Latin for Children: Likes & Dislikes?

[Melissa in CA]

Can you give me your thoughts on this program? I would be starting it with an 11 yo with no Latin experience.

Thanks,

[Marie in Oh]

it is great. We are in Primer A and it is VERY rigorous. I am pleased that my 10 and 8 yos are able to keep up. It is a ton of vocab, lots of translation, conjugation and declining. We are doing the imperfect tense right now which is alot for a first year program. The videos help alot. We couldn't be happier after a dismal start with Prima Latina.

[Cadam]

This year I started this program with my 10 yo who had no Latin experience. It has been really good for us. I watch the dvd on my own to make sure my brain is wrapped around it and then we watch together. It's fun but we don't find it babyish at all. A teen girl leads a group of kids in chanting the vocabulary before the grammar lesson and I'm pretty sure ds thinks she is cute :D

I really like activity book and the extra free worksheet on their web page. The things on the web page are just extra drill and test pages made up by other teachers using the program. Ds needs more practice than average so I do wish we had more practice pages and we are taking more than a week per lesson. I think the average kid could do one lesson a week but ds struggles to memorize so we take longer.

I am going to get their new program for K-2 for my younger child and I am glad to see that 3 more upper levels are planned so I can keep ds in the same program for consistency.

I wanted to add that we originally got the older version dvd's and the chants were to fast. I prefer the new ones. the chants are a little slower and I like that the white board gives the lesson a more visual, although slightly more formal, approach. There is a ton of grammar and that is one of the reasons we slow down the pace but I figure that is some pretty basic tweaking . I tweak all of my curriculum so doing something faster or slower than intended is not a big deal to me.

[HollyDay]

I did not like this program. It moved very, very fast and the chants were really too fast. I noticed we werent learning a single word but a whole jumble of words together. In other words, my dc had trouble translating a single word - they had to go through the whole chant and try to piece together a word. The grammar was very ambitious for a younger elementary student. I have the older dvds which were okay. I wish the lessons were longer with more explainations. Also, the text had a tremendous number of errors. I'm told newer editions have resolved this problem however. We learned some vocabulary but very little grammar was retained. For the money, I felt like we did not learn what we should have.

[Sweetest]

Hi Marie,

I used Prima Latina this year and really disliked it (we stopped at lesson 20)...I thought it moved too slowly, with too much review, and I didn't feel like there was enough application. I was actually thinking of just stopping Latin for a couple of years and then picking up a more rigorous program when DD was older (she is almost 8 now). I am also considering Latin for Children but I am afraid of spending the money for a program that I think is a waste (which is how I feel about PL...we got nothing out of it!) Just curious what it was that you disliked about Prima Latina?

[CleoQc]

My son is doing LfC B after LC1. he LOVES it, especially the Activity Book and the Libellus de Historia. We do not own the DVD.

[Susan in SoCal]

Have you seen Paula's archives (http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/latincurricula.htm)? There are numerous posted reviews from WTM-ers on a whole host of different Latin programs. There are several listed just for LfC.

My review is in there. The long and the short of it is: we used LfC up thru level B lesson 21. We learned a lot. And we found programs we preferred and switched to those. LfC gave us a good foundation to move to these other programs.

[Kathy in MD]

I did not like this program. It moved very, very fast and the chants were really too fast. I noticed we werent learning a single word but a whole jumble of words together. In other words, my dc had trouble translating a single word - they had to go through the whole chant and try to piece together a word. The grammar was very ambitious for a younger elementary student. I have the older dvds which were okay. I wish the lessons were longer with more explainations. Also, the text had a tremendous number of errors. I'm told newer editions have resolved this problem however. We learned some vocabulary but very little grammar was retained. For the money, I felt like we did not learn what we should have.

give a "lesson" at the white board instead of just going over the primer. I think you'd like the new DVD's better. But the grammar is still just as ambitious. I'm using it with a 13yo and he can handle it easily. I don't think hecould have in the 3rd grade.

[Kathy in MD]

primer, activity book and extra work sheets from the web site. He's learning it and enjoying it. We started learning it together, but I was slowing him down :p . Considering he has language based LD's, that's great!

[Kimber]

Susan, I see you switched to Lively Latin from LfC. And I assume that you'll move your next student from Lively Latin to Latin Prep. What is about Lively Latin that was better than Latin for Children? Your reviews for both seemed pretty positive.

I just can't seem to make up mind what I want to do with Latin. I'm concerned about my dd(almost 10) not being challenged enough and my son being challenged too much. My preference would be to keep them together. But I have this nagging feeling that I might have to separate them. She did MP LC1 on line and received an A. He tagged along but is no where near where she is in conjugating although he does understand what's going on. She's much faster and retains the info much better, at least for now.

Btw, I want to move from LC1 to something different, more explanatory, and more engaging for my son. He needs a better foundation. I change my mind everyday on this subject.

[Susan in SoCal]

Gosh, I surely do understand your desire to keep your kiddos together using just one Latin program. But it certainly sounds as if splitting them would be more beneficial to each of them individually.

I originally used LfC because that is what my ds11 used back in 3rd grade when he was attending a classical school (they were a "pilot" school for LfC before it was published). He could have learned well using just about any Latin curricula, I think. He just *gets* Latin. We kept on the same path til I found something *I* liked better (Latin Book One, which I love and which remains *my* favorite text, because it incorporates so much translation work). I thought I might use LfC again when my younger son was ready.

If I were to use LfC with my middle son, I probably would have waited til his 4th grade year to begin, as LfC moves pretty quickly and I didn't think he'd be ready for it by the same age my first son was. But then Lively Latin came out. As soon as I saw it, I just knew it would be a much better fit for my ds8. It's slower, gentler, colorful, has fabulous explanations, beautifully incorporates English grammar instruction, and has lots of variety in the exercises. I knew I could begin it right away with ds8. And it has been a good fit for this year. I'm well pleased with it. We're not breaking any speed records getting thru it :o, but my son is enjoying it.

So anyway, back to your original question. I don't necessarily think Lively is "better" than LfC. I just think it's different. It's "younger", slower, really just a more appropriate fit for my middle boy. I will say this in regards to your situation: if your son isn't thriving with LCI, then LfC probably isn't going to be your "ticket." If anything, I think LfC is a little bit more aggressive than LC.

[Kimber]

That helped a lot! Now I have to consider what to do with her. I'm thinking Latin Prep 1, but I am unsure. Would you say that Latin Prep is as much fun as Lively Latin? Thanks again, :)

[Susan in SoCal]

YES! And she'd probably prefer LPrep. If she's already done much of LC, Lively would be too easy for her.

[Tutor]

Likes:
1. New CD and DVD are very useful. (My kids told me they like Dr. Perrin's teaching better than mine for Latin... I have some Latin experience; they also like seeing the other kids doing the chants on the DVD so they know they aren't the only kids in the world studying Latin.)
2. Self-contained curriculum with enough little extras (like the reader and the activity book) that it is not overwhelming but there are fun things to use when I need or want them.
3. Logical layout tied into English grammar.

Dislikes:
1. Quizzes are in the bound student workbook which makes it very tempting for students to look back at the lesson for the answers. The quizzes are also printed with the beginning of the next lesson on the back so they can't be torn out.
2. I would prefer the student books to be loose pages that I can put into a binder because my kids say they find it difficult to write in the books. (Good binding combined with the book's thickness makes it nearly impossible to keep the books flat for writing... this drives my lefty especially crazy.)

[Cadam]

1. Quizzes are in the bound student workbook which makes it very tempting for students to look back at the lesson for the answers. The quizzes are also printed with the beginning of the next lesson on the back so they can't be torn out.
2. I would prefer the student books to be loose pages that I can put into a binder because my kids say they find it difficult to write in the books. (Good binding combined with the book's thickness makes it nearly impossible to keep the books flat for writing... this drives my lefty especially crazy.)

You can solve this by having the binding cut off and the whole thing hole punched at an office store. I may do that now that I think of it. So far I have just been making photo copies of the quizzes and using the tests off the web site.

[Tutor]

You can solve this by having the binding cut off and the whole thing hole punched at an office store. I may do that now that I think of it. So far I have just been making photo copies of the quizzes and using the tests off the web site.

Do you know what this usually costs? Where do I get this done, any old copy store?

[Melissa in CA]

Do you know what this usually costs? Where do I get this done, any old copy store?

I took my volume of MOH to a Kinkos and had them cut the binding and three-hole punch it. They can also spiral bind if you prefer that. I don't remember exactly how much it cost, but around $12 comes to mind.

Thank you all for your insights in regards to LFC. I am still torn one what to use. Each child is so different in how they learn and I have found over the years that it's hit and miss each year, for each child. One does very well with a certain curricula, while another struggles with it. Thankfully, I'll only be schooling one child next year. :D Now if I could only figure out which Latin program would work best for him... I don't want anything TOO rigorous, but also don't want it ridiculously easy either. Do you think Lively Latin would be to easy for a beginning 6th grader? I'll have to go have a look at it again.

[MomOfOneFunOne]

My 8 year old daughter and I are fellow students. I purchased one complete set (text, activity book, cd/dvd package, readers . . . TM??) and an extra text and activity book for myself. We "have class together" with Dr. Perrin as our instructor (DVD), study together, and work together.

Likes: "The activities are very fun!" That's a quote from my daughter. I like that it is a rigorous program yet is interesting and engaging.

I like the DVD b/c it isn't just someone reading the chapter text to us. It's a lesson on the white board. My daughter likes the kids chanting and LOVES How the West was Unus (a corny, comical aside on the DVD).

I like the seasonal extras that we get via email.

I like the extra worksheets on the website.

I like that it corrolates with our English program (Shurley English).

Dislikes:
They have a hard time getting over classical pronunciation even on the ecclesiastical disc.

Hmmm, that's it.

We really like it here!:p