Latin Club Week 3

This is a class report for week 2 of my Latin class at Homeschool Out of the Box co-op. Our textbook is Latin for Children Level A.

In class:

Meet and greet. I collected homework and we took the quiz. Everyone was faster this week -- much faster! Great job.

Chants. We took turns leading the chants from chapter 1 and chapter 2.

Songs. We worked on "Ballad of the Latin Verbs," "She Will Be Latin," and "Dona Nobis Pacem." I passed out the sheet music for "Dona Nobis Pacem" and encouraged those who play instruments to try it out at home. We have some strong singers in the group! I think we are going to be able to do this one as a round.

Games: In our first game, the leader would say the first part of the noun chant (aqua, aquae) and the group would say the second part (water, water). The trick was to mix us up and take the words out of order so we had to translate instantly without knowing what was next. It was challenging for the group to come up with the right definition, and challenging for the leaders to keep the nouns coming in the right rhythm, without pausing to think.

Our second game involved verbs. I called out a verb, and the students had to stand up for singular, sit down for plural. We stayed with the five verbs in the first chapter, but listening to the different endings and figuring out the number was a challenge. Sometimes they knew right away, and all agreed. Sometimes they didn't agree. It was interesting! We talked about different ways that we memorize these endings -- some remember visually by imagining the chart and what it looks like. Some remember aurally, by reciting the chants silently in their brains. Figuring out the way you learn is a great way to use study time more efficiently, so they should be thinking about this question: How do I remember?

Stamps. We all successfully got our -o/-s/-t/-mus/-tis/-nt stamp, although some of us had left folders at home and got a stamp on the hand instead. Next week's stamp is the first declension noun chant, with the noun mensa. This one is a little harder than the last one and will take some practice.

Assignments. Great job on the assignments! I returned the quizzes and homework this week with some comments and stickers to encourage them to press on in the book. Please have your children ready to turn in a page from the chapter 3 material, either the Primer or the Activity Book. Any page, or a photocopy, is going to work.

Thanks!