Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Latin Curriculum for 9 year old?

Trillium,

That is definitely Latin for Americans. It's been in publication forever and a day and I've taught out of two editions. The current editions have a red first book, a green second book, and a blue third book. The edition right before this one is dark red, mustard yellow, blue.

My DD can handle LFA just fine. But it's dry, dense, vertical grammar with little care given to motivating struggling students. (Our DC wouldn't struggle - this is a critique on using it in public schools.) Vertical grammar is "old school." It's arbitrary to teach 1st declension before 2nd, etc. That isn't really how brains acquire a second language. It feels like work. I'm interested to hear your comments on LFA if you ebay for it... my brighter and cleverer students have all sorts of inside jokes based on the readings.

without wax,
zarfkitty

minniemarx,

That is a very important point about Cambridge and younger kids. Other points include a pretty authentic portrayal of 1st century wealthy Roman culture including slavery, paterfamilias, etc.

-zk

Oh, now that sounds like what we did in class. We were writing stories about sailors and bad girls almost immediately. If I get it on eBay, it'll be purely for nostalgia.

DD and I just checked out Minimus from the library and she's been having fun with it so far. I didn't realize how short it was, though--we'll definitely have to get something else soon.

PowerSpeak12 has great Latin courses for K-12. The students seem to like these courses because they're like video games.

We're going to try Word Roots for our DS6 starting in August, but I also have English From the Roots Up, and I like that approach too. Word Roots is labeled for 3rd/4th grade, but I think it looks pretty straightforward for a HG/PF younger child.