10/16/2006

Acting Out Latin

The boys like to act out our Latin verbs and nouns that we learn when we chant. When they chant the word for "work" they pretend they are hammering, and when they chant the word for "anger" they make excessively angry faces (I especially love the way Eraser Eater does it, he looks ridiculous) and claw at each other like animals. Today, Eraser Eater did the usual, but clawed toward his brother and ended up flying across the room and landing on his butt. He laughed and got up and proceeded to act like a "wave", which was the next word.

During our Latin lessons recently we learned a whole set of feminine nouns. Bear with me here, this is what happened as we chanted each one. The boys, seeing that they did not fit the bill of females, wanted to "act out" as usual, the words that they chant. My daughter and I were chanting with them, so they would point at whoever fit the description of the feminine nouns.

"Puella, puellae, girl, girl" They pointed at my daughter.
"Femina, feminae, woman, woman" They pointed at me.
"Filia, filiae, daughter, daughter" They pointed at my daughter.
"Germana, germanae, sister, sister," They pointed at my daughter again.
"Magistra, magistrae, female teacher," They pointed at me.
"Discipula, discipulae, female student," They pointed at my daughter.
"Domina, dominae, female master," They pointed at me. "Hmm..." I thought.
"Famula, famulae, female servant," They pointed at me. I started laughing.
"Serva, servae, female slave," They coninued to point at me. I was smaking their hands away.
"Amica, amicae, female friend," They pointed at their sister.

"I am your slave?!" I asked them.

"Yeah, you're kind of our slave, Mom. Dad always says that you slave around and do stuff for us. You DO do all the work," chimes in Eraser Eater.

At least they pointed at me when they chanted "Domina." Gee whiz.

2 comments:

Funky-Redhead said...

Cool idea. We use the Rosetta Stone software to learn Latin.
But, this would be something fun for us to do together! Thanks!

Anonymous said...

WoW!
I want to learn Latin with your kids! So cool.
Yes, you are the slave. It's that wife and mother thing. We do it so well.
Love,
Des