When I was working part time, I tried to incorporate Latin into my schedule. I studied Latin in school and I thought it would be fun to teach a Latin class. The interest wasn't there although when I did get people to come they agreed how many words they knew but didn't realize were Latin. I like to say that Latin isn't dead; just reincarnated.
Perhaps this failure was my inspiration for "Let's Win!" Mondays. The idea is to have an activity that people may be wary of, but then offer prizes to the winner for incentive. On the activity surveys I sent out people rated "being challenged" as most important. Yet when a new activity comes up it is hard to draw people out. There is a great fear of showing cognitive and memory weaknesses.
One week (to win) residents play "Every Day Latin" made up of Latin words that are commonly used in English, and matched to their meanings. One week is Trivia, another is Hangman, and today was a Spelling Bee.
The Spelling Bee has always been most popular and it never fails to amaze me how few words are misspelled (sp?). To make it random, I use a list of words for 3rd-8th graders and just go in order. Of course I just refer to the lists as easiest, easy, medium, hard, harder, and hardest. This is a great reminder of how different the school system is today. There is far less repetition and much more material to cover so I don't think children are as good at spelling. Also with spell check, dictionaries on phones, and abbreviations being the "hip" thing the ability to spell is not very revered.
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