Latin Review

Come June, Quinn and I will have been taking Latin for one year.  It's one hour a week after school up at the university, with usually one week off a month for a scheduling conflict.  The teacher is wonderful, and Quinn and I meet him in a study room at the library.

Quinn by our parking meter

It's fun having that bit of time with just Quinn.  We have a routine that involves laughing over whether the parking meter will give us a receipt or not (it rarely does, so Quinn collects the ones we do get), pretending to trip over a mysterious bit of useless curb on the way to the library, and critiquing the selections in the vending machine if we have to wait for our lesson.  (Observation about candy choices:  Most of them are variations anymore.  There are usually a couple of kinds of Starburst, a few different M&Ms, consistently three types of Skittles, a variety of Cheetos, several shapes of pretzels...  The Snickers even come in different versions now.  The only unique selections seem to be the Reese's Cups and the odd Take 5 or Zero bar.  You're welcome.)

Quinn on the tiny curb

We also got a good laugh one day out of a whole bunch of caution signs in the entryway which looked like they presented more of a hazard than they were attempting to prevent.  Quinn and I find amusement everywhere, so even without the actual Latin lessons we enjoy our weekly outing.

I hadn't planned on taking Latin myself, and it's humbling to watch Quinn do so much better with it than I do.  I can't tell if it's because I'm just old, or if he's that much smarter than I am.  (Probably both.)  Regardless, Latin has turned out to be really enjoyable.

Latin Lessons

After almost four years we are finally getting around to Latin lessons for Quinn.

Quinn, age 4, excited about his new book

I'm not sure why he's always wanted to learn Latin, but back in 2011 to distract him from his impending tonsillectomy, I ordered him a copy of Latin is Fun online and he was really excited.

The problem was I didn't know Latin, and I wasn't qualified to teach him.  We got him other materials (he even has a copy of The Cat in the Hat in Latin), but without someone to guide us with accepted pronunciation we were kind of lost.  Latin wound up on the back burner, and there is always so much else to do it was easy to keep it there.

But I recently had a conversation with a friend who has a son the same age as Quinn who is learning ancient Greek, and he recommended we contact the Classics Department at the local university in order to find a tutor.  Turns out the same man teaches both Greek and Latin and was happy to fit in Quinn for lessons.  We've had two lessons so far and it's been a lot of fun.