A look back at the Latin year

• Dear 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, and 5th Grade parents
• Since the end of the year is near, a recap of the skills learned and content covered in Latin this year is due. 
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• The first half of the year the emphasis was on skills, and this is due to the difference between Latin and English word formation. 
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• Latin sentences, like English sentences, are primarily made of nouns and verbs. 
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• But unlike English nouns and verbs, Latins nouns and verbs are inflected.
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• This means that a Latin word has a stem, the first part of the word, which always stays the same and the ending, which  changes, depending on what you’re trying to say. 
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• For example, ambula- is the stem for the Latin verb meaning walk.  This stem stays the same.  
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• But to indicate who is doing the action of walking, you would add one of the personal endings. For example ambula-t to say “he is walking” or ambula-nt to say “they are walking”. 
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• These personal endings are used for all active forms of all Latin verbs that your students will encounter. 
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• There is also a rule for finding the stem of any new verb in the primer, which your students will be happy to tell you. :)
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• Because this way of forming verbs is counter-intuitive to an English speaker (though more familiar to someone who speaks French or Spanish) we have worked hard this year on internalizing this Latin verb structure. We have built and translated Latin verbs, using the step-by-step process of chants.  These chants are recorded in your students notebooks and you will have seen them on the YouTube channel acted out by me.  
• Since I tend to wax wordy, I’ll stop there for a few days. 
• -Mr. Grimm