Latin through Stories Curriculum Levels
Curriculum Level Overview
We currently have Level 1 and Level 2 written (Level 3 is in the pilot stage). Eventually we plan to have six levels, one for each grade from Kindergarten through 5th grade. However, please note that Levels build on each other, so a school that starts Latin in 3rd grade should still begin with Level 1.
Level 1: Bestiae Ubique / Animals Everywhere: Level 1 is about animals in different locations such as at home, in the backyard, on the farm, in the forest, in the water, and in the wild. Main target grades: K-3rd (predominantly oral, with optional reading, writing and grammar for older students)
Level 2: Per Annum Latine / Through the Year in Latin: Level 2 introduces children to Latin by talking about everyday activities throughout the year and the seasons. Main target grades: 1-4th (predominantly oral, with optional reading, writing and grammar for older students)
Level 3: Fabulae de Hominibus et Bestiis / Fables of Men and Animals (currently in pilot phase): Level 3 focuses on fables, organized around the four broad themes of friendship and charity; prudence; fortitude and perseverance; justice and honesty. Main target grades: 2nd-6th (in this level students start transitioning to more reading along)
Future Levels, still in the planning stage:
Level 4 will focus on age-appropriate stories from Roman Mythology, Level 5 will an introduction to famous men and events from Roman history, and Level 6 will most likely include Saints and Bible Stories.
Each Level Includes:
- A teacher guide with fully scripted lessons surrounding a particular topic. Lesson components include:
- Memorizing prayers, hymns, songs, nursery rhymes, proverbs or poems in Latin
- Guided conversations about beautiful works of art related to the topic
- “Little Socratic Talks” about the topic, all in Latin
- Gouin Series related to the topic
- Guided reading of beautiful picture books (In Levels 1 & 2, most of these are traditional folktales, adapted and retold in simple Latin)
- Reader’s Theater Versions of almost all stories
- Powerpoints to accompany the “Little Socratic Talks”
- Audio recordings of all components and an audio-visual pronunciation guide
- Teaching demo videos to get you started
Levels 1 and 2 bring the Latin language into the child’s world; subsequent levels will slowly bring the child into the world of the Ancient Rome.
We all absolutely love this curriculum. From a pedagogical viewpoint, its a masterpiece. […]
–Katherine Pettus, homeschooler
Its top notch pedagogy (I’m a violinist with a knack for teaching, so I have spent since I was 14 thinking about musical pedagogy) and the results are amazing. I have a 6 year old who figured out that a desiccant dries things out, a 4 year old belting Latin songs while she careens down the sidewalk on a scoochy bike, and the 8 year old I bought this for grasps everything intuitively and remembers effortlessly. Even the dog gets involved!
Level 1: Bestiae Ubique/Animals Everywhere
Students learn to understand and say sentences about what animals do in various habitats: pets in the home and backyard, animals on the farm, animals in the forest, animals in the water, and animals in the wild. Students learn content knowledge about animals, such as animal life cycles and habitats, while learning Latin!
Students in this level learn…
- to recite three prayers, four bible verses, six religious songs and hymns (optional components)
- to sing 10-15 traditional children’s songs and nursery rhymes, many of them with several stanzas
- to understand and say around 16 “Gouin series” of approximately 6-8 sentences each (over 100 complete sentences)
- to understand and respond to questions about animal actions and habitats in the Little Socratic Talks (building from yes/no answers to increasingly long sentences)
- to describe dozens of beautiful works of art from Western and non-Western cultures
- to understand, act out and memorize parts of 11 picture books in Latin in interactive read-alouds as well as Reader’s Theater
Students in 3rd grade and up also learn explicit grammar:
- verb conjugations, with a focus on 1st and 3rd person singular and plural verb forms (all four conjugations are used)
- nouns in the nominative singular and plural, and accusative singular and plural (nouns used are from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd declensions) – the focus is on fully understanding the function of subject and direct object in a sentence
- adjectives in the nominative and accusative singular
- ablative of location
- throughout, sentence analysis is foregrounded (e.g. finding the subject, verb, direct object, prepositional phrase)
Level 2: Through the Year in Latin / Per Annum Latine
Students learn to understand and say sentences about their daily activities throughout the year. Not only will they learn to talk about seasons and weather in Latin, but also about what various family members do, wear, and eat throughout, and how some animals adapt to the changing seasons.
Students in this level learn…
- to recite four new prayers, four new bible verses, five new religious songs and hymns, while reviewing all Level 1 prayers and songs (optional components)
- to sing 12 new traditional children’s songs and nursery rhymes, many of them with several stanzas, while reviewing those learned in Level 1
- to understand and say around 16 new “Gouin series” of approximately 6-8 sentences each (over 100 complete sentences)
- to understand and respond to questions about people’s daily activities throughout the seasons of the year (building from yes/no answers to increasingly long sentences)
- to describe many beautiful works of art from Western and non-Western cultures
- to understand, act out and memorize parts of 8 new picture books in Latin in interactive read-alouds as well as Reader’s Theater
Students in 3rd grade and up also learn explicit grammar:
a review of all of Level 1 grammar plus:
- complete present tense verb conjugations
- dative of indirect object and possession
- genitive of possession
- new prepositions with ablative and accusative
- possessive pronouns
- throughout, the focus is on increasing students’ understanding the function of subject, direct and indirect object and possessive nouns in a sentence
Teacher Resources include all of the following:
- Teacher Guides
- 90 thirty-minute lessons, fully planned and fully scripted
- each lesson incorporates a steady review of everything learned, already planned out
- lessons includes lots of songs from around the world (using sources such as Mater Anserina, as well as Latin song books published in Europe)
- optional grammar components directly in the guide so you can use the same teacher guide for multiple grades (some of our current pilot schools are using it in every grade from K through 5th!)
- audio files for all the songs, Gouin series, Little Socratic Talks, Picture Talks, and picture books in ecclesiastical and classical Latin
- PowerPoints to accompany the “Little Socratic Talks”
- PDFs of the picture books for each level (around 8-10 books) – note that we are in the process of publishing these “for real” and will at that point, probably sometime in late spring of 2024, no longer offer these books as part of the preliminary electronic access
- additional materials such as reader’s theater versions of Gouin series or picture books
- an optional student book for 3rd grade and up (with grammar and writing)
Preliminary Access for 2023-24 School Year
Click here for more information on Preliminary Access to Latin through Stories