4th grade Language Arts...and Latin ?

[LoveBaby]

I'm doing some early thinking/planning for next year. My DD wil be in 4th grade. She will have completed Primary Language Lessons, R&S Spelling and Reason for Handwriting C before going into 4th. I need to start a formal writing curriculum with her next year.

 

We are using Exploring Countries & Cultures for our base curriculum. MFW suggests using ILL, Writing Strands and Spelling Power for LA. However I've looked at Writing Tales and think I prefer it to Writing Strands. Do I need to use ILL *and* Writing Tales or does WT include enough grammar? Or could I use something like CLE LA 400 and Writing Tales? I guess their would be some overlap there too, which I don't mind unless it becomes over the top redundant. I'm also trying to streamline our day (I'm adding a K'er next year, along w/ a 2nd grader!) so I thought maybe CLE LA 400 would be more independent, which I don't think ILL is so much. Any suggestions?

 

Also, I'm looking into Latin as well. MFW suggests using English from the Roots Up beginning in their Creation to Greeks year, but I think I want something a bit more. I've been looking into Prima Latina. I don't want to add anything too difficult since we'll be ramping things up in other areas for her, so I thought this would be a good gentle intro to Latin. What do you think?

[Cornerstone Classical]

I can't answer your LA question, but coming from a MFW lover, I would forgo EFTRU and do Latina Christiana, it's for grades 3-8. Prima Latina is for K-3.

 

Go to this link... http://www.memoriapress.com/descriptions/prima.htm and read "Frequently Asked Questions", that information will help you decide which will be a better fit for your dc. IMO, I would say LC would be best.

 

HTH

:001_smile:

[Tree House Academy]

I love LA and we are using a combo or LLATL orange, Writing Tales II, and Growing with Grammar 4 (I do spelling by itself too). I pick and pull what I want from each, but I have found that they actually work quite well together. We are rarely doing the same thing (or intensive things) in each on the same day. GWG 4, I use as an extra practice type thing and it works so very well.

[katilac]

Yep, I'll just echo the other posts and say that Prima will be so gentle that it will be boring. I know you don't want to add too many difficult things, but Latina Christiana won't be hard at all for the average 4th grader.

 

My 3rd grader is currently doing Latina Christiana II (because I started her and 5th grade sis on PL 3 years ago), and she manages very well. There's a bit much writing for her, so I sometimes have mercy and let her do some exercises orally. She absolutely nails the vocab and recitation of grammar forms; translating is of course hardest for her - - she gets the gist of things fine, but has to be reminded to pay careful attention to the word endings.

 

4th, LC1; 5th, LC2; 6th, Henle at a slow pace or a middle school program like Ecce Romani or Latin Prep. We plan to do other programs and then a high school program at the usual pace in 8th or 9th.