I know that the thought of teaching Latin can be truly daunting if you have never studied it yourself, but I want to convince you that Latin can be the most fun language to study if you just use a little creativity and if you dare to spend a few minutes of each class deviating from the book!
Unlike many of my fellow homeschool Latin teachers, I actually do like Henle Latin for reasons that you can read about here, but I do believe that you need to bring in some outside resources in order to help your students (and yourself!) learn to fall in love with the Latin language. (Full disclosure: we now use a different curriculum in our home, which I wrote about here.)
A fun teacher makes all the difference!
I do not have a degree in Latin. I did, however, take three years of Latin in high school from the best teacher ever! (Shoutout to Ms. Bell!)
She was straight out of college and she was filled to the brim not only with Latin knowledge but with enthusiasm and love for Roman culture and history. Her students frequently took more than the required two years of language, simply because they liked her class so much! Our Latin club was a cool place to be and Latin convention…well, let’s just say that my future husband was one of the “horses” pulling a chariot that I was clinging to for dear life one weekend.
All of this made me enthusiastic to pick back up my Latin studies when I joined Classical Conversations! Honestly, when I started CC, I was a little disappointed that not everyone loved it as much as I did! The more I have thought about it though, I realized that a lot of my love of the language came not just from translating and parsing, but from the fun that my teacher brought to the classroom. With that background information, I would like to challenge you to incorporate some of these ideas to bring FUN to your Latin classroom this year! When Latin becomes fun your students will learn it better, you will learn it better, and parents will feel less anxiety over this subject.
Roman Names
On the first day of class, try assigning new Roman names to your students! Look up a list of Roman names online and pick something that maybe starts with the same letter of your student’s first name, or one they think is funny. You can choose for them or let them choose their own. Consider bringing “Hello my name is” type nametags or fold some paper to make labels for their desks. Try to use their Roman names during Latin throughout the year if you can remember. Don’t forget to pick one for yourself and add a “Magistra” (or “magister” for our wonderful male directors!) to the beginning to indicate that you are the teacher. Mine might say “Magistra Heather” or have my Roman name, “Magistra Hilaria” (because I think I’m hilarious!)
Salve/Vale
It is a lot of fun to begin your Latin class (or your whole day) with greetings of “salve” which means “hello” if you are talking to one person or “salvete” which is more like “hey y’all!” OK, OK, it just means “hello” if you are speaking to more than one person. Likewise, you can use “vale” or “valete” to say “goodbye” to your class at the end. This is a great way to help them remember those pronouns – tu, tui, tibi, te, te – see how that “te” can be tacked onto the end of the word to make it mean “y’all”! If that doesn’t make sense yet, you’ll get there, no pressure!
Speaking of Pronouns
There is a super-fun video on YouTube that was made by some Latin students to help them remember pronouns. I highly recommend showing this to your class or sending it to them to watch. It is catchy and fun. The students tend to either love it or hate it, but either way, those pronouns get stuck in their heads! You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFgYVVECYIQ or just search “Latin Pronoun Song” it is the one with 4 girls dancing.
Let’s Find Latin
I always like to give rewards for students who bring in examples of Latin that they find throughout the week. If you do a bean jar or something similar, this is a great motivation for them to earn beans by noticing the world around them! Maybe they went to a museum and snapped a picture, maybe they just noticed it on a coin, let’s celebrate whenever they find Latin in the wild!
Wear Your Latin!
I love to make and wear fun, nerdy shirts to class (like my “I put the Lit in Literature” Shakespeare shirt) so one day I showed up to class with a shirt that said “semper ubi, sub ubi.” I had a Little Debbie treat for the first student who noticed and translated my shirt. Several hours into the day a girl raised her hand in the middle of science and said “Mrs. Heather, does your shirt say ‘always where under where?’” I answered by tossing her a treat and going back to science. It’s quite possible that my students think I’m crazy, but they have fun with Latin! (Ok, I get it, it’s rude humor. If you don’t think it’s funny, just don’t wear it!) You can find this and many other Latin shirts and gifts in our shop!
Sing Your Latin
If you are a CC director, remind your students of what they already know by singing Latin memory work songs or talking about how they studied this same piece of grammar in Essentials! Studying pronouns? Adjectives? Adverbs? There’s likely a former memory master lurking in your classroom who can still recite the definition if they think hard! I always like to try to use Foundations and Essentials memory work to remind them of what they already know when I can! (If you aren’t part of CC, I’m sure you can find other Latin ending songs online!)
Chanting and Reciting
This is perhaps a little less exciting than singing, but I do find that chanting vocabulary together helps it stick in memory. For example, you could chant “amo, amare, amavi, amatus, I love, to love, I loved, loved” to help get the verb in your head along with all its principal parts and their meanings.
More Singing
I simply adore listening to Christmas carols in Latin, so I love bringing in some selections to listen to near the end of the first semester and on blue book day. Some of my favorites are Adeste Fideles (Oh Come All Ye Faithful) Veni, Veni Emmanuel (Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel), and of course “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” If your class digs this, you can find other hymns to bring in throughout the year such as Ave Maria.
Counting! (Actually, It’s Just More Singing!)
Feel free to make up your own songs in Latin! I remember to this day the song that my Latin teacher used to teach us to count in Latin, and here it is, to the tune of “One little, two little, three little Indians.”
Unus, duo, tres Romani
Quattor, Quinque, Sex Romani
Septem, Octo, Novem Romani
Decem Romani
It is also fun to bring in numbered buckets and a ball and play something akin to the “Grand Prize Game” from The Bozo Show to practice counting, or you could practice counting like The Count from Sesame Street, but in Latin. “Unus, ah, ah, ah. Duo, ah, ah, ah…”
Derivatives
I love to reward students who come up with English derivatives in class, for example, “is this where we get our word for ______?”
Silly Translations
It can be fun to translate simple, pop culture phrases into Latin. A director at my campus last year came in with “Te amo tria millia” meaning, “I love you three thousand” which was a big hit with the Marvel fans in the class!
Latin in Math
Playing Board Slam, N2K, or another dice game? Start the fun by rolling the dice and announcing “Alea iacta est!” which is what Caesar announced when he crossed the Rubicon. It means “the die is cast!” Yes, I’m a nerd. You can find more terms like this one here.
The Best of the Best
Below are my very favorite tips! They can be used separately or used together for an epic day of Roman fun!
Wrap a Toga
What is more fun than bringing in some bed sheets (twin and king work great!) and spending a few minutes wrapping togas? Nothing. Nothing is more fun than that! If you are feeling crafty, you could even bring in a few items for them to make laurel crowns with too! Remember the idea is to learn to LOVE Latin, not just to complete all the exercises! Here is a great resource if you need help: https://www.wikihow.com/Wrap-a-Toga There is more than one right way to do this, just have fun!! Wear them around campus! Make the other students look forward to being in your class one day too!
Have a Roman Feast
While you are in your togas, you might as well lounge on the floor and eat some Roman-inspired foods! I actually like to do this near the end of the year to celebrate finishing the Purple Henle book (I used to lead Challenge 1) but honestly, a feast is always a good choice! Favorite foods include olives, hummus and pita, grapes, sweet pickles, and white grape juice. You can do a little research and see what you can do with what your local grocery store has to offer. I always let my students know that Publix was fresh out of dormice when I went in, or I would have served those! That factoid always gets a reaction out of them, so come prepared with a picture of a dormouse if you dare! They will definitely want to see it!
Are you ready for my very favorite Latin tradition?!?
My family has literally been doing this since my oldest was 4 years old. I learned it from my Latin teacher, who learned it from her Latin teacher, and so on.
The Ides of March
On the class closest to the Ides of March (March 15), we assassinate another teacher.
WHAT?!?
Let me explain!
This is where our Latin, history, and Shakespeare studies collide! (For younger students, we are hanging memory pegs!) So, we take a little time out of class near March 15 and we make daggers. We typically use poster board cut into the shape of a dagger and covered with tin foil. They are not sharp! Even lightsabers will work! We aren’t exactly going for historical accuracy here, we’re making memories and having FUN!
Cave Idus Martias
We determine in advance who our target will be and as a professional courtesy, I always secretly give them a heads-up and make sure they are willing to play along! When the time comes, one student goes into the other director’s classroom and announces “CAVE IDUS MARTIAS!” which means “beware the Ides of March” (Ides means the 15th) this is the warning that Caesar received before being assassinated, at least according to Shakespeare and Plutarch!
A few minutes later, the rest of the class, hopefully, dressed in togas, runs into the other classroom and (gently) begins stabbing the director with their tin foil daggers. They relent as soon as he/she says “Et tu, Brute.” Which is what Caesar said to Brutus when he was stabbed. It means “and you, Brutus,” which many people believe meant, “DUDE!!!”
This activity is all in good fun, but it really is a great way to commemorate the day!
Dinner on the Ides of March
At home on March 15, our tradition is to have a Caesar salad with a Little Caesar’s pizza, and we “assassinate” daddy when he gets home from work!
We also offer super-fun Cave Idus Martias shirts and Et Tu Brute shirts in our Latin Nerds shop!