Showing posts with label Latin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Latin. Show all posts
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Quote for the day: A Double Accusative
"'Verbs of teaching govern two accusatives, one of the person, another of the thing; as, Magister Johannem Latinam docit--the master taught John Latin.' Thus far the Latin rudiments. When the master seeks to apply the principle in real life, he finds that he can manage his double accusative only by the possession of a double knowledge; he must know Latin; and he must know John. Not so long ago...to know Latin was regarded as all-sufficient. John was either taken for granted or held to be not worth knowing." ~~ Sir John Adams, The Herbartian Psychology
Monday, September 29, 2014
Homeschooling, still frugal thrifty cheap but hard to write about it
These days my thrifty-homeschooler posts are fewer, but there are reasons for that. Although there are certainly more ways than ever to spend homeschool dollars, I think people are also more aware of free online resources. There are whole websites set up just to let you know about good deals and freebies, and about the whole world of online stuff. Homeschooling-Ideas.com, for example.
Also, I think I don't mention as much about "ways we do math for less" or whatever, because an eighth grader tends to be using the same materials pretty much every day. The elementary grades make better "homeschool copy."
Finally, we don't homeschool frugally just for the sake of frugality (if anyone does), so it's sometimes hard to write about it from that perspective. If you read here much you might possibly know that I've mentioned that the math book we're using (Math: A Human Endeavor) was a chance find about ten years ago, and that I got the workbook through a used source right afterwards, when the prices were still reasonable, and then The Apprentice ended up using only a few lessons in the workbook because she had way too much other homework in her public school courses. So math this year is basically free. I didn't give it to Lydia in the sense of dumping leftovers, but because she needed a different kind of math this year and there it was. We also already owned this year's grammar course, writing books, Bible and devotional books, and most of the books required for Ambleside Online Year 8. But I can only say "I found that one at the thrift store" so many times.
If I had to boil down any frugal homeschooling advice I have left, it might come out like this:
1. Whenever possible, use what's available to you, assuming it's in decent shape and appropriate for your students' needs, rather than going out and spending money on something else. Lydia has asked to bring Latin back into the curriculum this fall, after a four-year break; so for the time being, we're going to go back to the course that we were using then, reviewing what she learned in the fourth grade and getting to the bits that were too hard then. It's appropriate for her needs because it teaches ecclesiastical pronunciation and some of her "uses" for Latin could include vocal music. It's frugal because it's on the shelf and I don't have to print out online textbook pages.
2. Same as Number One: use what comes your way whenever you can. We started kindergarten almost twenty years ago with a program that is still used by many with young children. It required tracking down a lot of specific picture books, some of which (even though the program itself was quite new) had gone out of print. It seems to me that it would have been better for homeschoolers to have used maybe a few of those lessons with books they could access, then get brave enough to branch out with their own good books, rather than get too devoted to finding everything on the list.
3. Same as Number Two: make use of local resources. I heard only recently that we had a nearby weather research station that gave tours--but then I found out that it's been closed, so I had to scratch that off the field trip list. Since this is the year that we're doing lot of ecology and weather studies, that was disappointing. However, we do have parks and galleries and concerts and libraries and a university with an earth museum and a number of other things--not for weather trips, I mean, but for other opportunities. And some of them are cheap or free.
4. Don't overuse You-tube, but don't overlook it either, especially for music. And science help. And math. And craft tutorials. But a little goes a long way.
5. Focus on high-quality, longterm, meaningful units, books, lesson plans, outside activities. Fewer books, but better ones. More time on Old Narnia, less on the rules of writing. To quote from someone who has just discovered the power of books:
"In this book, he was gettin' to be Sam and see what somebody named Sam was up to...they give him this book for a present an' he was gettin' to be Sam. That was his favorite thing about books--they took you off to other people's lives an' places, but you could still set in your own chair by th' oil heater, warm as a mouse in a churn." ~~ Jan Karon, Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good (the newest Mitford book)Cartoon found here.
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
Plutarch and The Simpsons: who knew?
"Lisa: That's Latin, Dad--the language of Plutarch."But stop snickering, Lisa: the language of Plutarch was Greek."
"Homer: Mickey Mouse's dog?
~~ Homer Simpson's Figures of Speech, on Grammar.about.com
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Quote for the Day: Charles Kingsley on self-education
That day fortnight came,--and the old Scotchman's words came true. Four books of his I had already, and I came in to borrow a fifth; whereon he began with a solemn chuckle:
"Eh, laddie, laddie, I've been treating ye as the grocers do their new prentices. They first gie the boys three days' free warren among the figs and the sugar-candy, and they get scunnered wi' sweets after that.....If ye canna traduce to me a page o' Virgil by this day three months, ye read no more o' my books. Desultory reading is the bane o' lads. Ye maun begin with self-restraint and method, my man, gin ye intend to gie yoursel' a liberal education. So I'll just mak' you a present of an auld Latin grammar, and ye maun begin where your betters ha' begun before you."
"But who will teach me Latin?"
"Hoot, man! who'll teach a man anything except himsel'? It's only gentlefolks and puir aristocrat bodies that go to be spoilt wi' tutors and pedagogues, cramming and loading them wi' knowledge, as ye'd load a gun, to shoot it all out again, just as it went down, in a college examination, and forget all aboot it after."
"Ah!" I sighed, "if I could have gone to college!"
"What for, then? My father was a Hieland farmer, and yet he was a weel learned man: and 'Sandy, my lad,' he used to say, 'a man kens just as much as he's taught himsel', and na mair. So get wisdom; and wi' all your getting, get understanding.' And so I did. And mony's the Greek exercise I've written in the cowbyres. And mony's the page o' Virgil, too, I've turned into good Dawric Scotch to ane that's dead and gane, poor hizzie, sitting under the same plaid, with the sheep feeding round us, up among the hills, looking out ower the broad blue sea, and the wee haven wi' the fishing cobles--"
There was a long solemn pause. I cannot tell why, but I loved the man from that moment... ~~ Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke
"But who will teach me Latin?"
"Hoot, man! who'll teach a man anything except himsel'? It's only gentlefolks and puir aristocrat bodies that go to be spoilt wi' tutors and pedagogues, cramming and loading them wi' knowledge, as ye'd load a gun, to shoot it all out again, just as it went down, in a college examination, and forget all aboot it after."
"Ah!" I sighed, "if I could have gone to college!"
"What for, then? My father was a Hieland farmer, and yet he was a weel learned man: and 'Sandy, my lad,' he used to say, 'a man kens just as much as he's taught himsel', and na mair. So get wisdom; and wi' all your getting, get understanding.' And so I did. And mony's the Greek exercise I've written in the cowbyres. And mony's the page o' Virgil, too, I've turned into good Dawric Scotch to ane that's dead and gane, poor hizzie, sitting under the same plaid, with the sheep feeding round us, up among the hills, looking out ower the broad blue sea, and the wee haven wi' the fishing cobles--"
There was a long solemn pause. I cannot tell why, but I loved the man from that moment... ~~ Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Our Roman Roots: So Far So Good (review)
Our Roman Roots: A Catholic Student's Guide to Latin Grammar and Western Civilization, by James R. Leek, Ed.D. Review at HomeschoolChristian.com.
This is not a state-of-the-art Latin program, especially in its 1997 coilbound edition with cassette. It will not give you the ability to translate Virgil or to read the Vulgate Bible. But if you're looking for something more than just a prefixes/suffixes curriculum for students from grades 4 to 8, but aren't sure where to start, you might want to consider this book.
We are only up to lesson 5 of 15, which is just about where we should be in the one-year course; so I can only base our review on the first third of the book. But so far, I'm pleased.
Ease of use?--very, very easy, except that you or your students will have to set up separate notebooks with tabs before beginning the course. Occasionally I photocopy one of the pages for the Squirrelings to use instead of copying everything out, for instance if there is a multiple-choice written activity.
It's set up in 15 5-day lessons; unless you have only older students, I wouldn't think you'd want to take the whole thing in 15 weeks. You can either teach a whole lesson every other week and then use the next week for review; teach a lesson over two weeks; or mix things up as we have done (we started off slow but have done two full lessons in the past three weeks, leaving French aside until January). The books are set up with one activity after another, so it's easy to just pencil a mark or leave a Post-It note at the last activity you completed, and go on from there.
The fifth day of each lesson is a one-page quiz; sometimes these are quite tricky and they bring in concepts from previous lessons, so I would recommend a bit of extra review before doing them. We have done things like make Concentration cards with vocabulary words and Roman numerals.
Recommended age? I wouldn't consider it with children below about grade 4, at least as far as the grammar goes; they need to be able, almost right away, to grasp the concept of the genitive or possessive case, and that's not the easiest thing to explain. An example of that is "agnus Dei" (lamb of God), where the "of" is understood by the ending on "Dei." Also, many of the daily "Word Power" quotes that are to be copied into the notebooks require a fair amount of maturity to grasp, such as "Silent leges enim inter arma" (Laws are silent in war). Ponytails (grade 8) can complete some of the written activities faster than Crayons (grade 4) can, and I expect she will find some of the more advanced grammar easier; but Crayons has been doing just as well as Ponytails on the quizzes and the oral activities.
Most enjoyable activities: The Squirrelings, having some Catholic family history, like being able to astound everyone by saying grace in Latin. The songs (like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star) are fun; we have added in two Christmas carols this month that are featured in later lessons. Ponytails has found a couple of opportunities lately to tell people "Errare humanum est"; and Crayons picked out the word "donum" in a Latin song heard at a school concert last night. (You-tube video, not from that concert though.) They also like acting out the imperative forms of verbs (commands) as given on the tape: the voice commands them to Sta! (Stand up!) Sede! (Sit down!) Verte! (Turn around!) and so on.
Most enjoyable aspects for me, after trying out two other Latin programs previously with The Apprentice: no long lists of vocabulary to learn, at least not so far anyway. No chants, at least not so far, unless you count chanting the numbers 1 to 10. The program is not too difficult for me to teach with my one year of high school Latin and that bit of previous experience. I enjoy seeing the Squirrelings make some of their own connections with the vocabulary rather than having to have me point everything out. When the tape commanded them to "Audi!" and "Vide!", Ponytails was quick to point out the connection with "audio" and "video."
I also like the fact that this is not a colouring-page, word-search kind of curriculum. Although it's simple and enjoyable, it avoids busywork.
Downsides? 1. Occasionally--very occasionally--a word or concept will come up that isn't explained right away; one example is that the words "est" and "sunt" (forms of "To be") suddenly pop into use without definition. If you don't have any Latin knowledge at all, you might want to have a friend around to call on occasionally, or at least look things up sometimes online if you get stuck.*** 2. If you don't want any Catholic material at all, you would not like this course. Protestants can use it although there are a few things you might want to omit. 3. Pronunciation is Ecclesiastical, not Classical (Ecclesiastical is pronounced more like Italian); this is fun for singing, but might cause a bit of confusion if you move on later to materials from other publishers. 4. We skip a lot of the "extension activities" (short essay or research topics) unless it seems it would be particularly meaningful to do them.
I think this course could be alternatively titled "Wow! You can speak Latin!" Latin isn't always fun; but this book keeps it from being a chore.
***UPDATE as of Lesson 6: Starting in again after the Christmas break, I noticed that Lessons 6 and 7 introduce the Ablative and Accusative cases, although you don't really do much with them. We took one extra session to sort through the idea of conjugations, declensions and cases, comparing what we know of English and French grammar with Latin, and I gave the girls a photocopied chart showing noun endings. This was one place where I think the program could have used a bit more explanation, although, as I said, all you're actually doing with the Ablative at this point is just saying that someone is "In such-and-such-a-country," and changing the ending for the names of some countries.
This is not a state-of-the-art Latin program, especially in its 1997 coilbound edition with cassette. It will not give you the ability to translate Virgil or to read the Vulgate Bible. But if you're looking for something more than just a prefixes/suffixes curriculum for students from grades 4 to 8, but aren't sure where to start, you might want to consider this book.
We are only up to lesson 5 of 15, which is just about where we should be in the one-year course; so I can only base our review on the first third of the book. But so far, I'm pleased.
Ease of use?--very, very easy, except that you or your students will have to set up separate notebooks with tabs before beginning the course. Occasionally I photocopy one of the pages for the Squirrelings to use instead of copying everything out, for instance if there is a multiple-choice written activity.
It's set up in 15 5-day lessons; unless you have only older students, I wouldn't think you'd want to take the whole thing in 15 weeks. You can either teach a whole lesson every other week and then use the next week for review; teach a lesson over two weeks; or mix things up as we have done (we started off slow but have done two full lessons in the past three weeks, leaving French aside until January). The books are set up with one activity after another, so it's easy to just pencil a mark or leave a Post-It note at the last activity you completed, and go on from there.
The fifth day of each lesson is a one-page quiz; sometimes these are quite tricky and they bring in concepts from previous lessons, so I would recommend a bit of extra review before doing them. We have done things like make Concentration cards with vocabulary words and Roman numerals.
Recommended age? I wouldn't consider it with children below about grade 4, at least as far as the grammar goes; they need to be able, almost right away, to grasp the concept of the genitive or possessive case, and that's not the easiest thing to explain. An example of that is "agnus Dei" (lamb of God), where the "of" is understood by the ending on "Dei." Also, many of the daily "Word Power" quotes that are to be copied into the notebooks require a fair amount of maturity to grasp, such as "Silent leges enim inter arma" (Laws are silent in war). Ponytails (grade 8) can complete some of the written activities faster than Crayons (grade 4) can, and I expect she will find some of the more advanced grammar easier; but Crayons has been doing just as well as Ponytails on the quizzes and the oral activities.
Most enjoyable activities: The Squirrelings, having some Catholic family history, like being able to astound everyone by saying grace in Latin. The songs (like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star) are fun; we have added in two Christmas carols this month that are featured in later lessons. Ponytails has found a couple of opportunities lately to tell people "Errare humanum est"; and Crayons picked out the word "donum" in a Latin song heard at a school concert last night. (You-tube video, not from that concert though.) They also like acting out the imperative forms of verbs (commands) as given on the tape: the voice commands them to Sta! (Stand up!) Sede! (Sit down!) Verte! (Turn around!) and so on.
Most enjoyable aspects for me, after trying out two other Latin programs previously with The Apprentice: no long lists of vocabulary to learn, at least not so far anyway. No chants, at least not so far, unless you count chanting the numbers 1 to 10. The program is not too difficult for me to teach with my one year of high school Latin and that bit of previous experience. I enjoy seeing the Squirrelings make some of their own connections with the vocabulary rather than having to have me point everything out. When the tape commanded them to "Audi!" and "Vide!", Ponytails was quick to point out the connection with "audio" and "video."
I also like the fact that this is not a colouring-page, word-search kind of curriculum. Although it's simple and enjoyable, it avoids busywork.
Downsides? 1. Occasionally--very occasionally--a word or concept will come up that isn't explained right away; one example is that the words "est" and "sunt" (forms of "To be") suddenly pop into use without definition. If you don't have any Latin knowledge at all, you might want to have a friend around to call on occasionally, or at least look things up sometimes online if you get stuck.*** 2. If you don't want any Catholic material at all, you would not like this course. Protestants can use it although there are a few things you might want to omit. 3. Pronunciation is Ecclesiastical, not Classical (Ecclesiastical is pronounced more like Italian); this is fun for singing, but might cause a bit of confusion if you move on later to materials from other publishers. 4. We skip a lot of the "extension activities" (short essay or research topics) unless it seems it would be particularly meaningful to do them.
I think this course could be alternatively titled "Wow! You can speak Latin!" Latin isn't always fun; but this book keeps it from being a chore.
***UPDATE as of Lesson 6: Starting in again after the Christmas break, I noticed that Lessons 6 and 7 introduce the Ablative and Accusative cases, although you don't really do much with them. We took one extra session to sort through the idea of conjugations, declensions and cases, comparing what we know of English and French grammar with Latin, and I gave the girls a photocopied chart showing noun endings. This was one place where I think the program could have used a bit more explanation, although, as I said, all you're actually doing with the Ablative at this point is just saying that someone is "In such-and-such-a-country," and changing the ending for the names of some countries.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Wednesday already? This and that, and dialing for dinner (not pizza)
The week has been busy...everybody's been making things, and Ponytails the Photographer is going to post some photos soon.
The crazy radio stations that play Christmas music too early (and the same songs over and over) are still good for something. Yesterday afternoon Mama Squirrel happened to turn THAT station on, and the nice announcer invited her to phone in and be caller number three...and tell him what comes after "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire." So Mama Squirrel obediently dialed the phone, said "Jack Frost nipping at your nose," and won dinner for two. How about that?
Mama Squirrel and Crayons are one chapter away from finishing Kidnapped. Crayons was not pleased to leave Alan knocking at David's uncle's door at the end of yesterday's reading, but that's what suspense is for. We are also almost finished the biography of Stevenson, and one unit from the end of Grade 3 Light Blue Math Mammoth. Mr. Fixit has ordered the download of Grade 4 so we should be ready to go with that soon.
And we are all putting in extra time on Latin. This is part of this week's lesson:
"Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona, quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen."
Virtual saccharum if you know what that means.
The crazy radio stations that play Christmas music too early (and the same songs over and over) are still good for something. Yesterday afternoon Mama Squirrel happened to turn THAT station on, and the nice announcer invited her to phone in and be caller number three...and tell him what comes after "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire." So Mama Squirrel obediently dialed the phone, said "Jack Frost nipping at your nose," and won dinner for two. How about that?
Mama Squirrel and Crayons are one chapter away from finishing Kidnapped. Crayons was not pleased to leave Alan knocking at David's uncle's door at the end of yesterday's reading, but that's what suspense is for. We are also almost finished the biography of Stevenson, and one unit from the end of Grade 3 Light Blue Math Mammoth. Mr. Fixit has ordered the download of Grade 4 so we should be ready to go with that soon.
And we are all putting in extra time on Latin. This is part of this week's lesson:
"Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona, quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen."
Virtual saccharum if you know what that means.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
More on this fall's homeschooling (Part 3)
MATHEMATICS
I already mentioned briefly what we're doing: Ponytails is finishing off Key to Geometry and Key to Decimals, and then will be starting Key to Algebra, and probably doing practice Gauss competition tests at the grade 8 level. She's planning on doing most of her math with Mr. Fixit again this year.
Crayons will be finishing Math Mammoth Light Blue Grade 3, because we got into it late in the year, and then we'll download Grade 4. I've been very interested to see where/how the Miquon Math she'd always used fit in to this newer curriculum; where we can go fast because we've already covered a topic, and where we have to slow down for math potholes. Not surprisingly (if you know Miquon), she has a very good sense of place value; she has a good understanding of how numbers work, and she's probably a bit ahead in multiplication, since Miquon starts that early. She's great at money math, not so good at telling time, but we'll keep working on that.
We'll be doing a weekly joint math time--I'm still working out the details on that. Some of what we'll be doing will be coming out of Critical Thinking's Math Detective book (the gr 5-6 level), since we have it on hand; but I don't want to do exactly the same format every time...the goal is to get a bigger sense of mathematics, to learn about the really interesting parts of it, not just "what you get in school." (If you've never checked out the Living Math website, there's lots of inspiration there.)
GRACIOUS ARTS
Otherwise known as Home Economics or Family Studies...but it's more than that. We are going to read through The Hidden Art of Homemaking (maybe just parts of some chapters), and supplement that with Marmee's Sugar N Spice Studies (nice around the holidays), a book on teatimes, a book on making basket gifts for people, and other books on crafts and creativity. We'll also read Louisa May Alcott's novel Jack and Jill, since a lot of that book is about "brightening the corner where you are" and finding the beauty around you.
CITIZENSHIP
A catch-all category. Whatever Happened to Justice? could fit in here, but I'm counting that under history this year. We'll be reading Plutarch's Lives (probably just Ponytails the first term), some of Charlotte Mason's book Ourselves, and Noel Streatfeild's book The Fearless Treasure. (We've never used that last one yet, so it will be an experiment.)
FINE ARTS
We'll probably follow the Ambleside rotation for picture studies and composer studies, except that I want to include Tom Thomson in this year's studies...it's a good year to do this since at least one museum within reach will be hosting a Thomson exhibit.
Art instruction: this is pretty much open. Crayons, although she loves to craft, is going through a spell of thinking that she can't draw, so it's not something I'm going to push right now. Ponytails has her own artistic interests she's working on. We will incorporate narration drawings and other activities into the year's work and leave it at that. (I was pretty happy, though, to find tins of watercolour pencils and charcoal pencils at Dollarama this weekend for $1.25 each.)
LATIN
We'll be following the lessons in Our Roman Roots, probably three times a week.
FRENCH
I had planned to have Ponytails start one of the Mission Monde levels, and work something out myself for Crayons. When I got started working on Crayons' curriculum, I realized that we could probably do at least the first half of the year together, and then maybe get MM for Ponytails after Christmas. I looked at the Ontario ministry guidelines for grade 4 and grade 8 French, and they're really not that complicated...no offense to anyone who might be offended by that, I just mean that, for a ministry of education outline, it's pretty simple and clear what's supposed to be taught, and we can cover that with our own books. Our theme is going to be Les Insectes, based on a Canadian activity book (from a used book sale) called Les Insectes (surprise). We'll learn bugs along with verbs.
I think that's it for now...
I already mentioned briefly what we're doing: Ponytails is finishing off Key to Geometry and Key to Decimals, and then will be starting Key to Algebra, and probably doing practice Gauss competition tests at the grade 8 level. She's planning on doing most of her math with Mr. Fixit again this year.
Crayons will be finishing Math Mammoth Light Blue Grade 3, because we got into it late in the year, and then we'll download Grade 4. I've been very interested to see where/how the Miquon Math she'd always used fit in to this newer curriculum; where we can go fast because we've already covered a topic, and where we have to slow down for math potholes. Not surprisingly (if you know Miquon), she has a very good sense of place value; she has a good understanding of how numbers work, and she's probably a bit ahead in multiplication, since Miquon starts that early. She's great at money math, not so good at telling time, but we'll keep working on that.
We'll be doing a weekly joint math time--I'm still working out the details on that. Some of what we'll be doing will be coming out of Critical Thinking's Math Detective book (the gr 5-6 level), since we have it on hand; but I don't want to do exactly the same format every time...the goal is to get a bigger sense of mathematics, to learn about the really interesting parts of it, not just "what you get in school." (If you've never checked out the Living Math website, there's lots of inspiration there.)
GRACIOUS ARTS
Otherwise known as Home Economics or Family Studies...but it's more than that. We are going to read through The Hidden Art of Homemaking (maybe just parts of some chapters), and supplement that with Marmee's Sugar N Spice Studies (nice around the holidays), a book on teatimes, a book on making basket gifts for people, and other books on crafts and creativity. We'll also read Louisa May Alcott's novel Jack and Jill, since a lot of that book is about "brightening the corner where you are" and finding the beauty around you.
CITIZENSHIP
A catch-all category. Whatever Happened to Justice? could fit in here, but I'm counting that under history this year. We'll be reading Plutarch's Lives (probably just Ponytails the first term), some of Charlotte Mason's book Ourselves, and Noel Streatfeild's book The Fearless Treasure. (We've never used that last one yet, so it will be an experiment.)
FINE ARTS
We'll probably follow the Ambleside rotation for picture studies and composer studies, except that I want to include Tom Thomson in this year's studies...it's a good year to do this since at least one museum within reach will be hosting a Thomson exhibit.
Art instruction: this is pretty much open. Crayons, although she loves to craft, is going through a spell of thinking that she can't draw, so it's not something I'm going to push right now. Ponytails has her own artistic interests she's working on. We will incorporate narration drawings and other activities into the year's work and leave it at that. (I was pretty happy, though, to find tins of watercolour pencils and charcoal pencils at Dollarama this weekend for $1.25 each.)
LATIN
We'll be following the lessons in Our Roman Roots, probably three times a week.
FRENCH
I had planned to have Ponytails start one of the Mission Monde levels, and work something out myself for Crayons. When I got started working on Crayons' curriculum, I realized that we could probably do at least the first half of the year together, and then maybe get MM for Ponytails after Christmas. I looked at the Ontario ministry guidelines for grade 4 and grade 8 French, and they're really not that complicated...no offense to anyone who might be offended by that, I just mean that, for a ministry of education outline, it's pretty simple and clear what's supposed to be taught, and we can cover that with our own books. Our theme is going to be Les Insectes, based on a Canadian activity book (from a used book sale) called Les Insectes (surprise). We'll learn bugs along with verbs.
I think that's it for now...
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Spanish with Kim, Latin with Ann
Ann of Holy Experience is always inspirational, but she also posts many a helpful homeschooling post. Here's one: resources for getting started with Latin.
And Kim continues to post about the CM approach to teaching Spanish.
Eruditio domi est sapiens!
(A virtual coin marked 40 B.C. if you can figure that one out. I'm not sure the online translator gave me the best word order...wouldn't "Eruditio domi sapiens est" sound better?)
And Kim continues to post about the CM approach to teaching Spanish.
Eruditio domi est sapiens!
(A virtual coin marked 40 B.C. if you can figure that one out. I'm not sure the online translator gave me the best word order...wouldn't "Eruditio domi sapiens est" sound better?)
Monday, June 05, 2006
The way of the dodo
Homeschoolbuzz.com posted a link to this article about the rather posh homeschooling option of hiring a professional teacher or tutor. ("Another variant of school at home very different from the homeschooling most know," comments Homeschoolbuzz.)
What struck me most was this comment by Bob Harraka, president of Professional Tutors of America:
I could recommend a few homeschooled teenagers, though...
What struck me most was this comment by Bob Harraka, president of Professional Tutors of America:
[he] cannot meet a third of the requests for in-home education that come in, he said, because they are so specialized or extravagant: a family wants a teacher to instruct in the art of Frisbee throwing, button sewing or Latin grammar.My goodness, Latin grammar? What will they think of next? I guess one would really have to hunt far and wide to find a teacher versed in something so specialized and extravagant.
I could recommend a few homeschooled teenagers, though...
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