English (via Latin)

I am sure you can tell I am pretty excited about school next year, I cannot seem to stop talking [blogging] about what we are learning now, what we are doing next year and so on.  This seems to happen every year, I start planning for the next and can hardly wait!

One of the subjects we are going to add (consistently) is Latin.  (I say consistently because this past year we dabbled with Critical Thinking’s Latin book, but it was too “work-booky” for me)  Next year we are using “English from the Roots Up” and so far it looks amazing!

English From the Roots Up 1 with Cards (Help for Reading, Writing, Spelling, and S.A.T. Scores, Volume 1)

 

I knew I was going to use this with my two older boys (10yo, and 8yo) but after reading the introduction to this book, I realized that I should be using it with everyone – 5 and up!  It is a very gentle approach to Latin & Greek which we love and seem to thrive in.  I love the concept of Latin too because this is the foundation for understanding our vocabulary. 

I always struggled with the verbal portion of my SATs.  I even went to a class to learn how to do better, but you cannot teach someone this stuff in “4 easy weeks,” this is more of a build as you go over years approach.

I am so excited about this program because I know it is going to help my kids understand their vocabulary words so much better than I ever did.  I know my Kindergartener may not be too interested every time we break out this book, but I know she will pick lots of it up anyway.   Once again, I made up some notebooking pages to go with this book.

So far I have the Latin Word Pages done, still need to finish up the Green Greek words.  I should get them up today or tomorrow.  I plan to work one word a week, use their system of notecards in a box for them to review.  But I like the “draw a picture” part for my young minds, and I like that they will have a notebook as a reference when it is all done as well!

In this book the author tells us that the earlier we introduce this stuff the better.  I love the CM (Charlotte Mason) approach for waiting on lots of stuff – almost all of it – but if you think about it, we are using Latin every day when we speak, why not start letting them understand it earlier?  I seem to agree with their approach and am thrilled to be working this into our school next year.

Latin Word Root Notebooking Pages

Greek Word Root Notebooking Pages