Attention all Latin-teaching homeschoolers who are barely staying one step ahead of their children as it is

Doesn't this look like a fantastic resource?  I am so buying this book when she finishes it.

This book is the result of a blog I started about a year ago, Verbosum, where I looked for proverbs and mottoes to illustrate basic Latin vocabulary. I was surprised and impressed at how well the proverbs were able to illustrate vocabulary usage, with an abundant supply of proverbs for all the basic vocabulary of Latin.

Then, earlier this summer, I had a sudden idea of how to organize the proverbs in terms of vocabulary: I could build the vocabulary, step by step, starting with the most common words and adding vocabulary one word at a time, thus creating a "ladder" or "stair step" structure. Hence the name: Scala Sapientiae, from the Latin scala, meaning a "ladder." From proverb to proverb there is at most just one step (one word) which you need to move on to the next one.

Then, I set as my goal to organize 5000 proverbs into this ladder formation. 

She starts with 25 basic vocabulary words (mostly functional grammar things like prepositions and demonstrative adjectives) and then the proverbs:

1. Do ut des (ut is from the basic 25; the new word is: two forms of do, to give)

2. Qui non habet, ille non dat (Qui, non, ille are from the basic 25; the new word is habeo, to have; the word dat is a form of do from #1)

3.  Nihil dat qui non habet (Nihil, nothing, is the new word)

... and so on.

I'm going to start using this, literally, TODAY.   I don't know what the kids will think, but this kind of thing is the way I like to think.

 

Comments

[Cathie]

I saw this this morning! I was so excited. Definitely a great way to keep Latin going over the summer!