Back-to-school season is upon us! If you are planning to include Latin in your homeschool this year, here are my homeschool Latin curriculum recommendations for the 2020-2021 school year.
SEE MY UPDATED LIST FOR 2021 HERE
**If you’ve already picked and purchased your Latin curriculum for the year, move forward with confidence! There is no one-size-fits-all curriculum.
And regardless of whichever Latin curriculum you pick, I hope you’ll find Latin Storytime to be a helpful supplement for your beginners! Join the mailing list to get notifications when new stories are available and access to each episode’s Parent’s Guide:
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Elementary: I Speak Latin
I Speak Latin is a self-contained conversational Latin course, aimed for grades 2-6. It provides fully-scripted lesson plans with phonetic spelling, so it can work well for parents with little Latin experience. There are no consumable workbooks or student texts to purchase, just the inexpensive teacher’s guide ($20 for a PDF, $30 for print*). Free audio files are available on the author’s website.
Note: Print copies will be discontinued at the end of August 2020. I own an earlier copy, so I do not know what updates appear in the 2020 edition.
Middle: Latin for Children
Latin for Children is a three-year course marketed for Grades 3-7. There are lesson DVDs if you need help with the instruction or want your child to work independently. This is a grammar-based course, so if your child is on the younger side of that range, I would recommend starting with I Speak Latin first.
Latin for Children is a beautiful curriculum and through its companion Libellus de Historia readers, it is a great way to integrate Latin with history studies. If you are doing a 4-year cycle of history, you may want to start Latin for Children during an ancient studies year.
High School: Lingua Latina
Lingua Latin Per Se Illustrata is pretty much considered the gold-standard of modern Latin textbooks. The text is completely in Latin which makes it the best for actually teaching your child (or you!) to read Latin without just trying to awkwardly decode the language. It does this through lots of images and Latin margin notes that guide you through understanding the text. However, an all-Latin textbook can be intimidating if you as the parent don’t have much experience with Latin. Thankfully there are courses that can help you use this text in your homeschool!
If you want to use Classical pronunciation (this is the pronunciation I use for Latin Storytime), School of Latin offers full online self-paced courses that guide you through Lingua Latina.
If you want to use Ecclesiastical pronunciation (Church Latin), Visual Latin offers a guide on how to use Lingua Latina with their video series.
Whatever you choose, I hope your child’s Latin learning this school year is a joy for you all!