Olim, Once Upon a Time, In Latin Workbook III

We liked the setup of Olim, Once Upon a Time in Latin Reader and Workbook III. We have used several Latin studies and curriculums and this is a very easy to use way of studying Latin. The lessons are short, the stories are familiar, which makes reading them in Latin a little easier, and the guides are very user friendly, making it a very good Latin independent study. You do not have to have had prior Latin experience to work with this program.

The workbook has several exercise for each part of the story. Basically, a student reads one page and then does a workbook exercise on what they read. An exercise is identified by Roman numeral and is one to two pages in length. The Latin grammar is taught in the workbooks with simple exercises like fill-in the blank, vocabulary and even matching in English and Latin. Every few lessons there is a Digging Deeper section that goes deeper into the grammar like derivatives, verb tense, and infinitives. At the end of each story and its exercises there is a Ready to Take the Challenge? and Digging for Treasure sections. The Challenge section has the student translate English sentences into Latin. The Digging for Treasure has the student write the English translation to Latin works and then unscramble them to “make sense,” finding a Bible verse hidden once translated and unscrambled. The book has many parent helpers included like answers being provided in the back of the book and a pronunciation guide in the front of the book.

I think this makes a wonderful complement to our classical studies and would like to see us use other books in the series. My daughter, who is 5th grade, could do it by herself. She liked that she could read a story in Latin after working through the lessons; she found this to be a satisfying accomplishment.

Tawnee H.