HELP Teaching latin

[ohiomommy1122]

I want to start teaching DS almost 9 latin, any good book suggestions<?

[Queen Gwen]

Are you looking for curriculum suggestions?

Some popular choices for that age are:

Minimus

Latin for Children

Latina Christiana

There's other popular ones, too, that I can't recall at the moment. I've used all 3 of these, though, so they spring to mind first.

Latina Christiana is very straightforward, very bare bones. Memorize a prayer, memorize a maxim, memorize this list of words. The teacher needs to bring the fun into it, I guess. This was beyond my capacity, as I am not a fun person but rather a person who wants to simply pick up the book and do what it says to do. So, for us, LC was incredibly dull, although we certainly learned a lot. LC does a fantastic job of preparing for Henle Latin in the upper grades.

Minimus is very fun, and it's possible to do the entire book and not retain any of the language. Well, that's true of any program, but Minimus doesn't lay out a bunch of repetitive exercises to aid memorization for you -- you as the teacher will have to make sure that happens. Also, there's not a lot of review. It's a great program to build interest in the language, and see that it can be something cool to study, though.

Some people combine the above 2 programs -- LC for the solid memorization of declensions, conjugations and vocab, Minimus for the life it brings to the language and the study.

Latin for Children is what we are using now, having tried the above. It's the most mindless, seat-of-the-pants for me. We got the regular book, the activity book (has games in it) and the DVD (we got a deal from someone who was ditching the program).

I know there are other people here who have used other programs, too. Also, there are others who have had different experiences with the programs I've mentioned above. Let's hope they chime in.

[LilyGrace]

We use Latin's Not So Tough! and have started our second year with it. Note: our goal is not fluency, but working knowledge to support the English and romance languages.
I like it. It's very, very simple - level 1 is just the alphabet and special phonemes. Level 2 starts vocabulary and simple sentences, building on from there for the next 6(?) levels. It's set up just like schoolish learning to read stuff is: sound this out, write this, match these sounds/words, color the right mitten..workbook type stuff. But because it's 3 years behind where my ds is with written English, he likes the silly activities.
Every component comes separately so you can decide what you need. There's a workbook, test book, flashcards on a ring, and cd(covers 3 levels at a time). We don't test, and though the workbook has the flashcards in the back to cut out, we prefer the ones on a ring. Though if you do order it I suggest not getting the ring flashcards for every level, but every other one. There's plenty of review in the first part of the books and the flashcards reflect that, so book 2 has book 1's letters and phonemes with it, book 3 has level 2's vocabulary at the beginning...

We almost used Powerglide for Latin because it would have achieved the same goal, but this was cheap and I figured why not try at least the first level? We did, and we liked it well enough to continue.

[JessicaS]

I have heard a lot of good things about Latin Primer.

I have also heard a lot of great things about Latina Christina.

I haven't really decided which one we will be using.

[dotnetdiva]

At that age, I have Minimus planned.

This year (for those with younger ones in case you're interested), Song School Latin. I just ordered it last night.

[mommajb]

We started with Minimus.

[NoHiddenFees]

Nine is a great age to start with Lively Latin. Book Big 1 is a very gentle introduction, integrating Roman history, art study, grammar, and derivatives study.

[spruce]

Fun stuff for Latin: We have "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in Latin, as well as "The Cat in the Hat" in Latin. Both available at our small, locally-owned bookstore, so they should be easy to find.

We use Muzzy for German, but Rosetta Stone for Latin. I also like Wheelock's Latin, although that may be too workbook-ish for some families.

love, penelope

[MyBaby'sSmile]

We started with Song School Latin and loved it. My ds retained a considerable amount, though it was straight vocabulary work. This year we are beginning Lively Latin. I've researched a lot and decided this sounded like a good fit for us.

[ms.shell]

You can get free sample lessons for several latin programs. I have found: Latin's Not So Tough; Latin Alive; and Latin for Children; also, Song School Latin. I plan to start this when we get into the ROmans on Ancient History and have downloaded all these samples to see what program we like best.

[ohiomommy1122]

bumping to see anymore ideas

[MyLittleWonders]

We are currently using Song School Latin, which is great for the younger set (my 8 year old does have fun learning the songs and singing too, but he loves singing in general). Ds#1 will be starting Latin for Children A in the spring or summer as a formal program. For us, I had narrowed it down to Latin for Children or Lively Latin, and like the DVD aspect (all of us, even my younger ones, can watch the DVD, whereas only my oldest will be responsible for learning/applying the information).