Latin I Class Notes -- Week 5 (February 13)

Greetings!

We had a good class this week.  We continue to make progress in our endeavors to learn this wonderful language.

We began the class using an online "quiz."  This was a matching game that we played with two players.  These types of games help us to especially review our vocabulary.

In Chapter 15, we continued to work with the imperfect tense of Latin verbs.  We translated a story that had multiple Roman vehicles.  I have on the syllabus that the assignment for next week is 15b, 15c, and 15d.  (I did not make a note about whether I had changed this.  If it is different from what I had said in class, let me know.)

I told the class that we would have a quiz next week on vocabulary.  This quiz will have on it words from Chapters 13, 14, and 15.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Exercises from Chapter 15

-- Correct your exercises

-- Review vocabulary from Chapters 13, 14, & 15.  

This week's blog.

Class Notes

Homework, Quizzes & Latin

Have a great weekend!  Make the most of our winter wonderland!

Mrs. Prichard

Homework, Quizzes, and Latin

Dear Parents & Students,

A short note with my thoughts about scores and grades:

As the students and I discussed the class at the beginning of this semester, we brainstormed a bit about ways to improve the class.  From a teacher's perspective, teaching a language to a class that meets only once a week is a bit challenging.  For example, students hand in work one week, and don't get it back until the next.  In class, even though I hand back exercises, by the time that a week passes, students don't remember the assignment.  After talking with a couple of other teachers, I decided that giving the students the answer key to the exercises would help.  Now in class, students know exactly which sentences are causing trouble because they can be sure about which ones they got right and which ones they got wrong.  These assignments from the book are meant to be learning opportunities;  some students will learn as much (if not more) from getting them wrong and correcting their mistakes.  The work that they do from the book won't necessarily be graded on their knowledge or unaided ability to remember vocabulary or to translate.

I don't have quizzes marked on the syllabus, but I will be giving them occasional in-class quizzes.  Sometimes these will be about vocabulary and sometimes they will be about grammar and translating.  For example, at the end of class this week, I told them that they would have a vocabulary quiz next week.  These are not specifically on the schedule because I am trying to gauge where the students are at and how they are doing and am planning accordingly.  When I sense that vocabulary is not at their finger tips and that it takes a while to translate because they're looking up words, then I have a quiz.  If aspects of the grammar are not sinking in, then we have a quiz.  From my point of view, the purpose of a test, quiz, or even homework is to evaluate what areas are mastered and what areas need more help.  In other words, tests are as much for the teacher and for planning as they are for the student.

Latin I Class Notes -- Week 4 (February 6)

Greetings!

We had a great class this week.  Every week I see that more of the vocabulary and grammar are sinking in.  As we translate the stories, they are putting the sentences together more and more quickly.

We began the class with a "game" in which teams were to work through sets of vocabulary cards that were derivatives of Latin words.  Then, after reviewing last week's exercises, we progressed to the next story from Chapter 14.  This took the bulk of our time, which usually happens. 

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Chapter 14 Exercises 14b, 14d, & 14e. 

-- Correct your exercises with the key.

This week's blog & links to online games

Class Notes

Adverb Speedword #1

Adverb Matching #1

Adverb Speedword #2

Adverb Matching #2

Chapter 14 Speedword #1

Chapter 14 Matching #1

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard

Latin I Class Notes -- Week 3 (January 30)

Greetings!

I had planned on reviewing again last week and starting into the stories in the chapters of our book, Ecce Romani.  Even though we missed class last week, I felt that we were ready to start again into our stories about Cornelia, Flavia, Marcus, Sextus, Cornelius, and Aurelia. 

We began class with some online exercises that I had posted last week.  Some students mentioned that these quick word games were a little addicting.  I know that I found myself doing them over and over again trying to beat a previous score.  (And who said Latin was dusty and boring?)

I handed out a fresh syllabus for the class. 

As a class, we worked through the story, Disaster, from Chapter 13.  We have now progressed to using the imperfect (past) tense of our verbs.  Though we are a bit rusty and had some new vocabulary, the class did a great job translating.

For our homework, I'm sending out copies of the answer key.  It seems to make sense for the students to correct their own assignments and then come back to class with any questions. 

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Vocabulary Cards for all of the new vocabulary in Chapter 13

-- Exercises 13b & 13c.

-- Read Word Study (p. 101 - 103)

-- Exercise 3

--  Chapter 13 Speed Word #1

-- Chapter 13 Matching #1

-- Chapter 13 Speed Word #2

-- Chapter 13 Matching #2

This week's blog:  Class Notes

Have a great weekend and stay warm!

Mrs. Prichard

Latin I -- "Cold Day" Homework

Greetings!

My apologies for not sending out an e-mail before this with the homework for next week.  Our family is hosting a fundraiser at our house for our son Ryan who is in Thailand with Youth with a Mission.  The past two days have been full of cleaning, baking, and jewelry making.

Firstly, a reminder of the homework that was due for this Thursday which you should bring to class next week:

Assignments due January 23:

-- 25 Vocabulary cards (bring them to class)

Since I had planned to do some more reviewing in class, the students can review some vocabulary and word endings using some online resources.  One of the best sites that I've found for quick (sometimes less than a minute) activities is the Classics page sponsored by the "Abney Website of Cosmic Proportions."  This website has multiple quizzes, exercises, activities, etc. listed for every chapter of Ecce Romani.  Before class next week, I would like the students to visit the 2 required pages, and then go to at least 3 other ones for vocabulary practice.

Assignments due January 30:

-- 25 more Vocabulary Cards (bring them to class)

-- Required online vocabulary practice (bring your scores to class)

          Word Web Spelling --- Bring your score to class
          Speed Word -- Play 3 times
-- Choose at least 3 from the list below.  Beware -- they can be a little addicting.
          Small Words Practice

          Practice Nominative, Accusative, and Ablative 

          More Practice of Nominative, Accusative, and Ablative

          Nominative and Accusative Quiz 1

          The Adventures of Sextus

          Chapter 5 Speed Word #1

          Chapter 5 Speed Word #2

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Stay warm!

Mrs. Prichard

This week's blog

Latin I Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 16)

Greetings!

Well, we're back at --- translating this ancient, dead language -- one noun and verb at a time.  We started the class with a "Scavenger Hunt," collecting nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositional phrases from one another.  Learning languages is a challenging and puzzling activity.  Sometimes it seems that you lose all that you learned, and at other times it all comes back with amazing clarity.

This week we focused primarily on review.  As with many academic pursuits, students sometimes don't know what they don't know until they make mistakes or realize that they are completely clueless.  With that in mind, we went back to the first chapter to review and recall everything we could remember about endings, cases, conjugations, gender, declensions, etc.  Next week, we will continue with the chapters and stories about the family of Cornelius.

We discussed a few helpful ideas for going forward with Latin.  A few ideas that seemed to be good were to 1) give students the answer keys for the Ecce Romani book exercises and 2) have some online opportunities to practice with vocabulary, etc.  and 3) continue the beginning of class fun activities because they help some of the Latin to "sink in."  One problem that we had, since we only meet once a week, is that the turnaround for correcting assignments made it difficult to know when certain areas were causing problems.  With the answer key, students can correct their weekly work before bringing it to class and be ready to ask question for work they didn't understand.

I will have a syllabus for next week.  I was waiting for some input from the students before putting it together.  I now have a better idea about what will work.

Assignment for Next Week:

-- 25 flash cards (begin with chapter 12 and work forward to chapter 1)

This week's blogs

Class Notes

Week 1 Vocab Review

I'm glad to be back with this great group of students!

Have a great weekend,

Mrs. Prichard

Week 1 (January 16) Vocabulary Review

Class,
Below are some links for reviewing vocabulary.  Your Latin words are the building blocks for translating.  The better you know them, the easier the translating will be!

Tricky Little Words from Ch. 1 - 6
Spelling One
Spelling Two
Matching One
Matching Two

Have fun!