Learning Latin is one of the main focuses of our homeschool. My husband was one of the lucky few to study Latin in high school and in college. He thinks that his study of Latin is one of the things that has helped him the most in life and we want our children to have that same benefit but better. Even if they only finish the first year, declining all those nouns, conjugating all those verbs and making sure all those adjectives and prepositions match up is a real brain exercise. Of course we hope our children will enjoy it so much that they will actually become proficient and be able to read many of the great books in the original Latin and maybe even learn Greek.
My husband taught a Latin class and the hardest part for everybody in the class was the grammar. We want our children to take the National Latin Exam and that requires that the 1st year student be enrolled in a first year Latin class without previous Latin study. So once they are good at reading and writing, we start them on Greek because the grammar of Latin and Greek is similar with Greek being slightly less involved.
I have loved teaching and learning and Greek with them. We use Elementary Greek found at www.opentexture.com . It is a 3 year course which has taken us 4-5 years, I think we started in 2006. It was written by a homeschooling mom and it is awesome. My kids know Grammar!! They will be ready for Latin.
Then no later than 7th grade they have to start Latin so that they will be able to take the National Latin Exam that first year and be able to take the subsequent 5 exams each year thereafter. My husband will be the main teacher for this and he will be using Henle Latin. It is a little dry, but when they are finished with the course, they will know Latin well.
We are so excited!! How awesome would it be to be able to read those great books in the original language. Maybe I'll get to learn some too!!
