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Low stress Latin: Latina Christiana vs. Getting Started With Latin


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We did Prima Latina in 2nd grade so I naturally bought Latina Christiana to use for 3rd and 4th. I'm having my doubts about it. I don't know Latin, and the instructor talks super fast in the videos. She doesn't even give you a chance to inhale, let alone answer the question. I like the simple layout, but I'm afraid we won't have much energy to give to it once we're done with our core subjects. (I don't plan on making Latin as important as math, and we're not trying to run a fully classical homeschool.) I also work part-time outside the home, so we would only cover Latin 3 days a week, 4 if the lessons are shorter. I'm considering GSWL in order to have an easier pace. Would it fit the bill? Or perhaps LC isn't that bad and we should give it a chance?

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Memoria Press is a love or hate curriculum.  We did find it to be a lot of writing, no matter what, and the videos were not engaging: super fast, hard to pace with pauses..

GSWL is easier for a teacher who has had minimal Latin experience.  It's friendly and well paced for an introduction.  There is no writing, so if you want that option you should add it in yourself with a notebook.  When we did it we practiced translation both ways, with writing it out very occasionally and doing verb charts as a conjugation came up in a lesson.

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44 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Memoria Press is a love or hate curriculum.  We did find it to be a lot of writing, no matter what, and the videos were not engaging: super fast, hard to pace with pauses..

GSWL is easier for a teacher who has had minimal Latin experience.  It's friendly and well paced for an introduction.  There is no writing, so if you want that option you should add it in yourself with a notebook.  When we did it we practiced translation both ways, with writing it out very occasionally and doing verb charts as a conjugation came up in a lesson.

Thank you. I really appreciate this comparison. GSWL might be what I'm looking for. We were all-MP at one point, but it was just too much, so we've pretty much switched out everything at this point. No matter how I try to adjust it, LC seems like it would be a lot. I just ordered GSWL to take a closer look. I'm not looking for a serious Latin curriculum for elementary; that can come later if we choose. Thanks again.

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17 hours ago, Dianthus said:

I hate MP. I like GSWL.

Lol, I can sympathize. I appreciate that MP showed me what an excellent education looks like, but their materials eventually got to be too tedious for us, too much writing, and much too teacher intensive for a mom who works part time. We've been at more peace since we gradually bowed out. CLE has been a better fit.

We received GSWL and I love it. It's just enough. My daughter is so excited she wants to start it right away (even though she's currently sick), and this was not the case with the MP Latin which I've been flipping through for months trying to decide how we would possibly fit it in. I think I'm sold. Thanks!

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7 hours ago, Likaly said:

I love Latin in MP, and it will be a second year for my daughter, but I rake classes there, the teachers are all good.

I've heard good things about MPOA classes. Since she's so young (8) we'd rather hold off on online classes for now, but I'd consider it in the future. I also don't want to make Latin a full, daily subject yet; I'm mostly just looking for exposure. It looks like GSWL would be a good fit, and I can look into classes when she's older or when we want to get more serious with it. Thanks a lot.

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On 8/11/2024 at 9:11 AM, ScoutTN said:

I haven’t used LC, but GSWL is great.

 

On 8/11/2024 at 11:04 AM, Porridge said:

Like Scout, I haven’t used LC, but we loved GSWL. It is easy to implement and you need no prior knowledge of Latin. 

Thanks a lot. I ended up getting it and I'm sold. It's exactly the gentle introduction I was looking for, and seems very easy to understand, I can feel the weight lifted off already. I'm sure we will enjoy it.

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5 hours ago, Shraddha said:

 

Thanks a lot. I ended up getting it and I'm sold. It's exactly the gentle introduction I was looking for, and seems very easy to understand, I can feel the weight lifted off already. I'm sure we will enjoy it.

One thing that we added to GSWL was that after the first 10 (?) lessons, we would occasionally flip back a few lessons and work them in reverse. I would give the English sentence and they would translate it to Latin. It is much harder, but a good skill to learn!

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3 minutes ago, Miss Tick said:

One thing that we added to GSWL was that after the first 10 (?) lessons, we would occasionally flip back a few lessons and work them in reverse. I would give the English sentence and they would translate it to Latin. It is much harder, but a good skill to learn!

Thank you. We will take your advice and do this. I'm planning to do GSWL over 2 years (3rd and 4th grade). My plan is to cover 2 lessons a week over 4 sessions. New lesson, review it, new lesson, review it. Working in reverse would be a good thing to do during the review day.

I'm glad to have the option to slow it down, rather than the "how will we get all this done" feeling I had after looking at the MP materials (even when broken over 2 years.)

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37 minutes ago, Shraddha said:

I'm planning to do GSWL over 2 years

I heartily endorse this approach. No need to rush, get solid on some basics, keep it from being a chore. It is really a pretty short book, and the first free lessons are particularly brief. I haven't looked at GSWL2, but if it continues as book 1 is you could say least keep going to the end of the year, even if you never finish book 2. Also, although I have reservations about the science on her website, Ellen McHenry has some Latin resources that might as some fun variety.

One of the best things we got out of GSWL was a familiarity with the concept of "cases" in languages. English does not do much with cases, but when our language study moved to German I was *so* happy that this was a non-issue for my dc.

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