How to Set and Hit your Goals: Free Series

During the month of July (2024) Compass Classroom and I are offering a series of free Webinars on Goal Setting.  Find out more right here: https://compassclassroom.com/shop/product/setting-goals-live-summer-2024/ To register for the next webinar, simply click here:...

Diagramming Henle Latin: First Year Latin – Chapter One

If you have ever worked your way through the Henle Latin series, by Robert Henle, you know the author asks students to diagram sentences. The series was published around seventy years ago.  Back then, kids new how to diagram.  Schools still taught the skill.  These...

How to Set and Hit Your Goals: Free Webinar

On Monday, July 8, 2024, I am offering a free webinar on setting and hitting goals.  Actually, I am starting a series of webinars.  We will meet every Monday morning in July of 2024 This is a free webinar organized by Compass Classroom.  Feel free to join.  Here is...

French

I began studying French in 2020. As I have studied French, I have discovered many useful resources.  Here, I share them with you.  I hope they help you as much as they have helped me. If you are learning French, here are my top recommendations: (Note: Some of the...

Spanish

I am attempting to level up in Spanish.  Compass Classroom and I want to produce something like Visual Latin, for Spanish.  It has been a dream for some time. Unfortunately, my Spanish skills are the hold up.  I still have much to learn. As I have studied Spanish, I...

German

German is the first foreign language I fell in love with. For nearly four years, I lived in Germany.  My family live this tiny little, hardly on the map town: Leideneck. After returning back to America, Latin distracted me.  I dropped German for a long time.  Now, I...

What happened to the Tip of the Week?

For about a decade, I sent out a “Tip of the Week”. Sometimes the “Tip of the Week” was something I found helpful for language study.   Often, it was just something I found helpful.  It could be about any topic, really. About a month ago, ...

Visual Latin and the Latin Endings 21-30

To help you with the complicated Latin endings, I am creating videos for each lesson of Visual Latin.  In these extra videos, I will show you exactly where on the charts to find the concepts and endings you are learning in Visual Latin. Here are the Latin charts I am...

Visual Latin and the Latin Endings 11-20

To help you with the complicated Latin endings, I am creating videos for each lesson of Visual Latin.  In these extra videos, I will show you exactly where on the charts to find the concepts and endings you are learning in Visual Latin. Here are the Latin charts I am...

Visual Latin and the Latin Endings

From time to time I get questions about the complicated Latin endings.  Students want to know if there is a place to find them all.  Turns out, there is. If you go here, and scroll down, you will find some Latin charts I made some time ago.  The charts are free.  Here...

Tip of the Week #287: How to Track and Save Money

For a long time, to track our spending, I used Mint as a budgeting app. A month, or so, ago, Mint phased out.  (I honestly do not know where to place the commas in that sentence.) In my quest for a replacement, I stumbled upon Rocket Money. The truth is, my wife...

How to learn a new language in 2024

In a January long ago, I sent out the first “Tip of the Week”.   One of the benefits of doing the same thing over and over again for a long time is this.  You begin to develop a reputation.  Back when I started doing this, I had to come up with my own tips.   These...

Goals: Latin to the Rescue

Last year I wrote a book on goal setting.  I am now in the process of editing that book.  As I edit, I will post excerpts here on my blog.  This is from chapter four: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Latin...

Word of the Day #117: Oubliette

In a French class this morning, my students and I learned the French word for forget: oublier. We spent a few minutes talking about the word.  Oublier, the French verb, comes from the Latin verb meaning the same thing, obliviscor.  Forgetful, in Latin, is oblitus....

Word of the Day #116: Apanthropy

Raining hard in Tennessee today.  On days like this my apanthropy usually kicks in. Apanthropy is the desire to be alone, a love of solitude.  Apanthropy comes from two Greek words.  The preposition ἀπό (apo) means “away from”.   Ἄνφροπος (anthropos), which you may...

Word of the Day #115: Fiancée

Someone once said, “English is a German language with a Latin vocabulary.” We can see the truth of that statement in the word fiancée.  This word came up this morning in a French class I teach. In French, a fiancée is a woman who has promised to marry. ...

Goals: One Meal a Day

Last year I wrote a book on goal setting.  I am now in the process of editing that book.  As I edit, I will post excerpts here on my blog.  This is from chapter four: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Why...

Word of the Day #114: Exhaust

Exhaust: to drain; to deplete. This morning, in a Latin class, we came across the Latin verb exhaurire.  Exhaurire is Latin for drawing out, emptying, or draining.  Exhaurire itself is a combination of the preposition ex, meaning ‘out of’ and haurire,...

Did Christmas really happen?

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  All during the season of Christmas, we celebrate the most famous birthday of them all, the birthday of Jesus Christ. The question is, did it really happen?  Did the son of the Creator come to our planet?  Did he live, die, and then live...

Word of the Day #112: Snow

Snow: small, soft, white flakes of ice falling from the sky. This word has been in our language since the beginning.  In Old English, snow was snaw. English is a Germanic language.  Finding similar words in the Germanic languages, then, comes as no surprise. German:...

Word of the Day #111: Santa Claus

Santa Claus: the legendary patron saint of children The name Santa Claus first shows up in American English in 1773.  Before then, Santa Claus was known as Sante Klaas, which itself comes from the old Dutch name for the saint: Sinter Niklaas.  Today, in Holland, he is...

Word of the Day #110: Calendar

Calendar: a system for measuring the days and months of the year. Calendar comes from the only word in Latin that uses the letter K, Kalendae.  The Kalendae, to the Romas, was the first day of the month.  It was also the day debts were due and accounts were reckoned....

Word of the Day #109: December

December: the twelfth and final month of the year December comes from the same root word that gives us the English decade (a period of ten years), decennial (occurring every ten years), decimal (to the tenth place), and dime (ten cents). December means: the tenth...