Song School Latin or Prima Latina?

[amandajh]

I want to use something that will be fun and not boring, but worth our time and money. Which curriculum is best (in your opinion) and why? I will be teaching a 2nd grade boy with the wiggles, and a 3rd grade girl who is a complete and total opposite of her brother :)

[MeganP]

I'm going with Song School Latin for my 2nd grade dd next year. I used Prima Latina with my oldest 2 when they were each in 3rd grade, and it was pretty boring. Your daughter might do all right with it, but I think it would be a struggle for your ds. You ca search the boards here for Song School Latin and find many recent conversations. From what I've read, it seems like a very fun introductory course. That's why I'm choosing it. I hope it's all it's cracked up to be.

[arcara]

I have no experience with SSL, but my 3rd grade dd has been using PL this year. It's not an exciting program, but she's enjoyed it. I think she likes languages, though, and feels 'grown up' to be learning latin. I will say that it is gentle and easy to use. We do it 3 days per week for about 10-15 min/day. She's easily learned all the vocab. It's also comforting to know that everything from this year will be repeated in LC1, so that helps me to be relaxed about it. I also like PL because it's part of a program that we can follow for several years.

Like the previous post said, your 3rd grader will probably be fine with PL, but your 2nd grade son may not.

[abbeyej]

Both programs teach a handful of vocabulary words each week. (Going from memory, I believe it's 4 per week with SSL and 5 per week with Prima, though there may be a few times when that varies in each program.) Prima covers a little basic grammar (parts of speech and memorizing endings, though those aren't really used till LC1), but SSL does not.

SSL has songs to teach the vocab. They're cute and well done. The activities are very basic -- match the pictures to the words, use the Latin words in a simple rebus-type story. But it's fairly engaging.

Prima includes a couple of traditional songs and prayers to learn over the course of the year. These are things a child may hear performed at Christmas, or in a Latin mass (if they have the chance to go), or that they can even use daily in their lives (Latin form of the table blessing, "Bless us, O Lord, and these Your gifts...")... It's rich, but not so much "fun".

It's really up to the *teacher* to make Prima "fun". It can definitely be done. But on the surface it's a drier program.

I really think either program could be used with your children. Some 3rd graders are really ready for something more than what either of these programs offer. Whether your daughter would be bored and frustrated by the slow pace of either program (and both are deliberately slow!) or find SSL babyish is really dependent on her. Whether you can make Prima engaging for your son (and there's no reason a wiggly boy couldn't practice his Latin vocab while hopping around, or run across the room to retrieve the right Latin flashcard when you call out the English or right the words in chalk on the driveway, etc), is up to you (and him to a lesser extent).

Your third grader could probably handle a more challenging program, but if you want to keep your kids together, I think you could make either of these work for you. They are both very much *introductions* to Latin... They're a way to establish that Latin is a regular part of your day, that it's doable (and not intimidating), and cover a few vocabulary words. (And in Prima, to get a head start on memorizing endings.) Both can be done in 10-15 minutes a day 3-4 days a week pretty easily.

The real question might be where you want to go *next* for Latin, and then work backwards to choose the intro program that's right for you.