Great Latin Adventure sample pages
The Great Latin Adventure consists of units in which several Latin-to-English chapters are followed by an English-to-Latin review chapter.
Below I introduce sample pages from a Latin-to-English chapter first, then I briefly describe how an English-to-Latin review chapter differs.
Each document type is labelled so that you can see which documents are included in a teacher's manual and which are included in a student book.
User experiences
The extended reviews page features in-depth comments by users on the document types described below.
A Latin-to-English chapter
Teaching Notes (Teacher's Manual)
The teaching notes for each chapter are a wealth of hints and tips to make your life easier as a teacher. They cover a range of topics: flash cards, grammar lesson fine points, specific translation sentence issues, quiz preparation and more. There's something for both new and experienced teachers, all divided into easy-to-navigate sections.
Vocabulary List (Teacher's Manual, Student Book)
The first document a student encounters in each chapter is the vocabulary list. To give children time to acquire memorization skills, vocabulary lists increase gradually in length throughout Level I, until they reach fifteen words in length.
Vocabulary has been selected on the basis of interest to children and also with a view to the usefulness of English derivatives.
(Grammatically, the primary focus throughout Levels I and II is on the first declension—the first Latin noun family—but certain non-first-declension nouns are included, to provide the boys with some relief from the mainly feminine first declension nouns, and to remind everyone that later declensions are coming. But students do not decline these nouns.)
Please note that on the vocabulary list you will see macrons, or long signs, above certain vowels. The macrons appear on all vocabulary words throughout the text. They are a help to pronunciation, and easy to learn while learning vocabulary. For more information, read about classical pronunciation. Macron use is optional, though, and this is discussed in the teacher's manual.
Under certain vowels you will also see underlining. The underlining appears only on the vocabulary lists, and indicates the stressed syllable for words of three or more syllables. All features of the vocabulary lists are explained in the text.
Grammar Lesson (Teacher's Manual, Student Book)
The grammar lesson comes next. A keynote of The Great Latin Adventure is the exceptionally clear and thorough grammar lessons.
These are not the shortest grammar lessons you will find; that's deliberate.
Shorter lessons may look more accessible on the page, but they are not mastered well. Gaps, loose ends, and mysteries just cause frustration, for children and for teachers. Instead, I've provided plenty of examples and repetition, at a very child-friendly pace, and I anticipate and address common difficulties and questions.
Most grammar lessons are taught over two or three class periods.
Study Sheet (Teacher's Manual—key; Student Book—worksheet)
Students learn best when they interact with what they are learning. Each chapter
of The Great Latin Adventure has its own fill-in-the-blank study sheet to help students master and retain the grammar material. Filling out the study sheet prepares students for the translation work later in the chapter, and the completed study sheet provides a grammar lesson summary which students use in studying for the final chapter quiz.
Derivative Worksheet (Teacher's Manual—key; Student Book—worksheet)
Extensive derivative worksheets are a very popular feature of The Great Latin Adventure.
Simple definitions, accessible yet well-written example sentences, and the fun Word Detective feature help students succeed with these big words.
Students fill in the correct Latin ancestor of each derivative, taking a useful look back at their new vocabulary in the process. They then complete short groups of fill-in-the-blank sentences using their new derivatives. The short groups make this a very attainable exercise, even though these are big words.
Often I supply only one derivative of a given Latin word, and this makes it especially easy for students to choose the right answer. When I supply more than one derivative from the same Latin ancestor, this provides an extra challenge.
Chapter 17 Derivative Worksheet
Translation Worksheets (Teacher's Manual—key; Student Book—worksheet)
Each chapter has at least two translation worksheets. These represent the centerpiece of student work in the chapter.
Translation worksheets culminate in translation sentences, of course, but equally important are the exercises which lead up to the translation. Translation is a multi-faceted skill consisting of many sub-skills. There are facts that must be remembered and applied, and smaller operations that need to be combined into
the larger operation of translating a complete sentence.
To help students remember the necessary facts, translation worksheets repeat certain study sheet questions. (Repetition is the mother of memory!) Other exercises help students focus on one translation task at a time, in small, manageable units. Prepared in this way, students are ready for the best part—the complete sentences.
Chapter 17 has two translation worksheets; here's the second one.
Chapter 17 Translation Worksheet 2
Vocabulary Pre-Quiz (Teacher's Manual has both quizzes and keys)
Memorizing each chapter's vocabulary is essential to success. To make sure that it happens, and on time, I've supplied a vocabulary pre-quiz for each chapter. The vocabulary pre-quizzes are an exception to the rule that all work is Latin-to-English in a Latin-to-English chapter, and English-to-Latin in an English-to-Latin chapter: the vocabulary quizzes are bi-directional in all chapters. Making the vocabulary quizzes bi-directional ensures good memorization habits, and gives students a head start on thinking in the English-to-Latin direction even before they come to the English-to-Latin review chapter at the end of a unit.
The vocabulary quizzes are administered mid-chapter, to confer maximum benefit on the student.
Chapter 17 Vocabulary Pre-Quiz
Chapter Quiz (Teacher's Manual has both quizzes and keys)
The student's crowning achievement in each chapter is the chapter quiz. Chapter quizzes contain the same types of material as translation worksheets, plus a number of derivative sentences.
It's truly exciting and rewarding to see young students confidently tackling these challenging-looking chapter quizzes! Following the chapter sequence you've just read about, they are ready—and they do well.
Answer Keys (Teacher's Manual)
All answer keys are complete copies of the student worksheet pages, not just lists of answers. I'll give just one as an example.
Chapter 17 Translation Worksheet 2 key
English-to-Latin chapter variations
After several Latin-to-English chapters comes an English-to-Latin review chapter, in which all translation work is done in the English-to-Latin direction. For why it's so important to do significant English-to-Latin work, please see the Latin curriculum page.
To support the English-to-Latin translation students will do in these chapters, the grammar lessons are specially designed. They are not merely reviews of the Latin-to-English grammar lessons, though they are reviews. They also address the special problems and challenges of handling a given grammatical topic in the harder English-to-Latin direction.
Translation worksheets in the later English-to-Latin chapters feature part-of-speech labelling and word order helps. These look complicated, but are actually helpful to the student, as they help break down the complex English-to-Latin translation task into smaller steps. They also help the teacher in various ways, and this is explained in the applicable teaching notes.
I'm providing an English-to-Latin translation worksheet answer key, so you can see both of these features. (Because word order helps are provided to the student, these appear on student worksheets as well as on keys, but the part-of-speech labelling is something that the student does, so it appears only on the answer key.)
Chapter 22 Translation Worksheet 2 key
There are a number of other differences between the two types of chapters, all flowing from the fact that English-to-Latin chapters are review chapters. There's
no new vocabulary in an English-to-Latin chapter; derivative worksheets and vocabulary pre-quizzes review the derivatives and vocabulary of the Latin-to-English chapters in the unit. Study sheets in English-to-Latin chapters also contain review questions.
Level I sample chapter: Chapter 4
Chapters 17 and 22 are from Level II of The Great Latin Adventure. Here's a complete Level I sample chapter. I've given you the teacher's manual version of the chapter, which includes everything the student receives—as keys, not blanks, where applicable—along with the teacher-only materials.
Tables of Contents
Now that you've seen how typical chapters are structured and organized, you may also be interested in viewing the complete table of contents for each level of The Great Latin Adventure.
Level I Student Book Table of Contents
Level I Teacher's Manual Table of Contents
Level II Student Book Table of Contents
Level II Teacher's Manual Table of Contents
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