TOS Homeschool Crew Review~ Memoria Press

I can’t believe we’re learning Latin. Lol.

I’d heard for a long time that the study of Latin is fantastic for a person’s vocabulary, and as I’m sure Ninja would very willingly tell you, I’m constantly reminding her that she needs to work on her vocabulary skills, but I don’t know that I saw my children and myself actually studying Latin. I mean, I knew that we’d eventually use some curriculum covering Greek and Latin, but I don’t know… it seemed a little too formal for us. So when I was contacted by Memoria Press and they told me they were sending Latina Christiana I and Famous Men of Rome, I was a bit worried about whether or not we could handle it.

Latina Christiana I is a Latin program for students in grades 3 and up. It’s designed for the parent or teacher with no background in Latin.

When the box arrived on our doorstep I looked over the products and was amazed that Memoria Press sent us so many products. Not only did we receive  Latina Christiana I, along with the teacher’s manual, but there was also Famous Men of Rome, (FMOR), with it’s accompanying Student Guide, Teacher Guide, an audio CD for practicing our Latin Grammar and conjugations, plus instructional DVDs for Latina Christiana 1!! Cool, huh?

Latina Christiana I is very affordable. The set of Teacher Manual, Student Book & Pronunciation CD is $39.95. You can always buy them individually if you need to, say, if you have an extra student, the individual price for the student book is only $15.00.

The teacher’s guide for Latina Christiana I is easy to use and it also contains a study guide for lessons 1-13 of Famous Men of Rome. There are reproducible pages for your student and/or yourself to practice writing your conjugations, Latin sayings and vocabulary. And the index has many useful lists. I was amazed when I saw how many English words derived from Latin we’ll be learning. In the FMOR books, besides the exciting stories, there are maps and charts with hints to help remember characters and their traits.

Famous Men of Rome is a nice compliment to your Latin studies. I gives a history of Rome and therefore a way for your children to relate to the study of Latin much more easily. Tink really likes this book. Lately she’s been making sure that we read more or even work on the study guide every day. Now I do have to insert a little warning here: The stories don’t exactly make clear that the mythical gods were not real people. Honestly, never having studied the history of Rome myself, I’m not exactly sure where the mythology leaves off and real historical characters come into play in this book. Also, please keep in mind that there is discussion about battles and characters are slain so if you have a sensitive child who could handle maybe the Latin for example, but might be bothered by characters in the stories being killed in battle, use caution. There certainly hasn’t been anything gory but I know what it’s like to have a child that’s sensitive, so I wanted to be sure to give fair warning.

Now for my very favorite item that arrived in the box: the Latina Christiana Instructional DVDs. These are lovely! Instead of having to be sure I understand how to teach the lesson before presenting it to my students, I simply pop in the DVD and the lovely Ms. Leigh Lowe presents the lesson for me. Now, these are not an absolute necessity when teaching Latina Christiana, but they sure to make life very nice for the teacher. I love simply being a student with Tink. The price for this five DVD set is $55, but I for one would certainly scrape up the extra money to purchase them, without a doubt.

Tink and I are thoroughly enjoying our study of Latin and the Famous Men of Rome. I had no clue learning a dead language such as Latin could be so fun and I’m very pleased that Tink is so motivated to learn about historical Romans. This will be a nice foundation for her when she studies more about Rome later.

Be sure to read  what the rest of the Crew had to say about their choices from Memoria Press. Not all of us received the same products, so if there’s something you’ve been eyeing from Memoria Press, someone else on the Crew may have reviewed it.