Minimus vs Prima Latina

[mo2]

For a 6yo? Can anyone help me? Pros/cons?

[AudreyTN]

I would like to know too. I love the looks of Minimus, but I've heard it's hard to teach if you have no latin background.

[ballzy]

My ds did PL when he was 7.5 years old. He liked it a lot and finished the book before the end of the school year, so we started on LC 1. He got bogged down in LC 1 by around chapter 12. We stopped Latin for a while, and now we got started again with Minimus.

Ds enjoys Minimus a lot, but I think he learned more Latin with PL. PL goes through it more systematically, while Minimus teaches Latin kind of "as it comes up" (IMO).

With my 6yos, I just let him follow along with us with Minimus. He likes the stories, but wanders off to play when 9yos is doing the grammar activities.

HtH

Colleen

[Cindyg]

I think 6YO is too young for Minimus, frankly. The grammar in Minimus is much more complex (and there's little-to-no help for the teacher).

I used the PL DVDs, and it was very short, sweet, and simple. The grammar is simpler than Minimus' simply because there is no grammar to speak of! It's just a quick, simple peek into the world of Latin.

My advice is to do PL first, and come back to Minimus when your DS is 7. Plus, if you do Minimus first, it will make PL seem terribly boring. The cartoons and stories in Minimus are fun.

BTW, there's another thread about Minimus on the board right now. I just wrote a longer post about it.

[ArwenA]

I haven't used PL but I didn't like Minimus when I tried it with 7yo.
I have no Latin background and found it was just too quick and jumped around. I use Latin for Children (which people say is quick and jumps around, LOL)

[Mama Lynx]

Minimus is really good for a fun introduction to the language and to Roman culture. It is not, IMO, good for *learning the language.*

It's fun, and it's nice to use as a first stepping stone (though I would agree that 6 is too young).

6 is perfect for Prima, though.

[HappyGrace]

PL is the perfect intro for 6. We then tried Minimus at 7 and while it's fun and did engage her, it wasn't a step by step intro to the language which her logical mind and my non-Latin mind needed! It quickly lost us and left us wondering why they were using certain endings some places and not others, etc., with little explanation. We're now in Lively Latin, which is AMAZING-we love it, and we will add in Minimus for fun sometimes. With upcoming ds almost 5, knowing what I now know, I will do Prima at probably 6.5, Lively a year or so later.

[Closeacademy]

I ordered the PL Teacher's guide and showed my dd some samples. She said "no, it looks boring."

So since I had the TM for Minimus, I ordered the minimus book and CD. I showed her these materials and she loves it. We are working slowly through Minimus and three weeks in she is using the vocabulary correctly as she plays.

We love Minimus here but then again my dd is in 2nd grade. PL seemed to have a lot of busywork writing whereas with Minimus we listen to stories, play latin "go fish", try to figure out the meaning of the words (they are so close to English or Spanish) and have fun getting started in Latin.

[Jenny in Atl]

I also used Minimus with both my dd's. It made Latin fun and was a great intro. Not sure we learned tons but it made the transition to Lively Latin and Latin Prep very easy.

[Emmy]

Those that are doing Prima Latina at 6 or 7, do you then move on to Latina Christiana the year after? For some reason I didn't think I needed to start latin until my son was 3rd grade....and now I'm wondering if we should be starting now?