Initium est dimidium facti

Very odd beginning to school this year.  I've been processing a continual, surreal feeling of "maybe no school" all week.  We ended up starting on Wednesday the 31st, instead of Monday.  Then it was touch and go the other days as to whether or not we would stay open.

Further, working with the new curriculum is tough.  I feel a little lost without a textbook-based road to travel.  What do we do?  Where do we land?  Big topics are not enough.  I need lessons!!  (This would be the part that we did not get to this summer.)

So, these first three days have been a much vaguer start that I'd imagined.  Eheu.

I do have my students set up with a "marble" notebook that will sort of chronicle class through the year.  It is modeled on the "common-place book" of the Renaissance (discussed at length last year on Latin-Best-Practices), and I have named it their "vademeculum."  They will glean what they want from the class, in dated entries.  They will also maintain lists of vocabulary in the back of their vademecula.  For instance, they might hear a color that they don't know.  It would go in their daily entry, then also in a list positioned in the back of the notebook.  I think I may have them turn their notebooks upside down, in addition to starting at the back.  Just for something cute.    I will be able use this as a basis for weekly assessment, as no English will be allowed.  I'll just give them the English of 5 - 10 words or phrases to find from, for instance, Oct. 10 - Oct. 14, or something like that.

They will also maintain a folder for reference materials.  These could be in English and/or Latin.  Already they have a page listing their numbers, and how the calendar works.  I plan to include things that will help them in their writing, also a part of the new curriculum.  My department chair does this for her French classes, and includes things like transition words, etc.  Hey!  Perhaps I'll add that page we created a few years ago from Rusticatio of "yes's and no's."

We also talked about the new curriculum a bit, and reviewed some random cases, personal verb endings, and pronouns.

Ergo, a beginning of sorts.  Dimidium facti factum est.

Day 2

Well, not so hard staying in the Latin today, as the only Latin was in my mind.  Tomorrow is a non-starter as well.

Sed.  Did some serious planning.  It is really hard to use this curriculum that we wrote this summer.  This no book thing feels like walking without a spine or something.  (Fortasse durius loquor.)

Noli me incipere

No really, don't.  I do not want to start tomorrow, I do not, I do not!!!!!  Timeo!

Spira, Aurora!  Spira!  You know more than you think you know.

It's my first day of school tomorrow, and I am jumping into the deep end -- Latine fere tantum.  I'm scared and excited.  Mostly scared.