In This Series Building Language Building Language: Teacher Manual Caesar's English I Caesar's English I. Teacher Manual Caesar's English II Caesar's English II. Teacher Manual

Vocabulary, Elementary Program by Michael Clay Thompson

Michael Clay Thompson’s Building Language, and the two Caesar's English volumes, can be used as stand-alones or as part of a vocabulary program for young students.

Building Language and Caesar's English:

• reveal the age of the English language with its Roman beginnings
• teach students the most prevalent Latin stems, providing an intellectual key for young students to understand that big words aren't necessarily hard
• discard the specious confines of teaching age-graded vocabulary, on the observation that even little children can give the species names of dinosaurs-a clear proof that they can learn and understand bigger words than they are usually asked to learn
• aim to sow the seeds of intellectuality by introducing students to the drama and romance of ancient Rome, to the names of its thinkers, and to some of the fascinating facts of its history.
• show the Latin-English-Spanish connection, indicating clearly how the two great languages of the United States are members of the same family.
• develop a sense of anticipation about reading classic literature in the future. In all three volumes the authors have chosen examples of the use of words and their stems in the best sentences they could find--even if a sentence was from books to be more likely read in high school rather than in elementary school. Included are children's authors such as Sir Walter Scott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Kenneth Grahame, and Robert Louis Stevenson, but also the Brontes, Jane Austen, Defoe, Milton, Morrison and Shelley.

For a complete overview, go to the Michael Clay Thompson Language Arts Curriculum page.

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Building Language

Class sets of 25 or more: $14.00 each; includes free teacher manual. (Order Code: 5841S) Add to Cart

Building Language provides an introduction to Latin stems as the bases for much of the English and Spanish languages. Using the analogy of the arch in architecture, the book explores the Roman roots of our buildings and of our language. Ten lessons introduce important Latin stems, providing an intellectual key for young students to understand that big words aren't necessarily hard. It rejects the specious confines of teaching age-graded vocabulary.

This is the vocabulary precursor to Caesar's English I and II.

Building Language Sample Pages pdf file

Building Language: Teacher Manual

Caesar's English I

Class sets of 25 or more: $14.00 each; includes free teacher manual. (Order Code: 2087S) Add to Cart

Caesar's English I has twenty lessons, each introducing five new stems with an introductory Latin Stem List and the following learning activities:

Latin Stem Talk; Latin Stem Analogy; Advanced Words, Classic Words, Who's That Writer; Latin Stem: English and Spanish; A Roman Fact; and a Latin Stem Word Search game.

Caesar's English I Sample Pages pdf file

Caesar's English I. Teacher Manual

Caesar's English II

Class sets of 25 or more: $14.00 each; includes free teacher manual. (Order Code: 2257S) Add to Cart

Caesar's English II has - besides all the elements in the first volume - a heavier emphasis on the relationship between English and Spanish.

Each of the twenty lessons also includes five new stems and five review stems from volume I. Students are challenged to fill in the blank in a sentence by a famous author using stem words. Each lesson has a grammar example of the use of one stem word.

Caesar's English II Sample Pages pdf file

Caesar's English II. Teacher Manual