Overwhelmed with FFL

[carmelitemom]

Maybe it's just me, but I feel really overwhelmed with the transition from Latina Christiana I to FFL...from two books to five books and we even have the DVD too. I have sat down with these books several times already to read through and get a sense of what a week's worth of work will look like and it seems so much to me for my 4th grader. I am wondering if I should of done Latina Christiana II first before FFL. I have read that it is a smoother transition to go from LCI to FFL but I am not experiencing that.

Just wanted to see if anyone else was feeling it a bit...maybe it's just because it's the beginning of the school year...but I only have one to worry about!

[ms. pacman]

It does look like a lot! I'll be starting FFL today with my 4th grader. I tend to have to break lessons into smaller chunks anyway, so we might be moving pretty slowly through the exercises!

[KF2000]

Theresa,
You mentioned you have sat down with the books, but have you actually started working through it yet? I just wondered if this was a "I've tried a few weeks and we're stuck" kind of dilemma, or "i am feeling very intimidated" kind of dilemma.

I hope I can offer some words in either case....

If you have not yet begun, here's my word of advice: take a deep breath. Don't worry about the stack of books...it does feel like a lot to keep straight at the beginning, and it took us a couple of weeks to get into the format. Most days of actual work, you only need the student book (or teacher book...whichever is clearer to you), the workbook, and the answer key for the workbook. So just pull those off the shelf. Then, if you have the lesson plans, just do what is listed, and then set it all aside. For us I was intimidated at the beginning too, but as with a lot of MP, it calmed down once I understood the routine of the week.

Secondly, if you have already begun, and are feeling pinched, I would say to take some time at the beginning of the year here to slow down until it does start to feel doable. Maybe take two weeks to do each week of work, so that you remove some of the pressure on you. Spend a day doing work, then a day reviewing just vocabulary, or practicing conjugating on a white board, etc.

I hope some of these suggestions may help...we really enjoyed first form, but i will say it was a bigger adjustment for my fourth grader than it was for my sixth last year...but that being said, once we got the hang of it, we did well, and now my current fifth grader has started Henle, and he loves it!! So hang in
there!

AMDG,
Sarah

[carmelitemom]

Thank you both!

I have worked through it just for a week and I have considered breaking it down even more since there is no rush. I guess I will need to maybe *write it out*, so to speak, and get a sense what I really want to focus on each day of the lesson when I spread it out over two weeks.

I wish everyone a peace-filled school year.

[Vicki Ardern Whitley]

We completed FFL last year. It does seem overwhelming at the beginning of the year. But I often feel overwhelmed when I start something new. I usually try to read everything through to get an overview of what I'm about to undertake. I find that the best way to get over that hump is to just start plugging away one small step at a time until I find a rhythm.

I do the same thing when I begin a new knitting project. I read the pattern through, feel totally overwhelmed, then take it step by step and the pattern makes sense as I begin to work it. Soon, I feel comfortable and find a rhythm.

How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.

[carmelitemom]

This is an afterthought...but if it's not too time consuming...is there someone who would like to share how they break it down over two weeks?

Thank you in advance.

[momee]

The lesson plans seem to take one week and extend it over two. Is that what you mean?
There may be a sample on the MP site, or I would be glad to send you the first two weeks if not.

If that is, in fact, what you were meaning you wanted an example of.

[tanya]

Hello.

When I was teaching, I taught the lesson the first day (that would be where you put the dvd in if you have it). Then, we did the first worksheet together and spent some time looking at the vocabulary and beginning to learn it. That usually took around an hour. The second day, we reviewed the vocabulary and new grammar form and completed the next 2 workbook pages. The third day, we finished up the workbook and reviewed again. The fourth day was the quiz (which I reviewed orally before giving it). Days 2-4 should take less than 1 hour to complete. Then, on Day 5, we were free to review, play games, or skip Latin!

The great thing about this course is that every week is the same. It is very structured, so when you find your routine, it will become thoughtless.

I hope this helps!

Tanya

[carmelitemom]

I do have them...thanks so much. I think I am seeing it a bit clearer now.

[carmelitemom]

Thanks Tanya...

...that helped very much. I really think it's the first week of school panic setting in LOL! (as much as I love it)

[Annelise]

I too was completely overwhelmed when looking through FFL. It came with the 4th grade package, and I felt like we should put it aside for a year or so and maybe do Latina Christiana instead, since my 4th grader hasn't had any Latin previously.

At the last minute, we pulled our rising 8th grader out of her coop school. It wasn't a good fit for her for several reasons, and she was very burned out from a Latin program that moved too fast for her. I looked through First Form Latin again and realized that if I made the 8th grader do all the assignments and supplemented a bit, while requiring less from the 4th grader, I could teach them both together using FF.

When we started, I still didn't quite understand what we would need to do each day (like someone else said, the sheer number of all the materials is a little intimidating), but we just dove in and figured out how to make it work on the fly. It only took a few days and it began to feel pretty easy. A month in, I'm loving it. The 8th grader is finally starting to understand the structure of what seemed so impossible last year, and she feels like (and is) a success. The 4th grader has got almost everything memorized, and while she might not be able to spell it all correctly, I'm surprised how much she understands and can do. I'm glad I didn't try to split them up with two different programs, because I doubt I could have kept up with doing two different ones for a whole year.

Latin was always the one thing I was sure I couldn't teach well, and due to my older daughter's experience at the coop school, I didn't think I could even help with it effectively. I'm glad to be wrong. I can't believe how well this is going, and it's given me confidence that maybe we could add French next year!