Rethinking Latin

[4atHome]

 finished GSWL about a year ago.  It ended up working really well.

We then tried to do LFC and added another child.  I quite like the chant videos and the story at the beginning of each chapter, but the workbook pages were too much even for my older child.  I was excited to get KGWL and decided to just have my older child in Latin at this time.  

Latin fell out of rotation.  My dd did continue to do translations from GSWL, on her own (for fun...??).

Anyway, I feel too much has been lost to start KGWL, that we need to redo GSWL. I just read a Memoria Catalog article and feeling I should be doing more.  I do want something not too intense right now.  I thought LFC had way too much writing. I'm wondering about Memoria's Latin program. How much work and writing is it?  I would like more than GSWL, but less than LFC.  Is Memoria only ecclesiastical?  I have been teaching classical pronunciation and wanted to stay with that. 

Any other suggestions?  My kids also take Spanish lessons, but Latin is important to me.  I had 2 yrs of Latin in high school and remember little, and would like my kids to have more.

Edited February 24, 2021 by 4atHome

[Noreen Claire]

I'm not sure if this will be helpful, but DS11 just picked Latin back up after taking the fall semester off (I was teaching three college classes in the afternoons, and something had to give.) We had used Little Latin Readers from 3rd through 5th. I bought the Memoria Press Henle First Year book set and the teacher's guide. So far, he has been able to do almost every exercise orally (we are in week 6), with a small amount of writing only to copy declension endings into his notebook. (The set comes with the vocab cards already made.) Also, I found a website that has a lot of free materials that go along with the book that are helpful.

(We are using ecclesiastical pronunciation - we're Catholic.)

[wendyroo]

Perhaps Duolingo Latin?

[ealp2009]

We have been doing Compass Classroom Visual Latin with a 9 and 11 y.o. And it is fairly gentle and my kids haven’t had any issues with it. I watch the videos with them and then we go over the worksheet together.   The videos are only about 5-10 mins and then we spend another 10-15 minutes on the worksheet.  Itseems about right for them and you can try the first 4 Lessons for free.  

[8filltheheart]

First, dont feel guilty. There are plenty of homeschooling issues where some guilty conscience might be justified, but not doing Latin at 11 isnt one of them.

If it makes you feel better, I think that the push for studying Latin at young ages is misguided. Younger kids progress through Latin slowly. It can backfire by making them lose interest and making them dislike Latin. You can wait until they are older and they can master faster.  If you wait until 7th grade or so, you can have a child master  all of Latin grammar in 2 to 3 yrs and ready to take either Latin prose or poetry in yr 3. There is no long term benefit of dragging it out over several yrs.

Edited February 9, 2021 by 8filltheheart

[4atHome]

@8filltheheart

Definitely a good point.  Maybe just to keep memorizing vocab and the easy GSWL translations is enough for now.

Deleted

Edited February 24, 2021 by 4atHome

[8filltheheart]

7th grade isnt necessary, either. I just wouldn't  waste any time before that (not even on memorizing vocab.) If you can't until 9th, that is fine, too. 

[egao_gakari]

6 hours ago, 4atHome said:

My 11 yr old will be grade 7 next year though😥  She is young for the grade, with a late summer bday 1 month before the cutoff.  I want to hold her back every year... yes, I know we are homeschooling so grade level doesn't really matter, BUT we are enrolled in a public homeschool program and she has to have a grade level and must complete work for the grade level.  I have struggled with this for years.  I feel like we need to make a big transition for middle school, but though she is very bright and does well academically, she just seems like such a little girl still.

Oof, that's difficult to have to call her a certain grade level. If she likes Latin enough that she's translating stuff from GSWL for fun, maybe you can just restart about halfway through GSWL (like where he introduces verbs maybe?) and then work thru to KGWL. And if you must report it to your program, just report KGWL as your primary curriculum.

After years of comparing my kids with  "benchmarks" and "standards" from different sources (like TWTM, Core Knowledge, different online programs, etc.) I recently gave up on that because it was making me crazy.* If they enjoy something or want to study it (a rare occurrence in this house), I make it happen and I try not to ruin their interest by making it too demanding 😉

(*We do test them yearly with the Stanford 10, and they test in normal ranges in every subject.)

[Miss Tick]

On 2/6/2021 at 5:23 PM, 4atHome said:

Anyway, I feel too much has been lost to start KGWL, that we need to redo GSWL.

Another thing that we did with this book, which might add a hint of novelty to material she has seen, was to use some of the English solutions to have people practice translating *into* latin. This was really good for solidifying the vocabulary and the verb conjugation process.