste" of my son's assignment checklist for First Form Latin Lesson 15.   

This is based on a schedule posted on the Memoria Press forum by a lady named Jessica.  

Day 1: 

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Is there a file somewhere with this for the year??  That would be incredible!