Little Homeschool on the Prairie: Memoria Press First Form Latin Review

I absolutely love Memoria Press and have used several of their curriculums throughout our homeschool. I was thrilled to have an opportunity to review First Form Latin.

First Form Latin Complete Set comes with everything you need for a year of Latin study. This is suitable for grades 4-9, or as a follow-up from Memoria Press Latina Christiana.

Memoria Press is a family run Classical Curriculum since 1994. They have a full spectrum of subjects available from Preschool to High School. They have full curriculum's or you can buy individual subjects like language arts, Latin, science, spelling, geography, full grade sets, and many more subjects are available. This is an amazing Classical Christian homeschool curriculum.

Cheryl Lowe is the author of this series. The lessons are taught on the Instructional DVDS and the set has everything you need to teach Latin. You don’t have to know a thing about Latin yourself to teach Latin in your homeschool.

First Form Latin comes with:

Teacher Manual

Teacher Key (Workbook, Quizzes, & Tests)

Quizzes & Test

Student Text

Student Workbook

Instructional DVDS

Pronunciation CD

Flashcards

Teacher Manual is an essential part of this program. It is a softbound book and shows the same material that is in the Student Workbook for you to follow along with the lesson. Included is a suggested schedule. Several pages are dedicated to how the program works and it’s very detailed but, also easy to understand how to use the program. The assignments on each lesson are spelled out clearly. The lessons are also scripted for you, which is a big plus for a teacher who doesn’t know any Latin. There is also a lot of extensive teacher notes, and what they call FYI which is “For Your Information.” It tells you what questions need to be completed in the lesson, goes over some of the grammar. Oral recitation reviews, Latin sayings, Latin prayers, oral drills, when to use the white board, and sentence patterns.

Teacher Key (Workbook, Quizzes, & Tests) is a spiral bound book. This includes all the answers in the Student Workbook. I love that it shows the actual worksheets with the answers. The answers are in blue which makes it easy discerning which part is the area I need to check.

Quizzes & Test is another softbound book that has all the quizzes and test for a whole year. Each lesson has a quiz and each unit also has a test. A final test is also included. The pages are perforated so you can take them out of the book if needed. This is a consumable book and you will need one for each student.

Student Text is a smaller 8”x8” book. It is also a softbound book. I like to think of it as a reference for all the lessons. It has a lot of helpful information. This is also referred to in the DVD lessons and my son felt it was helpful using, especially when he got stuck and couldn’t recall some of the lesson. The Student Text points out the most important component in each lesson you need to know.

Student Workbook is a spiral bound workbook. Each lesson is around 4 to 6 pages long. There is a lot of variety in the lessons and the lesson build upon the previous lessons. Some lessons you’re diagramming sentences in both English and Latin. There are drills, word study, grammar, vocabulary review, and other components. The program is set up for mastery of Latin. This is a consumable book and you will need one for each student.

Instructional DVDS is a must have if you aren’t familiar with Latin. There are 3 DVDs with the lessons ranging no more than 15 minutes with a total of 9 hours of content. There are 34 lessons and oral drills. They are taught by Glen Moore who speaks clearly and slowly. My son thought this portion would be boring but, Glen Moore does a great job and makes it fun. There are a lot of illustrations, diagrams, and much more in the DVDs.

Pronunciation CD this is essential if you don’t know Latin so you can hear the vocabulary and the forms for each lesson. The words are spoken clearly and slowly. This is probably my sons’ least favorite part of the program but, he understands that it’s helpful with learning how to speak Latin correctly.

Flashcards are a nice thickness and our numbered by the lesson. The front sides of the flashcards have the lesson number and the Latin vocabulary words and sayings. The back side contains the English words and the grammar forms. There are a lot of flashcards and I would keep them in a container or put them on a metal ring.

How did I use First Form Latin in my homeschool?

I spent two days getting myself familiar with the program. The Teacher Manual helped me prepare to present my 12 year old son with Latin again. 3 years ago we did Latina Christiana surprisingly my son recalled some information once he did a few lessons. Some of the grammar was a much needed review for him. My son likes workbooks and this curriculum fit his learning style.

I really appreciated the notes in the Teachers Manual and found it extremely helpful. Overall my son was able to work fairly independent on the worksheets. I only needed to assist him a handful of times and I was always in the same room while he did his lessons. We did a few things on a white board when the lesson called for board work. Keep in mind that each child is different and I don’t see this as a really independent course overall. My son works well independently. I was listening in to the DVD and the Pronunciation CD to make sure I understood it and could have a better grasp of how to say the words. I did a lot of oral drilling with him.

First Form Latin has 34 lessons total. Each lesson has several worksheets in it. They average around four worksheets plus the quiz and test. A few of the lesson have more worksheets. I would plan a week for each lesson. For our homeschool I schedule five days a week. We spent around 30-40 minutes each lesson.

A typical lesson starts with us watching the DVD on Monday which averaged around 15-20 minutes. My son liked to keep his Student Workbook opened to the lessons and would pause the lessons several times to work on his workbook. It worked best for him doing it this way. They actually recommend that you open your workbook in the first lesson on the DVD to follow along! We would finish one worksheet on Monday which was always the word study and grammar.

Tuesday through Thursday we had the same routine we would finish another worksheets and work on oral recitation and drill on the Flashcards. It is recommended that you do a full recitation at least once a week. We would still go over the grammar throughout the week. The worksheets build upon each with all the exercises. We diagramed sentences, worked on vocabulary, and drilled a lot.

Friday we would spend a few minutes going over things we needed to review before we took the test or quiz. I also used this day to catch up if we got behind. This was extremely helpful having a makeup day if there were more than four worksheets. Lesson 6 we had six worksheets and ended up spending more time on Friday on the lesson.

I had someone recently ask me if First Form Latin is equivalent to a high school credit. I think you could if you add a bit of supplement to meet your states requirements.

First Form Latin is what I like to call an open and go curriculum. I didn’t need to do any preparation before as the work is all laid out nicely.

Memoria Press has some new items available and several members of the Homeschool Review Crew have been using them.

Traditional Spelling I