Last week I talked about taking a bigger role in home schooling our children. I started this process by spending some time in the mornings with my older boys. Mostly getting them started on the work that they needed to do, and adding a few things that they needed work on. (Essay writing for example.) The goal was to get into a rhythm with them and then start adding some of the other kids.
This morning my wife had laid out for the older kids to being their Latin. Say what you will about leaning a dead Language but, it is the root of a majority of the languages in the western world so really it is a great building block.
We have tried various Latin programs before with only minor success. Granted learning a language is all about the effort you put in and not really about the program itself. A program can certainly make learning easier or at least more interesting but for the most part it is on you as the “learner” to make it work.
This Morning we started “Visual Latin” from http://www.visuallatin.com/ I will add at this point that learning Latin is something that I have been meaning to do for a while so I will be working along with the kids and trying to learn Latin, so yes you will get some updates on my progress as well. I hope to have a review of the program (maybe even in Latin) when we have completed it.
One of the things that like about the program so far and I only watched the first three visuals with them, is that from the get go the “instructor” tells you this is not going to be easy, and that you need to put the time in.
The second thing he does is give you some ideas of things that you can do outside of the course work to help yourself. He recommends for example getting a dictionary, a grammar book and a bible in the language you are learning, start by learning as many of the words as you can, start to study the grammar and then when you think you have some of the basics start reading the bible. I think this is a brilliant idea, though I know it is not original, and I think I will be at least trying to follow it.
So far I have to say that I am pretty impressed with the product. This morning, as I said, we worked through the first three visuals, which if you are interested are on line and for free at the web site above. I encourage you to check it out if you have not. If you have used it before I would love to hear what you have to say about it.
-Jeff
The Great Hites 
Let me state straight away that I am not an educator or in any way an expert on this topic. However, if you still find yourself looking for very good intros to Latin, Hans Orberg’s Lingua Latina is incredible. It teaches via reading, and introduces the grammar in a very natural way. I would probably accompany it with the College Companion an the Exercise work book, but truly, it is definitely the very best Latin Text I have ever had the priviledge to use. And, in fact, I found that it makes Latin as easy (or as difficult) to learn as any other language.
Thank you for your suggestion. I will certainly look into that. So far I am pretty happy with the program we are using, but I am always on the look out for other good programs.