TOS Crew Review - Latina Christiana I Memoria Press

 

Are you wanting to teach Latin to your children and not sure where to start? Recently, Little Man has been learning some Latin with Memoria Press and their Latina Christiana I Complete set. Memoria Press is known as a Classical Christian education and has been a favorite among the homeschool community. We have been doing a review the last few weeks with this. For the purpose of the review I received the Teachers Manual, Student Book, Instructional DVDs, Pronunciation CD, and the Flash Cards.

 

Memoria Press Latina Christiana I Set is for grade 3+. If you are looking for a Latin Curriculum then this is for those just beginning Latin. No experience required from the teacher either. You can buy this as a complete set like I received or you can also purchase the items individually.

I was a bit surprised that at my 9 year old son’s excitement wanting to learn Latin. I was also delighted that Little Man was ready to get started immediately.

Latina Christiana Teachers Manual

This is a soft cover spiral bound book that lays out completely flat to make teaching easy without fighting with a book to keep it opened. It has 158 pages.

The Teachers Manual in my opinion is laid out nicely and is very helpful and clearly stated how to teach Latin. There is a lot of great information to help you out as a teacher.

The pronunciation rules are in the front of the book. I really like that the pronunciation rules are in front as this is extremely helpful to help you recall the Latin rules not to mention easy to flip too quickly.

In the Teachers Manual there is a Grammar overview to help those of us who know absolutely nothing about Latin.

All the answers are in the Teachers Manual. There is some very helpful items covered in the Instructional DVDs in the Teachers Manual. On the side it has an overview of the opening which is the Latin Sayings and the words in the lesson will be recited in that particular lesson. Background information on the Roman History and even the Latin saying is given which can be taught to your student.

The Appendix has the Prayers and Songs on which has both English and Latin. If you are musical the music is written out for you to learn.

In the Appendix also is a table of all the verb, noun, and pronoun forms. A complete vocabulary index is also provided.

We found the glossary very useful as it has the Latin-English-Derivatives and which lesson it was taught. It made it easy to go back if we forgot something that we learned in a previous lesson.

Latina Christiana Student Book

The Student Book is a soft bound consumable book with 88 pages. It has twenty five lessons and five reviews. Each lesson is spread out on two pages.

Each lesson is generally laid out the same way. The exercises include: Latin saying which is translated in English. Vocabulary, Grammar Forms, Translations, and Grammar are cover.

Some of the exercises are filling in the blank to the question. You will cover everything from grammar, derivatives, meaning of vocabulary, conjugations, genitive forms, roots, and much more. Each lesson there is ten vocabulary word taught.

There are maps of Ancient Italy and the Roman Empire in the back of the book. 86 History questions. The appendix is the same that you find in the Teachers Manual with the translations of prayers, hymns and blessings, glossary, and vocabulary index. You will also review information that has been learned in previous lessons.

Latina Christiana Pronunciation CD 

Latina Christiana Pronunciation CD is in a hard case. It has the Pronunciation Guide, Prayer Instructions, Songs, Table Blessing, Conversation Latin, Music Pronunciations; all the lessons are also broken down with the sayings and vocabulary of each lesson covered. This is great tool to drill to mastery of the Latin language.

Latina Christiana Flashcards

The Latina Christiana flashcards are on a sturdy glossy white cardstock. They are perforated for ease of separating the cards. These vocabulary cards have the Latin word on one side and on the backside have the English pronunciation. Both the conjugation and declensions are also included on the flashcards. The flashcards are also numbered. This is another great tool to drill to mastery of the Latin language.

Latina Christiana Instruction DVDs

This comes in a sturdy case with five DVDs. The DVD is basically the instructions on each lesson throughout the course. Each lesson typically runs around 30 minutes. Leigh Lowe is an amazing teacher and was very pleasant to follow her teaching the lessons.

How did I use this in my homeschool?

As I stated earlier I used this with Little Man who is 9 years old and in 3 rd grade. We did Latin 4 times a week.

Day 1: I basically started off having Little Man watch the Latina Christiana Instruction DVDs. He worked on his Student Book while he watched the DVDs. This was great because he could pause or go back if he needed to clarify. I would say it was around 40 minutes with this part of the lesson. (This was the day that we spent the longest time on the lesson.) Most days he would do both pages in the student book. In some of the lesson it had certain parts in the DVD lesson it would recommend you stop the lesson to listen to the CD with a certain hymn or prayer. A few times we had to break the lesson up in two days due to our schedule. That would change our schedule slightly.  

Day 2: The next day I would review with flashcards and the Pronunciation CD. Both old and new material we would go over. We did this for around 15 minutes or so. If we needed to finish up the Student Book we would also work on it. Little Man also worked on the prayers and hymns.

Day 3: This would be another review day. I would work with him for around ten minutes with the vocabulary that he struggled with the previous day and we would also go over the other vocabulary, prayers, and hymns. We did this for around 15 minutes or so.

Day 4: We would do the quizzes or do drills. Some days we would take the Pronunciation CD when we were out and about.

My Final Thoughts:

Little Man had a hard time remembering the vocabulary at first but, he was persistent and really had a desire to learn Latin. The drills really paid off. Sometimes he had to warm up at first and then it would come back to him.

Surprisingly, Little Man had a favorite part that was covered in Latina Christiana I. It was finding the English words that came from Latin! He started noticing words that came from Latin everywhere. We played games at the store or when we were out and about. Even my twelve year old daughter with special needs was catching on and Little Man was teaching her! This is where Latin is great for grammar and helping kids break apart big words and get the meaning of a word that they might not have known if it wasn’t for the Latin.

You can buy parts of this set separate but, honestly if you want the most out of teaching Latin then I would recommend the Latina Christiana I Complete set. I would have had a hard time pronouncing the words and even teaching it myself if it wasn’t for the DVDs. I don’t want to spend time writing out flashcards. I’ve been there and done that and I found that my time is much more valuable. It’s worth buying the whole set. Unless, maybe you know Latin yourself then it may not be necessary.

This is not a course that you just let your kids go off and be independent. You are going to have to spend some one on one time with them. If they need help and you aren’t there with them it will be really hard to fully appreciate Latin and to convey some of the concepts to them.

Little Man wasn’t very fond of the prayers as we do our prayers in Hebrew so, I didn’t spend a lot of time on the prayer parts. 

The neat thing is that you could break down the lessons in smaller chunks if you don’t have 40+ minutes to spend on Latin. Just like any foreign language practice, practice, practice to get it ingrained in your head.
This was a big hit in my family and I loved the ease of the program. I felt like a super mom teaching my son Latin. Even though someone else was actually doing the teaching! I was very impressed with Memoria Press and their Latina Christiana I Complete set.

Memoria Press has an amazing assortment of Classical Christian Education in every subject.

Some of the Crew also reviewed other materials from Memoria Press so stop by their blogs and see what they are learning.

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