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MacBeth
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| Posted: Aug 17 2005 at 10:11am | IP Logged
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OK. Am I nuts?
*All four kids are taking German again, in the after-school program nearby.
*Paul does not want to take it, but I am making him go. He usually settles in by the second week. 
*Paul wants to study Welsh. I got him the Usborne Welsh tape and book. I think that's a fine start.
*The older two are continuing Latin, and the younger two are doing the English from the Roots Up, books one and two.
We are also all doing (to a greater or lesser extent, by age) Lingua Angelica
*The older two are begining Greek, using Reading Greek.
*I am begining Old English, something I have always wanted to do. I have been inspired both by Seamus Heaney's brilliant translation of Beowulf (not to mention Heaney's equally brilliant audio recording of the same!) and by a recent TV show on the history of the English language. I chose Word Hoard and Old English Grammar and Reader.
I am not sure how all of this will shake out over the year, but since these are all "electives" in our homeschool, I think a nice relaxed language hour each day will be fun. 
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MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
Nature Study
MacBeth's Blog 
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Erica Sanchez
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| Posted: Aug 17 2005 at 10:17am | IP Logged
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All I can say is WOW!!!!
How old are you kids, MacBeth?
We haven't started any foreign language studies yet. My oldest will be 10 next month, but I think I have an aversion to it all (left over from high school Spanish, no doubt). We did attend a Norvus Ordo (spelling ?) Mass last Sunday and the Latin was beautiful!! This parish will be offering this Mass once a month, so I thought we could at least try to the learn the Our Father and other prayers.....
Thanks for listing all of your sources/resources and good luck!
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Erica in San Diego
(dh)Cash, Emily, Grace, Nicholas, Isabella, Annie, Luke, Max, Peter, 2 little souls ++, and sweet Rose who is legally ours!
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MacBeth
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| Posted: Aug 17 2005 at 10:26am | IP Logged
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Hey Erica!
The kids are 9, 11, 13, and 15. And this is just an outline...I am not sure this plan is at all realisitic! 
Funny, but I have noticed that some of the priests locally are "sneaking" more and more Latin into the Mass. And when Libby is in charge of the music, there's even more Latin . Lingua angelica is a WONDERFUL introductory program for both the music and the basic "church" Latin.
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MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
Nature Study
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Kelly
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| Posted: Aug 28 2005 at 1:02am | IP Logged
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...And for littler kids, "Our Roman Roots" is a good "Latin lite" intro to Latin and Church prayers.
We always start off very ambitiously in the Fall, and streamline as the year progresses, but our plans are currently the following:
Daniel (the oldest) will continue with Henle Latin II, with Seton. He is also starting a formal German class thru Seton (we've done "informal" German at home). He's not a linguist, but he's steady 
Kristian, who IS language-oriented, will probably either do Henle III or the equivalent Wheelock thru Regina Coeli. She is planning to start "formal" Spanish, thru Seton (we've done lots of informal Spanish at home, too). She will continue Mandarin Chinese at a local school for homeschoolers.
Both the older children will continue with the Society of St. Jerome, which is a spoken Latin forum that meets once a week at the local college. I go to this with them, it's a great way to convince yourself that you're learning Latin...well, sublminally, anyway.
All the little ones will continue Spanish at home, and I'm hoping to be able to get the same Chinese teacher mentioned above to come to our house to assist us with our struggling Mandarin studies. How do you say "Help!" in Chinese???
Mom is taking up the gauntlet (again) with German. Although I've had a fair bit of it over the years, the rust is caked pretty thick.
MacBeth, have you looked at Regina Coeli Greek? By all info I've obtained, they have a great Greek program. Also, I think you're going to enjoy the Old English. My mother and brother both did classes in that, and got (and get) a lot of fun out of "spewing out" Ye Olde English whenever anyone (dares) mention the words "Chaucer" or "Beowulf". 
Also, thanks to whomever mentioned the LPH classes. I'm enrolling two or three of my children in the Latin Mass class. It makes such a difference understanding what they're saying at Mass AND understanding what they MEAN! And it definitely inspires the Latin studies at home when there's an element of comprehension going on at Church.
Kelly in FL, who would really prefer teaching ONLY languages and history in her homeschool...
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Martha
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We're just doing Rosetta Stone Spanish I for 15 - 30 minutes per day. Once they are fluent in it (approx. 2 years from now) they will get to pick another language of their own choice to learn.
Martha
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Martha
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MacBeth
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| Posted: Aug 28 2005 at 5:43pm | IP Logged
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Kelly wrote:
| MacBeth, have you looked at Regina Coeli Greek? By all info I've obtained, they have a great Greek program. Also, I think you're going to enjoy the Old English. My mother and brother both did classes in that, and got (and get) a lot of fun out of "spewing out" Ye Olde English whenever anyone (dares) mention the words "Chaucer" or "Beowulf". |
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I'm glad to see that you don't think I'm biting off more than I can chew.
Is Regina Coeli Greek an online course? I am a bit reluctant to try online classes, as we get bogged down just before concerts, recitals, competitions, etc. And we often take long vacations during the school year.
I like your plan! I'd just put science where you put history, .
Anyone else have great plans of language? Martha, does Rosetta Stone promise fluency? It would seem like a bargain!
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MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
Nature Study
MacBeth's Blog
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Kelly
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The Regina Coeli Greek I *is* an online course, but it only meets once a week. I know what you mean about getting tied to the computer...I hate that aspect of any class, alas. We're trying desperately NOT to get bogged down in computer appointments, but it's a tradeoff, I guess. The good news is Have LapTop, Will Travel!
Re: Rosetta Stone. I think consistent use of any foreign language program will certainly get you closer to fluency, though I don't see how anything short of jumping into a real, immersion speaking situation will gain true fluency, but that 's just my take. That being said, there's a great little book that I've touted before, entititled, "How To Learn A Foreign Language". Great ideas for speeding up your language learning and gaining that self-same fluency. Being a FL major, I thought I had seen it all, but this book had a few new twists.
Kelly in FL
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Karen T
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Well, we're not doing anything nearly as ambitious as Macbeth but we are embarking on something new for us. Last year we began the year with Latina Christiana, but ds didn't care much for it. He liked learning Latin, just thought the voice on the CD, and the pace of the lessons, was boring. We then tried the Jenney's book and it went a bit better, but really is more of a high school text (he was in 6th grade then)so the end of the year I just focused on vocabulary and declension endings.
This year I broke down and invested in The Latin Road to English Grammar, since his grammar needs a boost as well. We've only done the first lesson so far, so I'm anxious to see what happens.
I do plan to incorporate Spanish at some point, in more of an informal, but more fluency type program, for all 3 kids (the others are 5 and almost 4) since it's so commonly spoken in the US.
Karen T
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Mary G
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My littles are beginning French this year -- just giving them exposure to vocabulary, teaching them songs and games, showing videos etc. One thing I plan to do is using some of our DVDs that they've watched "ad nauseum" but showing them using the french language version -- not all DVDs have french, but some do .
For Catie, who came back to homeschooling because she wants to do languages -- she is doing Seton curriculum and so she'll do French with them. She is now, as we "speak" up in NY in an Irish immersion camp for the week so she can start learning Irish (Gaelic). We also have a Saturday German school here in SC, where she'll progress with her German which she picked up when we lived in Austria. We also have the added benefit of a good family friend who speaks German with her children all day -- Catie will go to her house once a week as a "mom's helper" and be immersed in German.
My 16 yos who is in traditional school is just taking french 2!
Blessings all
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Kelly
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Karen T, my children used "The Latin Road to English Grammar" for a couple of years, and it was a good experience. It strengthened their understanding of grammar and really jet-launched my dd into Latin: she LOVES Latin, and thanks to LRTE, started highschool Latin with a good, firm base when she was 11. I think you'll like the text.
Mary, your daughter's program (Irish and German) sounds like fun! Has she had Irish before? When I was 15, I was dropped into an Irish school, but they exempted me from the compulsory Irish---which made me mad at the time, but was probably wise. Doing, say, Science, in Irish, would have been daunting! But it's a beautiful language, tough, but very musical.
Kelly in FL
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Karen E.
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For "language lite", check out Travlang's Word of the Day. You can customize it to receive the word of the day in as many languages as you like, from Afrikaans to Zulu ....
http://www.travlang.com/wordofday/
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Karen E.
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Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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Mary G
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Kelly wrote:
Mary, your daughter's program (Irish and German) sounds like fun! Has she had Irish before? Kelly in FL |
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Kelly:
No, Cate's never had Irish, but is very "into" all things Irish/Celtic -- her history this year (an elective as Seton doesn't do history the first year) is Irish History where she's using the Cahill "How the Irish Saved Civilization" and MacManus' "Irish History" -- she reads chapter and narrates or writes notes and then she'll give us a presentation at the semester...
Her goal is to go to Notre Dame's "Irish Studies" program (or similar), end up in the State Dept for a while and then eventually move to Ireland....she's only 14! My ds who's 16 can't seem to decide beyond, "I want to go to College of Charleston because it's a great party school" -- not EXACTLY what a mom wants to hear (nor does my son like my retort -- "fine, but you're paying for it, not me )
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MaryG
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Kathryn UK
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We are carrying on with Latin Christiana which we started after Easter. We are doing it together with another family, which is a motivator . 10yo dd who would otherwise complain is chugging along fairly amicably, and 7yo dd (must update that signature!) is hanging on in with the others.
We do French, and have done for a while. We chug on very slowly, but are at least making progress. We use a UK scheme for younger children called Skoldo, which suits us well. My 7yo has ambitions to do Spanish as well, but I'm going to wait a year or so before adding another language into the mix - if she is still interested!
For myself, I'm planning to improve my modern Greek. I used to speak it a bit, but have forgotten half of what I knew, and as we are going to Greece next year I have the incentive to take another shot at it.
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Genevieve
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We will be continuing with Chinese. It's very informal and his fluency is markedly behind his English. However, he is starting to memorize some of the nursery rhymes. I have introduced some simple picture vocab books similar to Usborne's First 100 words ( I think that's the title). My husband will hopefully pick up his online Chinese course. Whenever he's into it, my children love to curl up with him prouncing the words with him.
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Kelly
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Hey Kathryn,
I did modern Greek in highschool and college, too! I thought I was the only nut who ever bothered with Demotic Greek It's sure to come in handy in Greece! I know I used it liberally at the Daphne Wine Festival outside of Athens haha...
Kelly in FL
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Kathryn UK
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Yeia sou, Kelly! Now I know for sure we are kindred spirits . What are the odds of coming across a Greek-speaking Chalet School fan? .
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Kathryn
Dh Michael, Rachel(3/95) Hannah(8/98) Naomi(6/06) (11/07)
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MacBeth
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| Posted: Aug 30 2005 at 5:41pm | IP Logged
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It's that blister pack time of year, and I'm sitting in a pile of little info cards. Has anyone tried Elementary Greek for Koine? I tried their website, www.opentexture.com, and it would not come up. Perhaps they are in the hurricane-devastated part of the country, or maybe just the server is, but I'm interested in the product, and if anyone has used it.
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God Bless!
MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
Nature Study
MacBeth's Blog
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MacBeth
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I see the Open Texture site is just bafflingly slow . It looks like a good product for my youngers. Anyone?
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God Bless!
MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
Nature Study
MacBeth's Blog
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Mary G
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Macbeth -- I got on at 9:17 (edt) and it came right up -- maybe you need to be a night owl to get it
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MaryG
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Karen T
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Kelly wrote:
Karen T, my children used "The Latin Road to English Grammar" for a couple of years, and it was a good experience. It strengthened their understanding of grammar and really jet-launched my dd into Latin: she LOVES Latin, and thanks to LRTE, started highschool Latin with a good, firm base when she was 11. I think you'll like the text.
Kelly in FL |
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Glad to hear that! That's what I was hoping for, since ds needs some formal grammar review. I think he "knows" most of the rules just from extensive reading, but for example, when we were doing LC last year, I discovered he couldn't name the parts of speech past noun, verb, adjective (and that one was pulling teeth)
We had our 2nd day on Monday and wrote the parts of speech and definitions for the notebook, so we're covered there LOL!
Karen T
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4Real Forums : Across Time and Place
Topic: Our foreign language plans for the year
