Courses · Latin · Grades 3 to 8
Latin
The language of Rome, the church and the scholars, taught the old way: stories first, then chanting out loud, then making things with your hands. Each short course is built around real people and places, a schoolboy’s wax tablet, a birthday invitation dug from the mud at Vindolanda, Jerome at his desk in Bethlehem, Cicero on his feet in the Senate, and teaches the grammar those stories open up. Our free companion site, Latin Launchpad, adds matching games, flashcards and quizzes covering most of the same vocabulary.
Choose a grade
Ages 8–9
Grade 3
Latin is real: the sounds of the language, words of home, God’s world and the table, Roman numerals, the months, word detectives and a first song in Latin, Dona nobis pacem.
Ages 9–10
Grade 4
Words in action: one and many, Roman names, amo-amas-amat, little sentences like puella cantat, the children of Rome at play, and the Pater Noster.
Ages 10–11
Grade 5
Subjects and objects: the first declension and its five cases, amo and moneo, the verb to be, and who does what to whom, with the Vindolanda letters, Jerome’s Vulgate, Cicero and Virgil.
Ages 11–12
Grade 6
Endings carry meaning: the full first and second declensions, all five case jobs, adjectives that agree, the imperfect and future, Horatius, Cincinnatus and Hannibal, and a whole story read in Latin.
Ages 12–13
Grade 7
Reading real Latin: the third declension, all four conjugations, pronouns and the perfect tense, with Cornelia’s jewels, veni vidi vici, a real Phaedrus fable and Psalm 23 in Latin.
Ages 13–14
Grade 8
Bridge to real texts: the last declensions, the passive voice, participles and comparison, Magna Carta’s Latin, Caesar unaltered, and the student’s own Res Gestae.
How every lesson works
Each course is a short course: 5 units of 2 lessons, one lesson a week, about one quarter of the school year. Each week has three sessions of 30–40 minutes: one to learn, one to make, one to practice and recite. Grammar spirals grade by grade, the way the old books did it: each year repeats the chants and adds one or two new structures.
- Warm-up. A few minutes of chanting: the vowel sounds, the noun staircase, the verb columns, with a puzzle to think about.
- Watch. A hand-picked YouTube video from a trusted teaching channel, latintutorial, TED-Ed, Visual Latin, Magister Craft, Khan Academy, with a note on when to watch it.
- Learn. The story, how Latin works, and say it out loud, in short sections a parent can read aloud. Classical pronunciation throughout.
- Picture study. A public-domain painting, carving or artifact, Panini’s ruined Forum, the Neumagen school relief, Dürer’s Saint Jerome, the Vindolanda tablets, to look at closely and talk about.
- Activity. The student makes something every week: sound cards, ending-flip cards, a wax tablet, a verb wheel, sentence-building games, an illuminated verse, a family motto plaque.
- Latin notebook and flashcards. A notebook of dated charts and translations, and a flashcard deck that grows every lesson and is drilled every session.
- Worked examples and practice. Translation drills in both directions, Latin to English and English to Latin, with answers to check, easy through challenge.
Each unit ends with a short review and a unit challenge, such as a derivative tree poster or a homemade wax tablet, and the quarter ends with a family Latin day: the student reads a Latin story aloud, teaches the family three phrases, and unveils a family motto plaque.
Nothing needs to be bought. Activities use index cards, paper, pencil, crayons and things from around the house. Each unit also lists optional books and free resources, and Latin Launchpad has free practice games for the same vocabulary.
Every course can also be downloaded as one printable PDF, with the video links printed in each lesson.
Videos open on YouTube. Each one was checked for the lesson and for the content, but YouTube shows its own recommendations and ads around them, so parents should stay nearby.