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Back to reality, I always like to do some review before moving on to new material. One no-prep activity that I have loved doing (second time, as of today) is asking students to generate a list of as many words as they can remember in Latin. This is a great activity for after winter break because it gets students back into thinking in Latin and, best of all, it reminds them that they know more Latin than they think they do. This reassurance is essential for level one learners, which is why I love to do it with my Latin I classes the most. It's also great to use at the beginning of the school year with level two for many of the same reasons (which I did last year).
Here's how I structure the activity:
- I randomly divide the class into groups of 3. (I use this website to create the groups. If you know of an even better one - let me know!) I will adjust the groups to make them more mixed by ability and gender and to prevent behavioral issues.
- Each group gets a whiteboard, a marker, and a rag.
- Each group must come up with as many Latin words as they can remember and write their list on their whiteboard.
- To add some competition, the group that remembers the highest number of words gets a prize (candy or stickers). As the day progresses, I challenge the groups to outdo not only one another but also the record set by my previous classes.
- As for timing, I will check in on the class, but most groups will need to be stopped - so this is a great activity to fill an entire class period.
- When there are about 15 minutes left in class, I will stop the activity. Then each group will count up the number of words they remembered. The group that remembered the highest number of words will share their list aloud while I type and project it in a Google Sheets file.
- I will then share this Google Sheets file with my students as a reference.
Here are the word counts (combined from every group's list, minus duplicates of course) for my three Latin I classes today: 169, 247, and 221.
Here is the Google Sheets file with the vocabulary lists. I have added the English meaning and additional forms for student reference.
The goal in our Latin program is for students to acquire around 100 words per semester, so I am so proud that my students have exceeded this goal! This is language acquisition in action! 😁
