I’m teaching Latin for Children B by Classical Academic Press this year to upper elementary/middle school students. Whenever possible, I like to use their new chapter’s vocabulary and everything they know so far into a little story for them. We read it aloud in Latin, then I give each student a couple of the sentences to translate, and then they have to come up and not only translate, but explain each verb and noun ending and which chart is needed to find it. Then the students tell their part of the story in English, then we read it aloud in Latin again, with gusto, now that they know what it’s about. Thought you might enjoy it, too. Let me know if you catch any major errors.
Rēx dābat ōrātiōnem in forō. Dīcēbat: “Sum magnus! Teneō potestātem!” Subito latrōnēs clamābant et oppugnābant eum! “Rēx bonus non es! Senex malus es!” Mīlitēs eōs pūgnābant. Cīvitēs ignāvī hostēs timēbant. Eī currēbant. Proelium longum erat. Sanguis in via erat. Latrōnēs rēgem necābant. Eheu! Rēx mortuus est!
rēgem necābant seems also strange. Why the imperfect? Do you mean: they began to kill, they were killing, they attempted to kill? Rather, I’d use the perfect, considering that afterwards you say Rēx mortuus est!
Yes, I knew it would all sound stilted and awkward as far as proper Latin goes, but the Latin for Children series, for better or worse, focuses a lot more on introducing vocabulary and grammatical concepts and not so much on Latin usage. My students only know present and imperfect at the moment; I’m itching for them to get to the perfect tenses. Insofar as that’s the framework I’m working within, my main goal was to take what concepts they already know and what vocabulary they are learning, and have some fun with translating. As I said in my introduction post over in the other thread, our co-op is switching over to Lingua Latina next year, and I’m definitely looking forward to it.
By the way, is there any area of this forum where people talk specifically about teaching Latin?