Favorite Resources for Learning Latin in an Unschooly Way - Copy Work
How in the world can you unschool Latin?
I remember reading the book Carry On, Mr. Bowditch and coming to the part where poor Nathaniel was stuck working a shop due to poverty instead of pursuing his education which he could not afford. But instead of feeling sorry for himself, he decided to teach himself Latin! The details are hazy to me now but I think someone gave him a Latin Bible and he somehow got hold of a dictionary and slowly, slowly he taught himself the language. That's unschooling!
But Latin does take an awful lot of discipline to learn. One has to be dedicated to really going into depth with it. I've taught Latin at a co-op for several years and believe me, there are kids who take to it like a duck to water. They love the logic, the history, the mystery behind it. It's like a puzzle to them. They love the intellectual challenge! But, of course, there are many kids who find it dull as dishwater.
My approach was to simply accomplish a first step in learning the language and then let my kids take off if they wanted. None so far have, to be frank, but I myself, certainly enjoy learning the language. I am very glad it was part of our homeschooling landscape. I'm glad the kids have at least some Latin under their belts. It does have a broadening effect. I am convinced that it increases the depth of one's literacy. Even though I did not study it as a high school or college student, but attempted to learn it alongside my own kids, I am fascinated with it and also love the effort and discipline it forces me to impose on myself. Right now I am leading an introductory Latin study group at my parish and am also working through Caesar's Comentarii de Bello Gallico with my old Latin teacher.
If you attend a Latin mass, I envy you. There isn't one at our parish and my family is too attached to our parish to move away from it just to attend a Latin mass. But if you are in the situation to attend, then your child will be exposed to Latin and see it's significance naturally. So you've already got a head start there in terms of unschooling Latin.
I had several ways of presenting Latin to my children gently. I will focus in this post on copy work.
Since we did copy work around the breakfast table a few times a week, all together, me included, we would pepper that copy work with Latin phrases or paradigms. Or rather I would encourage the kids to use simple Latin as copy work. So things like the sign of the cross in Latin, the Agnus Dei, Latin sayings like 'labor omnia vincit,' 'sic semper tyrannis' were quick ways to get instant exposure. You can also have them copy over the conjugation or declension paradigms, so that they have at least written out once: amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.
If you are very relaxed or unschoolish, there still may be a few things you do habitually as a family. We had a routine of family read alouds but we also came to do copy work together. We did this when my oldest son was diagnosed with dysgraphia. He was the main reason we started homeschooling to begin with. He was diagnosed with ADHD/dyslexia when he was five years old. He avoided writing and when he was about the 7th grade level, with the idea of high school looming before us, we realized that his writing skills were so poor we needed to do something. He was diagnosed and had to go to occupational therapy for almost an entire academic year. During this year the therapist had him doing all kinds of physical exercises that crossed the midline, etc but also she used Handwriting without Tears. The difference this year of OT made in his life was almost miraculous. Everything got easier for him, including his ability to concentrate, to write, to read. He became much more self-confident. In fact, he skipped 8th grade and went right into 9th, he made that much of an advancement in just about every way.
After this experience my husband decreed that everyone had to practice handwriting. This is why I am such an advocate of handwriting, not only as a basic life skill but also as something therapeutic and vital to intellectual development.
For copy work you simply need a notebook, a writing implement and something to copy. If you want to include Latin as something to copy, here are some suggestions for things you can find for free on line.
Common Latin expressions we still use today. Here's a link to a list of them.
Latin prayers.
A really fun resource is Bestaria Latin Blog which features tiny mottoes, proverbs, funny posters, and fables. It is a fun wealth of information.
If Latin seems too intimidating to tackle in this free form way, and you need something already organized for you, Memoria Press has copybooks just for you!
Catholic Heritage Curriculum also has a level 4 handwriting book that employs Latin.
For the above pre-planned handwriting type books, your child can decide to just make that their copy work for now or they can copy in it once or twice a week and then copy over other things in their own notebook on other days. Whatever works best for that particular child.
For high schoolers, you can use the Vulgate Bible. Copy over the Latin and then look up the English translation. We copied over chunks of Mark's gospel this way. Here's a link to the Vulgate on line.
In my next post, I'll talk about gentle ways to study Latin.
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| Great read aloud for kids. Bowditch taught himself Latin! |
I remember reading the book Carry On, Mr. Bowditch and coming to the part where poor Nathaniel was stuck working a shop due to poverty instead of pursuing his education which he could not afford. But instead of feeling sorry for himself, he decided to teach himself Latin! The details are hazy to me now but I think someone gave him a Latin Bible and he somehow got hold of a dictionary and slowly, slowly he taught himself the language. That's unschooling!
But Latin does take an awful lot of discipline to learn. One has to be dedicated to really going into depth with it. I've taught Latin at a co-op for several years and believe me, there are kids who take to it like a duck to water. They love the logic, the history, the mystery behind it. It's like a puzzle to them. They love the intellectual challenge! But, of course, there are many kids who find it dull as dishwater.
My approach was to simply accomplish a first step in learning the language and then let my kids take off if they wanted. None so far have, to be frank, but I myself, certainly enjoy learning the language. I am very glad it was part of our homeschooling landscape. I'm glad the kids have at least some Latin under their belts. It does have a broadening effect. I am convinced that it increases the depth of one's literacy. Even though I did not study it as a high school or college student, but attempted to learn it alongside my own kids, I am fascinated with it and also love the effort and discipline it forces me to impose on myself. Right now I am leading an introductory Latin study group at my parish and am also working through Caesar's Comentarii de Bello Gallico with my old Latin teacher.
If you attend a Latin mass, I envy you. There isn't one at our parish and my family is too attached to our parish to move away from it just to attend a Latin mass. But if you are in the situation to attend, then your child will be exposed to Latin and see it's significance naturally. So you've already got a head start there in terms of unschooling Latin.
I had several ways of presenting Latin to my children gently. I will focus in this post on copy work.
Since we did copy work around the breakfast table a few times a week, all together, me included, we would pepper that copy work with Latin phrases or paradigms. Or rather I would encourage the kids to use simple Latin as copy work. So things like the sign of the cross in Latin, the Agnus Dei, Latin sayings like 'labor omnia vincit,' 'sic semper tyrannis' were quick ways to get instant exposure. You can also have them copy over the conjugation or declension paradigms, so that they have at least written out once: amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.
If you are very relaxed or unschoolish, there still may be a few things you do habitually as a family. We had a routine of family read alouds but we also came to do copy work together. We did this when my oldest son was diagnosed with dysgraphia. He was the main reason we started homeschooling to begin with. He was diagnosed with ADHD/dyslexia when he was five years old. He avoided writing and when he was about the 7th grade level, with the idea of high school looming before us, we realized that his writing skills were so poor we needed to do something. He was diagnosed and had to go to occupational therapy for almost an entire academic year. During this year the therapist had him doing all kinds of physical exercises that crossed the midline, etc but also she used Handwriting without Tears. The difference this year of OT made in his life was almost miraculous. Everything got easier for him, including his ability to concentrate, to write, to read. He became much more self-confident. In fact, he skipped 8th grade and went right into 9th, he made that much of an advancement in just about every way.
After this experience my husband decreed that everyone had to practice handwriting. This is why I am such an advocate of handwriting, not only as a basic life skill but also as something therapeutic and vital to intellectual development.
For copy work you simply need a notebook, a writing implement and something to copy. If you want to include Latin as something to copy, here are some suggestions for things you can find for free on line.
Common Latin expressions we still use today. Here's a link to a list of them.
Latin prayers.
A really fun resource is Bestaria Latin Blog which features tiny mottoes, proverbs, funny posters, and fables. It is a fun wealth of information.
If Latin seems too intimidating to tackle in this free form way, and you need something already organized for you, Memoria Press has copybooks just for you!
Catholic Heritage Curriculum also has a level 4 handwriting book that employs Latin.
For the above pre-planned handwriting type books, your child can decide to just make that their copy work for now or they can copy in it once or twice a week and then copy over other things in their own notebook on other days. Whatever works best for that particular child.
For high schoolers, you can use the Vulgate Bible. Copy over the Latin and then look up the English translation. We copied over chunks of Mark's gospel this way. Here's a link to the Vulgate on line.
In my next post, I'll talk about gentle ways to study Latin.
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