Latin

There are way too many Latin programs out there for me to decide which is best. I only have personal experience with Wheelock and it was not a successful or happy experience. I have looked at Latina Christiana, Henle, Cambridge, Oxford, Latin is Fun, & Latin via Ovid. Tonight in my browsing I found some more:

Beginner's Latin from the National Archives
This free tutorial focuses on 1086-1773.

Latinum podcasts
I like that these videos focus on listening to Latin and on pronunciation. That was always something that confused me in the Latin class I took years ago at college. Well, actually quite a bit frustrated in that class frustrated me but that is probably best saved for another post.

http://www.linneyslatinclass.com/
I love that this site is specifically geared to homeschoolers and self-studiers (is that even a word?) I loved this even more when I saw a comment on amazon mentioning that the text used is available on google books. That sent me off to check it out immediately and now I have my own free and legal copy! I am excited to be able to start using this without having to order anything new.

Birds

I am in love with this post at Satori Smiles about bird watching with young children. So in love that I have forced my family to go to two different bird stores in the area during the past week or so. I have to confess that my main motivation in going to the stores was looking for these awesome stuffed birds with bird calls. I want them all!

I am going to use the information on that post to teach my first graders about birds this year and I am so excited to get started. I am planning to read one chapter from the Burgess Bird Book to my kids each week. I'm still playing around with different ideas: having the kids create bird journals, learning to draw birds, bird art, all the fun picture books that I clearly "need" to get the classroom library now. Especially this one:

I love the cover art! I think I got into this because of how well organized this post was and by realizing how many free resources there are out there that I could easily incorporate into my classroom. I also have a really cute tree that I am going to add each week's bird to as a display in the room. I have a lot more to think about and learn about on this topic. For now I'm getting myself organized by printing out the chapters of the Burgess book to put into a binder I can keep at school (I just love how my school blocks pretty much the entire internet so I'll have to print it at home) and deciding which books and other important resources (like adorable stuffed birds!) I need to buy.

More bird stuff:

 http://satorismiles.com/2010/03/17/birds-birds-birds/

http://satorismiles.com/2010/03/09/bird-journal/ 

 http://mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com/2008/02/valentines.html
 I really like this valentine idea and am thinking of doing something similar for my students.

http://www.spoolsewing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/birdpattern1-1.pdf
I just think this is cute... I want to have a flock like this mobile:

 

adorable photo (and link to bird pattern) from decor8blog.com

http://decor8blog.com/2009/05/15/a-delightful-swedish-home/

More French Resources

I love this site about French phonics. I don't know why it has never dawned on me that focusing on phonics would be helpful in my quest for fluency. You would think it would have since I spend so much time immersed in English phonics with my students at school. So I am interested to see if this helps me.

And then I looked up Jennie at ielanguages.com and found her post about French summer school materials which looks really helpful as well. I don't often look at Jennie's site but she is one of those people on the interent who I feel like I know just by virtue of how long I've been reading their blogs. Back when I used to daydream about teaching English in France she was my go to girl for practical information. And I need to find a daydream about getting to France for a longer season now that I'm too old to daydream about that program!

{photos credit to the internet at large.... i saved these so long ago that i don't know where i found them! let me know if they belong to you and i will credit or remove... they are just so pretty!}