Visual Latin: Lessons 1-10

Product: Visual Latin: Lessons 1-10

Contact Information:

Timberdoodle Co.

1510 E Spencer Lake Rd

Shelton, WA 98584

Phone- 1-800-478-0672

E-mail- mailbag@timberdoodle.com

www.timberdoodle.com for the main website for homeschool supplies or homeschool curriculum  

Click here for the free catalog                                 

Age Appeal: Nine and up

Format: DVD with PDF’s

Price: $30.00

Don’t know Latin and want to learn?  Then pop in this DVD and press play.  Each lesson has around ten minutes of video with corresponding PDF worksheets.  Each lesson broken down into: grammar, sentences and reading.  In the reading section is divided into: reading, comprehension and translation.

This DVD contains:

Introductory Lessons

• A. Why Study Latin?
• B. Latin Then & Now
• C. Stuff You Should Know about Latin

Lessons 1 to 10

• 1. Being Verbs Basics | To Be and Not to Be
• 2. Being Verbs Basics | Predicate Nominative and Adjectives
• 3. Gender | Boy Words and Girl Words
• 4. Singular and Plural | E Pluribus Unum
• 5. Declensions | Meet the Cases
• 6. Adjectives learn to Agree with Nouns
• 7. The Case Files | Nominative and Genitive
• 8. Counting to 10 in Latin
• 9. Active Verb Basics | Indicative Mood
• 10. The Case Files | Accusative

The instructor, Dwayne Thomas, has been teaching Latin for 15 years.  As you watch the videos you can see his passion with his jokes  and humor.  And the joy as your children can learn independently from him.

Video of Our Favorite Part of Each Lesson

Our Experience:

I think Latin is one of those important languages to learn to help improve your English vocabulary and more easily learn other foreign languages. 

The PDF videos and worksheets worked very well for us.  We would were not working on the rest of our school work at the time of this review, so we were able to concentrate on learning one lesson a day.  We did take more time on the more difficult lessons, like trying to learn the declensions.

Since C is just learning how to read she concentrated mostly on learning from the video, but we did work on the worksheets together.  B had a lot of fun learning from the videos and working on the worksheets by himself.  It was fun watching their eyes grow bright as they were able to figure out the answers to the questions.

Our favorite part was the translation section of the video.  We had fun listening to Dwayne Thomas read the passage and repeating after him.  We thought it was great that the passage we were translating were Biblically based.

What I Liked:

• How B and C are eager to learn how to speak, read and write Latin.
• As you are learning the parts of Latin grammar, you are also learning English grammar.
• How the lesson worksheets complete the lessons by reinforcing what is learned on the video.

What I Disliked:

• The casualness that the instructor sometimes had during the lesson.  One example would be, when the phone rang and he ended the lesson to answer the phone.

What B (boy, age seven, officially in second grade) Liked and Disliked: I liked it.  Some of the lessons were tricky and some were funny.  Some of the worksheets were tricky, like lesson five about declensions.  Declensions are going to be hard to memorize.  There are five declensions to memorize.

In one of the lessons, Dwayne Thomas, the instructor, was talking on the phone.  In another lesson he said the shopasaurus, became extinct because he bought so many things there was nothing left to buy.

I think Visual Latin: Lessons 1-10 is good for kids my age. 

What C (girl, age five, kindergarten) Liked and Disliked: I don’t think Visual Latin is good for kids my age.  The worksheets were hard, because of the reading and writing. 

Mentioning Snuffleupagus and shopasaurus in the videos was funny.  I liked the videos because some were funny and that helped me remember the lesson.

Please go here to learn more about Visual Latin and how to order it for your family.

I would highly recommend Visual Latin. For more reviews go to “Because Mom Said”.

Disclaimer: I received Visual Latin for free for an unbiased review through Timberdoodle Co. All links were current when posted.

You can also join Timberdoodle Co. on Facebook.

Song School Latin- TOS Homeschool Crew

Product: Song School Latin

Vendor Contact Information:

Classical Academic Press

www.ClassicalAcademicPress.com

3920 Market Street

Camp Hill, PA 17011

Phone: 1-866-730-0711

Age Appeal: Kindergarten through 2nd grade

Format: Song School Latin workbook with CD (one time use) and Song School Latin Teacher’s Edition, there is also a website www.HeadventureLand.com with games (free)

Price: both books are $22.95

Quid agis?  Sum optime!  Is your family interested in learning a foreign language that will help them in learning now and in older grades.

Song School Latin has

• 31 lessons including 7 review lessons
• Option of learning the Classical or Ecclesiastical dialects
• CD with the featured songs
• More than 100 vocabulary words for classroom, family, body parts, seasons and animals

Here is a direct link to more information about Song School Latin.

Our Experience:  We were very excited to review Song School Latin, because my sister is fluent in Latin.  And this was a wonderful way to help our family begin to learn the basics. 

We chose to do a lesson a week.

• Day 1- learn the vocab and songs
• Day 2- Work on coloring sheets and listen to songs
• Days 3 and 4- complete the workbook pages
• Day 5- review current and past lessons through the songs

This method has worked very well for us and the kids are enjoying learning new words and phrases that they can use in their every day world.

What I Liked:

• The songs were fun and it helped B and C to learn the vocabulary.
• I thought the teacher’s edition was helpful, because it had the answers and extra worksheets that could be copied.
• Each chapter had the perfect amount of vocabulary, songs and workbook activity to make it perfect for a week.
• Having a review section every couple of chapters, really helped to reinforce the vocabulary.

What I Disliked:

• It would have been nice to learn numbers and colors.
• The kids would have also enjoyed learning aunt, uncle, grandmother and grandfather.
• An e-book option of the workbook would be nice, so multiple copies can be easily made.

What B (boy, age seven and officially in first grade) Liked and Disliked:  Salve!  Quid est tuum praenomen?  Meum praenomen est B.  Quid agis?  Sum optime!

I like learning new languages.  Right now we are concentrating on Latin.  We are having fun doing Song School Latin.  My aunt knows Latin and we are going to have a secret club.  In our secret club we are only going to speak Latin.

We learn a few new phrases or words in each chapter.  There are coloring sheets you can download from the website, then color.  Here are some words we have learned; casa, porta, murus, fenestra, frater, soror and mater.  There are songs to go with each chapter.  I like the songs. 

I think this product is good for kids my age.  I can’t wait to learn more Latin! 

What C (girl, age five working on Kindergarten) Liked and Disliked:  It was fun!  I liked singing the songs and coloring the color pages.  I like learning new languages.  My aunt knows Latin, now I will be able to speak with her.  I liked all of things in Song School Latin.  It is good for kids my age.

What Dad Thought:  I liked that the Song School program used simple ideas to teach Latin to kids. It was fun and easy to do. B and C both enjoyed it and used what they had learned at various times of the day when talking with each other.

What could have been better was to teach manners, colors and numbers after learning basic greeting dialog.

Overall Song School Latin is a good program and we'll keep teaching it to B and C.

Other Products Available: Latin Monkey Match, Latin for Children (3rd grade and up), Latin Alive! (7th grade and up), there are also products for Greek and Spanish, and many other products

I would definitely recommend Song School Latin for young kids.  For more reviews go to The Homeschool Crew review page.

Disclaimer: I received this product for free for review purposes through The Homeschool Crew. All links were current when posted.