Pace of Instruction

[Kronenberg]

I have been teaching Latin (Cambridge Latin) at a Catholic school for the past seven years. I look forward to beginning LC-1 this fall! I only have the kids one period per week (effectively, 40 minutes), and only for about a maximum of 35 weeks (after special events/conflicts). How could I best make use of these time contraints? I will have 5th-7th graders. I would like to complete the book in a "year"...about 35 sessions. Any suggestions as to effective pacing? What about additional time for reviews, tests, extra enrichment materials, etc? Can some lessons be combined or presented in alternative orders? I am thinking about two and a half meetings per lesson (100 minutes), but this would obviously imply continuing for a partial second "year". I don't want to dawdle and get boring, but I also do not want to rush the kids and frustrate them (as was usually the case with Cambridge Latin). Ideas? Comments?... Luckily, my principal has given me total control over the program: he is very open to "interesting" new ways of doing things.

[HollyK]

I had students 5-10th grade. We met once a week for 55 minutes. We had a total of 28 sessions. My goal was to finish the book in one year. It is totally doable! There are 25 lessons and 5 review lessons. The way I solved this was to give every lesson its own week. On the fifth lesson I also assigned the review lesson. Students took the answers home with them so they could correct both the regular lesson and the review lesson. (They also had my phone number and email so they could ask any questions.) The next week they took the test. After the test I would speedily teach the next lesson.

So, week 5 I assigned lesson 5 and review lesson 1. Week 6 they took the test and I briefly taught lesson 6. The nice thing is that the two lessons after the test are usually on the same thing. So, while I had to rush through the first lesson, I could review it the next week.

At the end of the book when the kids are pretty saturated with vocab, the book includes review vocabulary which is nice.

I felt like completing the entire book was very appropriate for this age group and challenging-but not too challenging.

Enjoy the year!
Holly in N NV