Favorite Resources for Learning Latin in an Unschooly Way - Gentle Study
Latin is something that needs to be tackled systematically. I mean, we don't live in the Roman world where we would just pick it up through immersion. Latin immersion camps have actually grown in popularity now, but usually they want someone who has studied enough to be at least considered intermediary in terms of level of fluency.
Here are the gentlest ways I found to introduce a study of Latin to your kids. First of all don't start too young, unless your children really want to try it or seem to have a flair for language. My own kids were late bloomers in terms of reading and writing so programs aimed at second and third graders really didn't appeal to me. Plus I think for most kids, going too slowly is boring. I think it is better to wait to officially start Latin after the child has become a proficient reader in English. By learning Latin your kids will also learn a lot about English grammar and English vocabulary.
Here are five resources I used and how I used them:
1) Getting Started with Latin by William Linney is an easy-peasy, gentle way to dip one's toe into learning the grammar and vocabulary of Latin. Each lesson is very brief. You can teach Latin in 5 minute pops over the lunch table or snuggling on the couch or out on the lawn on a blanket. It is something easy to do with younger kids and something that older kids can pick up on their own. It is a great book for strewing and also a great book for casual one on one lessons. If you have absolutely no knowledge of Latin yourself, you can pick this book up and begin learning with your children with no preparation at all. It is a homeschooling mom's dream! I didn't discover this book until my youngest child was about ten. We did a good chunk of the book in a very relaxed manner. We didn't quite finish it. I also kept it on our coffee table for a long time and my older kids would randomly pick it up, review and quiz each other in the short exercises sort of like a trivia game.
2) The DVDs for Latin for Children by Classical Academic Press. My oldest son was bent on going to Berklee College of Music for college. He had always been musical but he decided at age 15 he wanted to go to a music conservatory. A music teacher he had recommended Berklee to him. It is a very difficult school to get into but that just fired my son up more. He was determined! But that meant he had to have a high school transcript to apply. Thus he needed language credits. Luckily, in our local homeschool community we had a wonderful homeschooling mom who gave Latin classes out of her home. Somehow it worked out that not only that son but my middle son and I all signed up for the classes. I really wanted to learn alongside them. Anyway, during that time, I was also using Getting Started with Latin with my youngest. But my youngest son wasn't included in this Latin jag everybody else was on, so I bought the Latin for Children program. That first year we did not use the workbooks at all. We just watched the DVDs. My kids loved them! They are slightly goofy, home published, but charming and teach well. We got into the habit of watching and re-watching the DVDs right before lunch. I don't remember how that started, but I'd say, hey it's almost time for lunch, wanna watch a Latin DVD? So we would watch for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. My kids picked up so much Latin from watching those things. They really are fun. I know we watched the DVDs for the first level of Latin for Children. And I know I bought the 2nd level. I think we started them but then somehow the winds shifted and we just didn't stick with it anymore.
3) Quizlet - once your child has a little Latin under his or her belt, playing the vocabulary games at quizlet is fun. My kids would go through jags of playing flashcard games on quizlet. Noodle around the site looking for already made Latin flashcards. Some of these flashcards are made by students and can have errors, so double check things if they look funny. You get bonus points if you find an error! (or at least in my family we got to feel superior! LOL)
4) Latin Tutorial - if you do the short-video-at-breakfast thing (see my introduction on how I strewed videos at breakfast), this is a phenomenal resource. I just love this guy's youtube channel. He explains everything so clearly and his graphs and visuals are excellent. Interesting to watch and very educational. Noodle around and find the basic Latin lessons first. He's recently started a long comprehensive video series called the 91 Rules of Latin Grammar. That will have a mix of basic and more complicated grammar there. But there are other video playlists that are on more of a beginner level. Just explore his channel and find your own level. And remember it is good to re-watch these videos several times to reinforce what you're learning.
5) National Latin Exam website - Honestly you can use the NLE website to teach yourself Latin for free. Go to their syllabus, see what is required, google one grammatical concept at a time or perhaps go to the Latin Tutorial video that corresponds with the concept, and you've got it made! My kids loved to take the old NLE exams. Since they'd been exposed to some basic Latin already, we'd start the Intro level exam and do a couple of questions, then stumble onto something they didn't get. We'd then find a resource that explained that particular thing, go back and figure out what the correct answer was. Maybe it is crazy that we did things that way, but for us it made it more interesting. And with the NLE you also have to learn Roman history, culture, geography and mythology, so you wind up learning much more than just Latin. Latin sayings and derivatives are also included. It's just a wealth of learning!
All my kids took more than one National Latin Exam and scored well. We included this in our admission applications to colleges.
Here are the gentlest ways I found to introduce a study of Latin to your kids. First of all don't start too young, unless your children really want to try it or seem to have a flair for language. My own kids were late bloomers in terms of reading and writing so programs aimed at second and third graders really didn't appeal to me. Plus I think for most kids, going too slowly is boring. I think it is better to wait to officially start Latin after the child has become a proficient reader in English. By learning Latin your kids will also learn a lot about English grammar and English vocabulary.
Here are five resources I used and how I used them:
1) Getting Started with Latin by William Linney is an easy-peasy, gentle way to dip one's toe into learning the grammar and vocabulary of Latin. Each lesson is very brief. You can teach Latin in 5 minute pops over the lunch table or snuggling on the couch or out on the lawn on a blanket. It is something easy to do with younger kids and something that older kids can pick up on their own. It is a great book for strewing and also a great book for casual one on one lessons. If you have absolutely no knowledge of Latin yourself, you can pick this book up and begin learning with your children with no preparation at all. It is a homeschooling mom's dream! I didn't discover this book until my youngest child was about ten. We did a good chunk of the book in a very relaxed manner. We didn't quite finish it. I also kept it on our coffee table for a long time and my older kids would randomly pick it up, review and quiz each other in the short exercises sort of like a trivia game.
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| You might be able to buy used DVD's for less $$$. They didn't have the streaming option when we were using this resource. |
2) The DVDs for Latin for Children by Classical Academic Press. My oldest son was bent on going to Berklee College of Music for college. He had always been musical but he decided at age 15 he wanted to go to a music conservatory. A music teacher he had recommended Berklee to him. It is a very difficult school to get into but that just fired my son up more. He was determined! But that meant he had to have a high school transcript to apply. Thus he needed language credits. Luckily, in our local homeschool community we had a wonderful homeschooling mom who gave Latin classes out of her home. Somehow it worked out that not only that son but my middle son and I all signed up for the classes. I really wanted to learn alongside them. Anyway, during that time, I was also using Getting Started with Latin with my youngest. But my youngest son wasn't included in this Latin jag everybody else was on, so I bought the Latin for Children program. That first year we did not use the workbooks at all. We just watched the DVDs. My kids loved them! They are slightly goofy, home published, but charming and teach well. We got into the habit of watching and re-watching the DVDs right before lunch. I don't remember how that started, but I'd say, hey it's almost time for lunch, wanna watch a Latin DVD? So we would watch for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. My kids picked up so much Latin from watching those things. They really are fun. I know we watched the DVDs for the first level of Latin for Children. And I know I bought the 2nd level. I think we started them but then somehow the winds shifted and we just didn't stick with it anymore.
3) Quizlet - once your child has a little Latin under his or her belt, playing the vocabulary games at quizlet is fun. My kids would go through jags of playing flashcard games on quizlet. Noodle around the site looking for already made Latin flashcards. Some of these flashcards are made by students and can have errors, so double check things if they look funny. You get bonus points if you find an error! (or at least in my family we got to feel superior! LOL)
4) Latin Tutorial - if you do the short-video-at-breakfast thing (see my introduction on how I strewed videos at breakfast), this is a phenomenal resource. I just love this guy's youtube channel. He explains everything so clearly and his graphs and visuals are excellent. Interesting to watch and very educational. Noodle around and find the basic Latin lessons first. He's recently started a long comprehensive video series called the 91 Rules of Latin Grammar. That will have a mix of basic and more complicated grammar there. But there are other video playlists that are on more of a beginner level. Just explore his channel and find your own level. And remember it is good to re-watch these videos several times to reinforce what you're learning.
 |
| Dare to know! |
5) National Latin Exam website - Honestly you can use the NLE website to teach yourself Latin for free. Go to their syllabus, see what is required, google one grammatical concept at a time or perhaps go to the Latin Tutorial video that corresponds with the concept, and you've got it made! My kids loved to take the old NLE exams. Since they'd been exposed to some basic Latin already, we'd start the Intro level exam and do a couple of questions, then stumble onto something they didn't get. We'd then find a resource that explained that particular thing, go back and figure out what the correct answer was. Maybe it is crazy that we did things that way, but for us it made it more interesting. And with the NLE you also have to learn Roman history, culture, geography and mythology, so you wind up learning much more than just Latin. Latin sayings and derivatives are also included. It's just a wealth of learning!
All my kids took more than one National Latin Exam and scored well. We included this in our admission applications to colleges.
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