Latin Dilemma

[Festerlykyla]

I'm really divided on whether or not to teach Latin. It's all over my head and hard for me to teach my children. I feel more comfortable teaching them the English grammar from R&S and doing Spanish in conjunction. However, I have been loving EGR so far. So, I don't want to abandon EGR because I switched completely to R&S! I also don't want to give my children less because of something that is too tough for me.

I have my sixth baby due in March and I'm working through LC1 with my sixth and fifth grader. As well as working through PL with my third grader. I am spending more time trying to figure out how to teach it than I am actually teaching it and so I'm fearing I'm losing time.

I'm at an impasse: Either stick with LC, PL & EGR or ditch latin & EGR, switch to R&S English and use a Spanish program.

Maybe I'm too close to the situation. Any thoughts??

[KF2000]

Re: Latin Dilemma

I'm really divided on whether or not to teach Latin. It's all over my head and hard for me to teach my children. I feel more comfortable teaching them the English grammar from R&S and doing Spanish in conjunction. However, I have been loving EGR so far. So, I don't want to abandon EGR because I switched completely to R&S! I also don't want to give my children less because of something that is too tough for me.

I have my sixth baby due in March and I'm working through LC1 with my sixth and fifth grader. As well as working through PL with my third grader. I am spending more time trying to figure out how to teach it than I am actually teaching it and so I'm fearing I'm losing time.

I'm at an impasse: Either stick with LC, PL & EGR or ditch latin & EGR, switch to R&S English and use a Spanish program.

Maybe I'm too close to the situation. Any thoughts??

I just want to echo that when I was going through Latina the first time with my kids I totally over-thought it. I made it much more complicated than it needed to be, and had expectations for it that were too high. In my mind, we were studying "a foreign language" so I immediately jumped into my own personal frame of reference - which was high school foreign language classes. I was expecting us to begin picking it up at that rate, with that much understanding as we went along. It took me that first experience of taking my oldest two through First Form Latin to realize how to better teach it to my younger children.

A key thing to keep in mind is that Latina Christiana is still an introductory text. It is going to give some key concepts to help you get familiar with Latin, and to learn how to memorize for your Latin study. That is all you really need to expect from it. Make sure to memorize everything from each lesson, and be able to recite it like you recite your a, b, c's. And make sure you have enough understanding to be able to complete the workbook exercises. If you meet those expectations, you have done a great job with it. There is not that much "teaching" that you need to do yet. More understanding will come as you begin the Forms series, and for that, since it is your first time through, definitely get the DVD's.

You will be amazed at what a couple years down the road will do if you stick with it. I felt the same exact way you do right now when my oldest was in fifth grade and we were starting. I made it through First Form, and then could not keep up with them. But I am teaching FFL for the third time now - without the DVD's - which is an awesome feeling! And even though I am still shaking in my shoes over helping my daughter do Third Form, I realize I am picking up a lot in the process. From all of this, I know that teaching my fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and ninth children Latin will be SO MUCH FUN!

Studying Latin is like a lot of the best things in life - it will not reveal its goodness easily. You have to be patient and wait for it to come. This is why learning the grammar is such a great thing for middle school kids to do. They can plug away at the hard work of learning grammar forms so that by the time they have reached a maturity level to handle the logical study of translating well, they have the grammar "out of the way," so to speak. As the previous poster commented, just trust the process. Do the steps as LC lays them out for you, and then just keep going. The same will be true for the Forms series. You do your best to learn the content within each lesson, and then you review, review, review as you go along so that eventually the orderliness of Latin starts to sink in and make sense to you.

It is a little like a water leak. We just found one after we moved in a couple weeks back. We had an area of the yard that was just soggy all the time. So my husband dug it up and sure enough there was a pipe that just kept dripping in three places. (previous homeowner was trying a do-it-yourself project and had tapped the line). It was amazing to me to see how quickly that large hole filled up completely with water just from those three steady drips.

That is how you need to mentally approach Latin. Every day, do your recitations, your vocabulary review, and your exercises. When you get to First Form, you will want to add the Grammar Questions into your routine of practice. You just have to let all that dripping-in do its work.

AMDG,
Sarah

[Mom2mthj]

Re: Latin Dilemma

I'm really divided on whether or not to teach Latin. It's all over my head and hard for me to teach my children. I feel more comfortable teaching them the English grammar from R&S and doing Spanish in conjunction. However, I have been loving EGR so far. So, I don't want to abandon EGR because I switched completely to R&S! I also don't want to give my children less because of something that is too tough for me.

I have my sixth baby due in March and I'm working through LC1 with my sixth and fifth grader. As well as working through PL with my third grader. I am spending more time trying to figure out how to teach it than I am actually teaching it and so I'm fearing I'm losing time.

I'm at an impasse: Either stick with LC, PL & EGR or ditch latin & EGR, switch to R&S English and use a Spanish program.

Maybe I'm too close to the situation. Any thoughts??

I would stick with Latin for sure! Sarah gave a wonderful answer and I just want to agree to take LC at face value. Memorize it, but don't worry too much about the application. I would point out that the LC games book can be quite hard...much harder than the actual text. I might suggest working through it together or saving it for some extra summer practice down the road if it is too much.

[Festerlykyla]

Re: Latin Dilemma

Thank you all for responding! I’m very encouraged and will stay the course. I ordered another student book so I can bring my third grader up to LC with the rest of us. That will be helpful when the baby comes in March!