My journey through learning Latin as a homeschooling mom got a lot easier after I started taking classes with my older sons. Well, actually it was hard work studying Latin for my tired, peri-menopausal brain. It definitely gave me a new appreciation for how hard we expect our kids to work all the time. I think every parent should have to go learn something new so they can truly empathize with their own kids' schooling. We forget a lot about how hard it really is. We tend to romanticize it or gloss over the drudgery part of it.
But things got easier in the sense that I had a mentor systematically teaching me the language. Then a new challenge arose. My youngest son, Sean, was a different kind of learner - even more different than my already different other children. He, of all my kids, struggled the most and even though he is very bright, it is hard to figure a way in for him. He was pretty unschooled because he had a habit of going on intense jags where he'd teach himself something to an amazing level. And this learning would have a wonderful ripple effect into other areas of learning. But he struggled with reading, he struggled with writing and he struggled with focus. He painfully struggled. Yet, I wanted to gently introduce him to Latin, but how?
Enter Latin for Children. I had heard about it, but mostly that people complained that there were a lot of typos. This was when it first came out. But I bought it right after they'd fixed all that stuff. What really worked for Sean were the videos. I would just stick the dvd in and we'd watch the kids on the video chanting the paradigms and making silly hand gestures for the vocabulary. Dr. Perrin would teach a little bit of grammar in his gentle, humorous way, and then would come some funny little puppet show or little video clip - just in there to keep things fun and light. Sean enjoyed it so much. Often that's all we did, watch the video. We'd watch and re-watch and it stuck! We had the workbook too but we went through that very slowly. Sometimes Sean would do the writing, sometimes I'd do the writing, sometimes we'd take turns, sometimes we'd just do thing orally or we'd write the answers up on the whiteboard easel. We switched things up in that respect to avoid Sean building up dread of having to write in the workbook. I think it took about two years to get through the first workbook - we went at Sean's pace. And we got through the first 1/2 of the second book before circumstances switched us to Studium Latinae and then Ecce Romani. And now he's in 9th grade working through the Cambridge Latin books.
If you want a fun, no prep Latin program with an audio-visual element - and this part, to me, is the key to the whole program, check out Latin for Children. They also have an on line site where the kids can play games to reinforce vocabulary, etc, called Headland Adventures.
I really appreciate the products and folks at Classical Academic Press. I met Dr. Christopher Perrin at the Circe Conference this past summer. I doubt he remembers me but I heard his talk on St. John's College as well as some panel discussions he was in. He is wonderful! So much Godly wisdom.
So if you have a kid with LDs, or you just want a fun Latin program that does the teaching for you, check out Latin for Children. You won't regret it.
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