Memoria Press-Second Form Latin Review

For the last several weeks my son has been busy working away with Second Form Latin: Complete Set from Memoria Press. It couldn’t have come at a better time as we just finished up First Form Latin a few weeks ago.

I received a physical copy of the complete set of Second Form Latin. The complete set includes: Teachers Manual, Teachers Key (Workbook, Quizzes, & Test), Student Workbook, Student Text, Quizzes & Test, Instructional DVDs, Pronunciation CD, and Flashcards.

The age range:

First Form Latin: 4th-9th

Second Form Latin: 5th-10th

Third Form Latin: 6th-11th

Fourth Form Latin: 7th-12th

Second Form Latin is set up in the same format as First Form Latin. It continues where First Form Latin left off and builds upon it. It also does review in four specific lessons from the First Form Latin. You will do reviews throughout to help with what you learned while building upon it in Second Form Latin. First Form Latin teaches you from the beginning of the grammar stage and by the end of it you will be familiar with the first 2 verb conjugations, noun and adjective declension, and other concepts. In Second Form Latin you will continue to learn more forms of verb conjugations. You will add in more noun declension, more concepts too, and you will also add 180 vocabulary words while still using 185 vocabulary words from the First Form Latin.

Teacher Manual This is a softbound book that covers each and every lesson. I highly recommend that you have this. I personally feel that it is an indispensible source of help for a parent teaching Second Form Latin. A nice feature is that while your student is working on their lesson you as a parent will see an illustration of the pages that your student is working on in the Student Workbook. 

The introduction will help you to understand the program and gives you a comprehensive knowledge of each section in the Student workbook works. It really breaks down each exercise for you. I like that it helps me fully comprehend the curriculum and Latin itself. Latin would intimidate me if it wasn’t for the introduction.  

There are also a lot of extensive teacher notes. I found beneficial the oral recitation reviews, Latin sayings, Latin prayers, oral drills, when to use the white board, and sentence patterns. 

 

Another feature is that the lessons are also scripted, which is extremely helpful for a teacher who doesn’t know zilch about Latin or how to go about even teaching it. 

Included is a suggested schedule. It’s very flexible to adjust to your schedule. Each lesson is intended to go through in a week’s time.

 Teacher Key (Workbook, Quizzes, & Tests) a spiral bound book. It has the solutions for the complete Student Workbook. Checking your student’s workbook is easy as it shows the completed illustrations of the worksheets. The answers are in blue writing which makes it easy to check your students work.

 Quizzes & Test –another softbound book for all the quizzes and test. Every lesson has a quiz, unit test, and final test. The pages are perforated for your ease to remove them from the book. This is a consumable book and you will need one for each student.

Completed page for Quiz 1 & 2

Student Text is a smaller 9 ½” x 7” softbound book. This is a reference for all the lessons.

 Introductory Page for Unit II

The book has an introductory page which will help you get yourself familiar with concepts and words covered in each of the unit. Mastery is important and the text can be reread over and over. The book has black and white illustrations and underneath them there is some interesting information about the picture. This is also referred to in the DVD lessons The Student Text points out the most important component in each lesson you need to know. 

The text is broken up in boxes and two colors that make it easy on the eyes and to break up the monotony of Latin vocabulary within the text.

Student Workbook is a spiral bound workbook. Each lesson is a couple pages long. There are five units that are broken down into 26 lessons followed by a review for each lesson.  A pre-test is scheduled on day 4 of each lesson.  If they complete the pre-test with good scores, the lesson is complete.  If they have not done so well with the pre-test they recommend that you take the quiz again the next day.

 A completed Student Workbook page from Lesson 3

You can see the variety of exercises from Lesson 3

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 There are 3 DVDs. There are 34 lessons and oral drills. Each lesson is no more than 20 minutes with a total of 8 1/2 hours of content. It goes over unit reviews, diagrams, lots of illustrations throughout, and much more on the DVDs.

The lessons are taught by Glen Moore. I think he does a good job preparing your student for the lessons. He speaks clearly and makes the lessons interesting.

Pronunciation CD   It contains 2 CDs. The Latin words are spoken clearly and slowly-which I’m grateful for. It’s extremely helpful learning how to speak Latin words correctly.

Flashcards are durable and numbered by each lesson. The front sides of the flashcards will have the lesson number, Latin vocabulary words, and sayings. The back side shows your English words and the grammar forms.  You don’t have to punch the words out as the Flashcards are ready to go. There are a lot of cards so you may want to keep them in a storage bin or my favorite is to punch holes in flashcards and keep them on large metal rings.

How Did I use Second Form Latin in my Homeschool?

I have been continuing Latin with my 7^th grade son who is currently 13. Since I was familiar with the program I didn’t need to spend much time going over the manual as I did the first time around.

I scheduled him to work on Latin Monday through Friday. I plan around an hour for a lesson. We varied from 30 to 45 minutes.

My son is watching a DVD lesson with is Student Workbook open and ready to go.

Monday: He would first read the Introduction page in the Student Workbook and then watch the DVD lecture for the current lesson of the week. My son likes to keep his Student Workbook open and will follow along in the workbook while listening to the lecture and pausing as needed. The lecture isn’t verbatim to the workbook but, he finds it easier to grasp the information and to work on the lesson while listening. The DVD is no longer than 20 minutes but, we found that my son typically spent around 30 minutes as he was also working on the workbook some. One Monday his worksheet has been the Word Study and Grammar.

The format is pretty much laid out the same in each lesson with some variations in the exercises.

My son is reading the Student Text and studying his Flashcards

Tuesday through Thursday he would finish up the other worksheets and work on oral recitation and drill with the Flashcards, and the Student Text. They recommended that you do a full recitation at least once a week. We diagrammed sentences, vocabulary, and drilled a lot with flashcards and grammar. We also added in the Pronunciation CD often.

 Working away on lesson 3 in his Student Workbook

Friday was set aside for catching up and for the quiz or test. I also had my son look over the weeks work and study for a bit before he took his quiz or test. We try to complete a lesson a week. At this point we are keeping that schedule. I know in the coming weeks we will slow down an have to spend more than a week on a lesson. 

My son was able to work independently on his work up to this point. I only needed to assist him a few times and when I needed to point out concepts, help him with recitation, drills, and other exercises. I would stay in the classroom throughout the lesson to assist as needed. However they recommend as a parent that you work with student with the recitation, chalkboard, and some valuable information in the Teachers Manual to relay to the student. I know down the road he will need me more from our experience with First Form Latin.

This isn't an easy course and takes a lot of hard work from you student. The lessons are not quick and do take a chunk of time in our school schedule. I think the time working through Latin is well worth the time and effort in the end.

 

There are 65 other Homeschool Review Crew who are doing different products from 

Memoria Press. You can see the many different products listed below. Don’t forget to stop by and see what the other homeschool families have to say about their experience with them.

Classical Phonics with the First Start Reading Program. 

Poetry for the Grammar Stage Set.

Poetry & Short Stories: American Literature Set. 

Poetry, Prose & Drama: The Old English & Medieval Periods Set. 

Poetry & Prose Book Two: The Elizabethan to the Neoclassical Age Set.

Poetry Book Three: The Romantic to the Victorian Age Set.

Prima Latina: Complete set.

Latina Christiana: Complete set. 

First Form Latin: Complete set. 

Second Form Latin: Complete set. 

Third Form Latin: Complete set.

Fourth Form Latin + Henle I:  Complete set.