Why study Latin and Greek?

I got this question in my comments-- here's the drawn out answer:

My husband had the unique opportunity of studying Latin as a high school student and one year at BYU. More than anything else he attributes his ability to think clearly and logically to his study of Latin. Also by learning Latin, he learned Grammar with a capital "G", most of us won't understand what he means until they study Latin. Grammar schools get their name from the schools where the kids attended to learn Latin, like in Anne of Green Gables. It was and can continue to be done.

Latin is a very organized language. The nouns, adjectives, adverbs and other parts of speech will have a different ending depending on what it is doing in the sentence-- subject, direct object, indirect object, possessive, or what word it is associated with etc. Therefore, in order to make a sentence properly in Latin, it must be clear exactly what it is you are tying to say. Same with the verbs and other parts of speech. I think the Grammar is what makes it so difficult. There is so much to keep straight which trains the mind very well. Also, by learning Latin, the student will learn English grammar as a by product and way better than they would by studying any modern language.

Another reason to study Latin is that many English words come from Latin, so it helps us understand our own language so much better. Latin is also the underlying language of our civilization. By learning Latin, we learn about history, art, science, and everything else Latin has touched which is just about everything in Western Civilizaiton.

So now why Greek? Greek has one less declension than Latin, so it is not quite so involved. So the Grammar is a little easier and that makes it a nice precursor to studying Latin. Many English words also come from Greek and how cool would it be to read the New Testament in the original Greek? And it is pretty fun to read in a different alphabet.

Tough subjects turning out disciplined minds?-- yes, just what I want. Do my girls like it-- yes when it's easy, and no when it's hard. They sure are pleased with themselves when they struggle through and finish what they thought was insurmountable.

Check out these articles from Memoria Press on studying Latin, scroll down to the bottom to see the Latin section. The section on studying formal Logic is also enlightening.
http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/


Need a short answer?
Mean Verbal SAT scores for 2006:

LATIN STUDENTS: 672
Spanish Students: 577
French Students: 637
German Students: 632
Hebrew Students: 623

Average for all students: 503

This year's Homeschooling Plan

I am really looking forward to getting back into schooling full tilt! I've got preschool, kindergarten, 2nd grade, 4th grade and 6th grade this year. Check out other people's plans at latter-dayhomeschooling.com

Math-- Each child does Singapore math at their level, the 2 older ones should finish the series by December and both should start Algebra around January -- I am very excited for this.

Grammar/Latin- We are studying Koine Greek with this fabulous curriculum called Elementary Greek. Not only is this a fabulous way to really learn English grammar and lots of Greek root words and the Greek of the New Testament, it is great preparation for learning Latin which we start when the child has finished the third year book which should be by May or June for the 2 oldest girls. This will become our focus. Preceding years, our focus has been in math. They need to start Latin by 7th grade to fulfill our requirements.

Science-- We use Singapore Science once the kids are proficient at reading and writing. The sixth grader should finish the program by May or June to be ready for junior high material next year. For the younger kids I am really excited about some expensive books I bought from a door to door European girl salesperson printed by Southwestern. They are actually really good. I was worried about the money, but I think it was worth it. We also bought a set of 5 used Southwestern Student Handbooks that have some great info and really fun experiments and and games for science, math, geography, and nature.

Writing-- All the children are required to write in their journal each school day. They can write whatever they want at least one sentence long. The little ones draw a picture, tell me what to write and then copy it. They also practice writing in workbooks I bought at Sam's Club and when we get our printer figured out, they will trace the scripture of the week in cursive. The older ones copy the scripture of the week each school day and write 1-2 compositions per week all in cursive.

Spelling-- I use The Natural Speller to find words for the kids to practice. When I was taking care of babies, I had my older girls practice typing out of a typing book I had bought. Now the older one may spend time typing her stories and I call that good for spelling.

Reading-- Once the kids can read well, they are required to read a book from a list for at least 30 min. per day. They love this part and have read books they wouldn't have otherwise read and have loved it. The younger kids learn to read by first learning their letters and sounds from the Letter Factory DVD, then by reading out of the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. We supplement that with Phonics games from LDFR.com and the McGuffey readers.

History-- I started out homeschooling by reading the story of the world to my kids. It worked for me at that time because it was all new to me, I had no sense of history at all and it was a great starting point. However, now I think it is just too long jumping around too much for these little guys to keep up and let some of the events sink in. So now the older ones do 15 min. of history reading a day from books we bought at yesterdaysclassics.com . I also read books to the younger ones mostly from yesterdaysclassics and some picture books we have and from the library. We will be reading about American history together this year.

Group Time -- We'll have story time for the younger kids various classic stories and pictures books, history, science, and scriptures, also poetry and time for memorizing scriptures and poems, we sing primary songs and other fun songs and songs in Spanish and French, then we have Spanish class and Greek review and art and experiment hands on time.

outside activities-- 4 kids in soccer!! That will be busy-- violin lessons, piano lessons, boys club, drama, and book club.

Good thing we don't do everything everyday, we just do something each day. The kids have a list what they must accomplish each day. We include make your bed, brush your and get dressed among other things. They have to do Math, Greek, reading, journal, and scripture 4 times per week. Instruments must be practiced daily.

So that's the plan for this year. I still have to work out some of the details but I think we are all excited to get back into it yay!!

Teaching Math at Home, can be frustrating

Math does not come easy to my oldest child. She is amazing at music and art and loves to write and make up stories, but when it comes to being exact and focusing, it is really hard for her. We have been using Singapore Math and I let her fall behind a bit because I didn't want to push her too hard, but I had an awakening when she turned 10, that she needed to be farther along in all our subjects. As a 10 year old I felt that she was old enough to learn to focus and really train that brain, so it was time to play catch up. Not that she is behind her peers, just that she was behind where I want her to be and if we're going to homeschool, we'd better be at least a year ahead.

So instead of doing 2 pages of Singapore Math a day, the requirement was 5 pages a day which turned into 10 pages a day. I would explain the new concepts and she would go to work, but when she finished the book and I went to correct it, I found that she had been mostly guessing and really didn't understand much of what she had done. So we had to go back through the book with me watching over her train of thought and teaching her to be exact. That took forever, but we did finish 3B. Then we pretty much took the summer off and started 4A the first part of September.

This time however, I kept up on checking as she went along and caught the mistakes early, but it took FOREVER. The first 2 weeks of school Math was pretty much all we did. I hoped that she would eventually be able to focus without me right there over her shoulder, but since she is not math minded, it never happened. After 2 weeks of spending pretty much 2-3hrs. with just her on math a day, I decided that I couldn't neglect the other kids or subjects any longer so we worked on math at the end of the day if we had time, and her dad could help her when he got home. We thought that once we got through fractions and onto measurements, it would be easier-- no such luck. However, she really worked and tried her best and finally finished 4A -- we finished the corrections on Thurs. It took about 5 hours. While I was frustrated at times during the correcting phase, at the end of the day, I felt fulfilled and like we had actually accomplished something. She realizes that she has to do math even though it's not her favorite. She understands that it is important and that it will leave so many doors open for her in her future. She feels good about sticking with something she doesn't really like and that is hard for her, but overcoming it and making it a strength. I don't think she is ready for the test, so this week we will be doing review problems out of the textbook until she is solid on the concepts and does everything in the proper order and writes everything down and can check it and find her little errors on her own. Then hopefully she can take the test on Thurs. and move on to 4B.

The goal is for her to start Algebra next September-- she'll be in 6th grade and on that track she can take Calculus as a sophomore and be done with Math forever if she wants. It is hard playing catch-up and being the guinea pig, but I think she will be able to do it although it does take a lot of time and concentration. I am becoming extremely patient.

The difference between her and her sister just younger in math is amazing. The younger one loves math and is a year ahead, just finished 3B and passed the test and started 4A. I only have to explain things once and she gets it right. It is such a breath of fresh air for me teaching it to her. The boys so far seem pretty math minded too and after that first daughter I am just happy they can make jumps in their heads so easily without having to go through every little step. Math always came fairly easy to me and I loved it especially though high school, but now I understand those who don't like math after going through it with my daughter, because if it doesn't come easy, then it can be torture!!!!

Book List for 9-12 year olds

My 10 yr. old needed a little more structure in her choice of literature, and while Nancy Drew is fun, we wanted to make sure she has some familiarity with other genres and literature. So my husband who is really behind most of the curriculum choices we make did some research mainly on amazon.com reading the reviews both good and bad for these books and came up with the following list. Neither of us have read all of these books although we have read some of them, so if any of you think any of them may be inappropriate for this age group, let me know. We bought most of them and I'm going to try to keep up with my kids' reading. It looks like a lot of fun. We want our kids to read at least one of the books listed in each genre.

Genre
Science Fiction
	The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
	Ender's Game
	The City of Ember
	Journey Between Worlds
	Enchantress from the Stars
History
	Number the Stars
	The Bronze Bow
	The Witch of Blackbird Pond
	Sounder
	Johnny Tremain
	My Brother Sam is Dead
	Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
	The Matchlock Gun
	The Golden Goblet
	Hittite Warrior
Biography
	Archimedes and the Door of Science
	Augustus Caesar's World
	The World of Columbus and Sons
	George Washington's World
	The World of Captain John Smith
	Poor Richard
	The World of William Penn
	The Diary of Anne Frank
Mystery
	The Mysterious Benedict Society
	The Treasure of Alphaeus Winterborn
	The Westing Game
	The Ides of April
Fantasy
	A Wrinkle in Time
	The Hobbit
	The Book of Three
	Eragon
	Alice in Wonderland
	The Wizard of Oz
Adventure
	Call It Courage
	Island of the Blue Dolphins
	Treasure Island
	The Sign of the Beaver
	The Great Brain
	The Secret Garden
	Anne of Green Gables
	Tom Sawyer
Plays
	Theatre for Young Audiences: 20 Great Plays for Children
Tragedy
	The Bridge to Terabithia
	Where the Red Fern Grows
Poetry
	The Random House Book of Poetry for Children

Elementary Academics

I applied to teach a class on homeschooling at the UHEA conference this year. They accepted my proposal and I just sent in my Handout last night. I thought some of you might be interested, so here it is:

Elementary Academics

Philosophy of Education-- My overall philosophy of education is that children need to learn and do stuff. How they do it is less important than what they do. So the most important thing for the parent to figure out is what they think their child needs to learn. The end goal will help you get them there.

So for me in the area of academics my husband and I have mapped out where we would like our children to be with each subject. These are some of the things we want them to know, master and be familiar with:

For Mathematics -- Calculus.
For Logic and Grammar -- Latin
For History -- A good working and in depth knowledge
For Music -- Play an instrument and understand music theory
For Art-- Know the great artists and be able to draw well
For Science -- Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy
For Economics -- Markets, Business, Government
Literature and Philosophy -- Great Books of the Western World
Home Skills, Cooking, Gardening, Life Skills
Love of Learning and Reading
Religion -- Know our Faith and Scriptures and love and obey God

Your list may be very similar or different or both.

So now that I’ve established where I want to go I can figure out how to get there.

First Skills -- They must be able to read and write and do arithmetic.

So we start as soon as the kids are ready usually around age 4 especially for the younger ones who are watching the older ones.

For Reading I like to use several resources.

First to learn the letters I recommend “The Letter Factory” by Leap Frog. Now they know the letters and their sounds.

The next step is to start putting the sounds together to make new sounds and then words. So to do this, practice saying words slow and then fast and letting the new reader guess which word it is. Then they are ready to start ready easy books like Bob books or other reading curriculums. My favorite is the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Reading by Jessie Wise. My first daughter learned to read on McGuffy and Bob Books. The second daughter memorized those easy words quickly and never learned to sound them out so That book solved that issue. I also love Diane Hopkins “Phonics Games” from www.ldfr.com . That really helped her learn all the different phonetic combinations, and my boys have enjoyed it also. It just takes practice, practice, practice. If it is too hard or frustrating, find something easier for them to read, and pretty soon they will take off.

For writing I like to teach my kids cursive first because it teaches them that there are spaces between the words and they can’t write it backwards. I print off the scripture of the week in grey or another light color and school script dashed font because it’s free and they trace as much as I tell them given their ability. Eventually they are able to copy and write on their own.

For Math-- I love Singapore Math. I like their approach and their format and I like that they have the results to match-- #1 in math in the world. The kindergarten books get them so ready for level 1 and they are fun and colorful and make sense. When we need extra help, then we go to the textbook but otherwise we just work through the workbooks. Keep up on checking to make sure they are doing it right, and again go back to easier problems if they get too frustrated so they get the concept and then they will be able to continue on through their book.

If they keep up with Singapore Math they will be ready for Algebra in 6th or 7th grade which will get them to calculus their sophomore or junior year.

Then to get them used to beautiful language and language usage and to love learning and books, we have story time. We have little kids story time first with the picture books and nursery rhymes and scripture stories. Then we move on to reading directly from the scriptures to other stories and longer poems turning it into big kids story time which consists of an interesting chapter book, a longer poem, a history chapter, a Greek lesson and memory verses ending with Science. I love the stories and resources at www.mainlesson.com . We love story time. The older girls color, draw or crochet while I read to the younger kids, and the younger kids play with toys while I am doing the older kids stuff. If they get too fussy then we eat lunch and put them down for a nap.

For music I like to play a lot of classical music. It seems to make the house calmer and happier and it really helps them with music later because they are familiar with so many tunes even if they don’t know the names. We also like to sing together. We sing all sorts of songs and make sure to include lots of fun little kids ones like popcorn, wheels on the bus, Fun To Do, pioneer songs, etc.

For religion we read scripture stories during story time and memorize a scripture a week and a religious song. Obviously, we try to be good examples and attend our church meetings.

So that for me covers the basic foundational skills that will be needed for the younger children. So far this is what has worked . On to the next level:

After the Basics

Once they are able to read and write fairly well, they can start Greek. Our goal is to get good at Latin and Greek is a good fun stepping stone in that direction. Greek has 4 declensions instead of 5 and they can learn all the grammar and concepts with the easier Greek and then Latin will be a little less challenging. Plus I love the Greek curriculum we are using. It is found at www.opentexture.com and is called Elementary Greek. Our pick for Latin is to start them around age 11or 12 on Henle Latin. So they should have very good mastery of the subject and be able to read many of the Great Books in the original Latin by high school age.

For writing and English Studies I like Singapore’s program Sentences to Paragraphs and Word Study. They are workbooks that are fun to fill in and cover things that the kids pick up just from reading but may not realize there are rules governing punctuation, capitalization, grammar, etc.

Also for writing, I require some sort of journaling whether a traditional journal or a story journal, it is up to the child. Out of there I find spelling words for them to practice writing. I also have some writing cards which I got at one of these conferences that give some fun ideas to write about. I also have them write up a summary of something they’ve read for me once a week. I also ask them about what we’ve read after we read and have them summarize the story for me during story time.

But the main focus in these elementary years is for them to be able to write well and quickly and to be able write down what they are thinking in their head. Then when they are age 10-11 they can learn to outline and other rules of good writing, and then to be able to express themselves fully with reports and journals and other compositions. Maybe they’ll write short stories or novels or screenplays. Once they can read and write and think, they can grab a book and figure it out.

For Science I again really like Sinagapore‘s program, My Pals are Here Science. They were ranked #2 in the world in science, and we love the pictures, the explanations and the activities.

For History we really like Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. When they are older I will also have them read biographies and other historical books. We read many historical stories during story time and movies can be a valuable resource.

For piano, I like Music masters and Edna Mae Burnam piano course as well as music theory books. My kids have also had fun playing the recorders from West Music.

We continue with the stuff mentioned above as needed for the older children and add things like reading time on their own and reading the scriptures on their own always with the end goals in mind.

Schedules-- Now that we know what we want to do, how are we going to do it?

Organize and schedule

1-- Your house needs to be orderly and dinner needs to be planned

www.flylady.net has worked wonders for me to run my household smoothly and efficiently-- follow her plan to the letter, there are letters from other home schooling moms that are very helpful. Babysteps- alittle at a time

www.childrensmiraclemusic.com will help your children pace themselves and be ready to go in the morning.

We have to start by 9 a.m. or we will not accomplish our tasks for the day. Clean up after yourself and require the children to help clean and pick up after themselves including meals!!

2-- Make a school schedule that your kids can mark off and so that they know exactly what is required of them. My kids also like to use timers to see how long it takes. Figure out how to make this worthwhile for them-- a trip to the park or library when they’re done, a special treat, free time, etc.

Other considerations

Co-Op -- Think about what you would like for your family and then figure out how to get it. We organized a girls club when my girls were younger and this past year we joined a larger co-op. This coming year we’re organizing a Greek club and doing some smaller co-ops. Just be specific and find or make something that will work for you and your kids.

Enjoy your kids-- Do School when it’s time to do school and be home and enjoy your sweet family the rest of the time. If it gets to be too much, take a break and then start over. Keep up with Math and Piano as those are skills that are harder to make up later. Don’t push too hard while they are little. Enjoy your freer time as things seem to get more time consuming and demanding the older they get. Just love them and encourage and require and they will do their best.

Health -- Take care of yourself, exercise, eat dark green leafy salads and raw foods. Soaked almonds are great. Cut back on meat and dairy products and all processed foods. You will feel better and be able to accomplish and enjoy more.