Henle Latin I Guide for Units I-IIHenle Latin I Guide for Units III-V
Fr. Henle's Latin course is now well recognized as a superior choice among Catholic homeschoolers. Many curricula have adopted it and recommend it, and also publish syllabi and course plans of their own to aid families in breaking it down the lessons day by day. For instance, Mother of Divine Grace School and Kolbe Academy both have their own plans available beginning at the High School freshman level.
Memoria Press, publisher of Latina Christiana and other Latin texts, has introduced a syllabi with a different formula: a slower pace lesson plan/study guide for use after elementary Latin studies, beginning in 5th to 8th grade (but is not limited to students with previous Latin studies).
The lesson plans are well organized daily, and every page is a five day week. Each day lists the suggested activities and students can check the box by each of them. On the first pages the layout is simple and crisp, but as the course progresses and more text is necessary each day, it becomes a bit confusing, especially since the days are numbered outside of a margin. On this “side bar”, as I will call it, there are occasional extra daily lesson notes, helpful and simply put. Unfortunately once in a while these notes are a little longer and get trampled with the day numbering. Hopefully Memoria Press will fix these two problems simply, by removing the days' numbers from this side bar and placing them right by the beginning of each day’s activities where they belong.
Our children’s Latin tutor looked at this and was very pleased with this text's format—it is a plus to have the five days on a weekly page and a system of boxes that can be checked as the work is done. It looks like it would be very helpful especially for students tackling Latin on their own. Latin, as the author comments, has a way of “piling up quickly”. Memoria Press’s Guide to Henle Latin I may be a very helpful tool for homeschool Latin students. Included in the course plans are many resources such as a cumulative grammar tests and a section on how to make vocabulary and grammar cards.
You can access information on these products, and see sample pages at Memoria Press' website.
Reviewed by Ana Braga-Henebry (10-9-06)
1 comment:
I really like the idea of taking Henle a lot slower partly by starting it earlier. In our co-op, where I teach with Henle, we do the Henle I book in three years, starting in eighth grade. We supplement with other materials (including cultural things to prepare for the National Latin Exam), but I think overall it gives the kids more time to really understand the grammar AND makes it a lot more fun.
Thanks for the review!
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