Quarter 2 Recap; Looking Ahead

                             

 Salvete, Spartanae Familiae!

4th Grade

Leading up into Winter Break we've been talking about Menses et Tempus Anni (Months and Seasons). The Romans had four seasons - Ver, Aestas, Autumnus, et Hiems - and twelve months! We base our own calander off of the Roman's, so most of our months sound pretty similar to what the Romans would have used. 

Looking ahead: For grammar we'll start looking at Latin prepositions; words like prope, circum, super, and ad. We will also start looking at Roman villas; the houses many Roman's lived in out in the country. Villas are still a style of house we see today, especially here in the hill country and San Antonio. 

5th Grade

Before Winter Break we started to talk about maps and the layout of Pompeii. Pompeii covered 163 acres of land and was built 5 miles from the base of Mt. Vesuvius. They had shops, a public forum, restaurants, and a public swimming pool as well as an Amphitheater to see shows and a sports ground for games. We designed our own city maps in class complete with advanced defense mechanisms like trebuchets and moats!

Looking ahead: We'll continue to wrap up Chapter 3 in our Cambridge Latin Course, and in Quarter 3 we will start with Chapter 4 where we'll discuss the Roman Forum, pronouns, and verb endings. 

6th Grade

We've begun our work on Chapter 9 of our Cambridge Latin Course discussing the Roman baths and the Dative case. Public bath houses were an important fixture in any Roman town, and Pompeii had three! The Romans had a sophisticated method of heating their bath houses using a system of channels and flues heated by a central furnace. This system was called a hypocaust and they even used it as central heating for their homes as well. 

The image below is a bath house the Romans built in Bath, England that is still standing today. 

Looking ahead:

We'll finish our work in Chapter 9 by translating 'In Palaestra', we'll also continue to discuss pronouns and the Dative case. We'll start in to Chapter 10 once we've said goodbye to Quarter 2 and hello to Quarter 3!

It's been a hectic holiday season this year, and I'm looking forward to settling back into our routine here at Great Hearts Western Hills. Even just half way through the year, it's amazing to see what our scholars have learned and how much they've grown. Welcome back! I'm so happy to see all 400 of my 4th - 6th graders and continue our journey through Latin. 

As always, if you have any questions you may contact me at emily.riedlinger@greatheartswesternhills.org.

Cura ut Valeas,

Magistra Riedlinger