We began with the greeting from previous lesson. I asked the students to open their books and follow the script. There was a little confusion with some repeating ‘salvete, magister’ to my ‘salvete, discipuli', so I asked them to reread the script. It was almost perfect on the second delivery.
Last lesson we went around the room, with each student asking “quid est nomen tibi?” to the next, in a chain, with the next student responding. I told them that it would be timed, and they got around the entire class in 1 minute and 20 seconds. Today I said that we were going to try to do it in under one minute. They got 58 seconds on their first go.
We now played a game of Pictionaria, with the following cards (insula, silva, fluvius, oppidum, mus parvus and elephantus magnus). Those words were also written up on the board. A volunteer came to the front of the room and drew a card, showing me but not the other students. They then drew a picture of the drawn card. The first student to yell out the correct LATIN answer, went next. We had about five turns. You can download the Pictionaria cards here.
4. I reminded them of Provincia, and that we had learnt all the necessary words except for the numbers 1-10 and punctum. The students wrote these numbers into their books along with the accompanying Roman numerals. We then counted around the room, along the same route we had taken, each student saying one number. I told them that a puctum is a dot (also used to mean a full-stop) but asked what it might mean in a game. Someone correctly guessed “a point”. I also told them that the plural was puncta (points). They wrote both in their books.
5. I now explained the basic scoring rules of Provincia, trying to use Latin vocabulary as much as possible. The game requires you to draw a map, that includes silvae, insulae, fluvii and oppida. The points you get for each one as decided by its size - it might be parvus, magnus or just average size. For example, a “silva parva” is worth “unum punctum”, while a “silva magna” is worth “septem puncta”. I asked them to look at the score sheet and write in the numbers, in Roman numerals if they knew them well, or Arabic numerals if they didn’t. I told them that we would come back to Provincia in another lesson, and that I would explain the rest of the rules then. Provincia can be downloaded here.
6. I now put up the map that the students had been asked to look over for homework, and they shared their thoughtful observations about the names of places, comparing our modern English names with the ancient Latin. This map can be found on page six of Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.
7. a) I brought along a pair of Playmobil figures, Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius, with a chunk of Blutack on their backs, so that they could be moved around the map. I wrote up two words on the board along with an “English equivalent”, est (is) and sunt (are), which I asked them to copy into their books. I then wrote four more words that I asked them to copy in, but without a meaning; et, sed, non and quoque. i explained that I was going to speak to them about the location of Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius entirely in Latin, and that as I did so I wanted them to try to determine an “English equivalent” for each of these words.
b) I moved the figures around the map, speaking to the class in Latin. The following are the kinds of sentences I used: Cleopatra est in Africa. Marcus Antonius quoque est in Africa. Cleopatra et Marcus Antonius sunt in Africa. Cleopatra non est in Europa. Cleopatra est in Africa sed Marcus Antonius est in Asia. Marcus Antonius non est in Africa sed in Asia. As the students deduced the meanings of the four words, they wrote them down. I asked if anyone was unsure of any word, and repeated a few lines to try to help them. It worked. At the end of the activity, we counted up how many of the 22 students had correctly deduced the words - et (19/22) - non (22/22) - sed (18/22) - quoque (19/22).
8. Lastly, I told them that estne? was basically est as a question, and gave them sic and minime as two possible responses. The first questions I asked were along the lines of “estne mus parvus?” and “estne mus magnus?”. We then moved on to questions like “estne Germania in Europa?” and “estne Italia in Africa?”. The students answered simply with sic or non, but I expanded on each answer - “ita, Germania est in Europa.” “minime. Italia non est in Africa sed in Europa.”
Homework: I asked the students to draw a map of an imaginary location. The map needed to include two of each of the following, one “parvus” and one “magnus” : silva, insula, fluvius and oppidum.