NEENA PIO

6817 Scio Church Rd, Ann Arbor, Michigan • (734) 395·0971 • neenapio@umich.edu

Sample Lesson Plan

Here is a sample lesson plan. This lesson was taught to sixth graders in Latin I to introduce the Roman
house and work on second declension nouns.
LESSON PLAN: THE ROMAN HOUSE
Level: Latin I, 6th Grade Student Teacher: Neena Pio
Grade: 6 Grade
th
Date: 25 January 2019
OBJECTIVES RATIONALE
Today, learners can… Students have been working with first and second declension
• Compare a “typical” modern house and the nouns for a little bit now. While they have, for the most part,
items within to an ancient Roman house. mastered the first declension forms, they are still working on
• Label rooms in Latin learning the second declension. The vocabulary for houses have a
• Say whether a noun is a first declension or plethora of first and second declension nouns. In addition, this
second declension noun based on its nominative week is now only a 2-day week due to MLK day and two surprise
form. snow days. On Tuesday, the last day of class, we translated
sentences together as a class. The original plan was to continue
that the next day. However, because of the snow days and the
addition of it being Friday, the students will most likely be even
more chatty than normal. Today’s lesson allows and encourages
room for the students to have productive discussions.
AGENDA STANDARDS
Class Brainstorm Standard 1.1: Communication Goal-Interpretive Mode
Magister Craft Video Learners understand, interpret and analyze what is read, heard, or
Floor Plans viewed on a variety of topics
Create Your Own Standard 4.2: Cultural Comparisons
MATERIALS Learners use the language to investigate, explain, and reflect on
Chalk Board the concept of culture through comparisons of the cultures studied
Chalk and their own.
Projector Standard 2.2: Relating Cultural Products to Perspectives
Laptop Learners use Latin or Greek to investigate, explain, and reflect on
VGA connector the relationship between the products and perspectives of the
Handout (19) cultures studied.
ASSESSMENT: FORMATIVE
Formative Assessment: Students will create their own floor plan using the vocabulary.

ACTIVITIES (CLASS PERIOD: 42 MINUTES)

TIMING DIRECTIONS AND TEACHER SCRIPT
THINKING
2 Mins GREETING
2 Mins Greet students. Me: Welcome back! Did you enjoy your surprise two
days off?
[Class responds]
Me: Me too. So, before you have two more days off,
we’re going to do some Latin. Today, we are going to
do something a little different than in the past. We are
going to focus on a specific topic: The Roman house.
6 Mins ACTIVITY: Class Brainstorm
4 Mins Part I: Modern House Me: Before we talk about Roman houses, I want to
Compile a list on the board of the rooms in a compile a list of rooms that are in modern houses.
modern house. [On the board write: Rooms in Houses Today]
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6817 Scio Church Rd, Ann Arbor, Michigan • (734) 395·0971 • neenapio@umich.edu

The list might include: Living room, Me: So, what are some rooms that are in houses
bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, dining room, today? Raise your hand.
study/office, game room, laundry room, [Call on students. Write down students’ answers.]
entrance, foyer
I want students to start making comparisons
between the ancient world and the modern
world. We often think that these are two
very distinct worlds; however, there are
more similarities than we may think between
the two. House structures are just one of
them. (Standard 4.2: Cultural Comparisons)
2 Mins Part II: A Roman house Me: Great! [On the board write: Rooms in a Roman
Question: What rooms do you think were House] Now, what rooms do you think were present
present in a roman house? in a Roman house?
My assumption is that the students do not Me: So, based on the list we just created, what rooms
know much about Roman houses. But I want do you think Romans would have?
to see what they do know. I also want them [Call on students. Write down answers.]
to start thinking critically and making
plausible guesses/suggestions.
1 Min TRANSITION
1 Min Transition to Magister Craft video Me: Alright, now that we have had a chance to
brainstorm, in a minute we’re going to watch a short,
3-minute video to see if our assumptions about what
rooms were in a Roman house were right. In a
minute, I will pass out a worksheet for you to go
along with the video.
33 Mins ACTIVITY: A Closer Look at a Roman House
9 Mins Part I: Explain Video Me: Before we watch the video, I would like you to
1. Explain video complete the chart at the top of this worksheet. Each
2. Watch video (2) of these words are different rooms the video will
While students are watching the video, they show us. I would like you to identify these unknown
will answer 8 questions. All of these words by their declension and gender, as show in the
questions ask students to define Latin words. example. Please do this now.
It is important the students are able to [Should only take a couple minutes.]
identify the nouns by declension and gender. [Go through the answers]
This skill will help them later on when they Me: So even though you may not know what some of
learn adjectives. the words means, you do know something about
The students have not had to a lot of Latin at them. As you will soon realize, especially when you
once. While I know that this may seem scary learn about adjectives, this will be a very useful skill
to some students, this is a low-stakes to have. Now for the video. So, this is a video created
activity. They will not be marked down for by a Latin teacher, Magister Craft. Magister Craft
whether they understand everything. I want creates videos in Latin by using the game Minecraft.
to start including some spoken Latin in class. Do y’all know what Minecraft is?
Therefore, to help prepare the students, I am [Class responds]
showing the students this video. The Me: Yeah in Minecraft, if you’re not familiar with the
narrator speaks at a fairly slow place and game, one feature of the game is that you can build
there isn’t a whole of vocabulary in the things. This teacher has built an example of a Roman
video. He repeats himself a lot. Therefore, house. On the worksheet, you will see that I ask you
through the repetition and the visuals, my to define a few terms. Now, these terms are room
hope is that the students will be able to pick names in Latin. As we watch the video, the character
 NEENA PIO
6817 Scio Church Rd, Ann Arbor, Michigan • (734) 395·0971 • neenapio@umich.edu
up on some of what the narrator says in the
video. Furthermore, it will help get the
students more comfortable hearing Latin
spoken out loud, rather than just reading it.
(Standard 1.1: Communication Goal-
Interpretive Mode)
To help those students who are not auditory
learners, I am going to show the Latin
subtitles. This way they can try to read the
Latin. (Standard 1.1: Communication Goal-
Interpretive Mode)
We will go over the answers as a class
afterwards.
7 Mins Watch Video
We are watching the video twice. The first
time that the students watch the video I want
the students to absorb the material. It can be
overwhelming listening to a video all in Latin
for the first time while filling out a
worksheet. Therefore, the first time, the
students are not meant to complete the
worksheet. The second time, they will fill
out the worksheet.
8 Mins Part II: Discuss Video
Go over the answers to the worksheet. I will
show them a snapshot of the rooms from the
video. In the video, Magister Craft shows us
the Taberna (which is attached to the house),
atrium, vestibule, bedrooms, side rooms,
dining room, courtyard, office, kitchen, and
storeroom. During the review, I will provide
more context for the rooms. I want the
students to start thinking a little deeper
about these elements. The way people live is
important and can tell people a lot about a
culture’s values.
will lead us through the house and explain, in Latin,
what each room is and what each room is for. There
will be Latin subtitles so that you can follow along.
My hope is that you will be able to infer what each
word means if you are paying close attention. The
questions are in the order they come up in the video.
What questions do you have?
[Answer any questions]
Me: Alright, let’s get started then. We will watch the
video twice. This first go, I would like you to flip over
the worksheet and just watch the video. The second
time, you will answer the questions.
[Watch video once]
Me: Alright, now for the second round. Flip your
worksheet over and try your best at defining the
terms on the sheet.
[Watch video for a second time]
[Students answer questions while watching the video]
Me: Alright, let’s go over the questions on the
handout. As we work through them. Please correct
your answers. Question number one: what is a
taberna?
[Answer: a shop]
Me: Yeah, so. For houses such as the one in the
video, a shop, or taberna, was attached to it. Not all
houses, of course, had a shop attached to them. Next
question: What is an Atrium?
[Answer: atrium, or central hall.]
Me: An atrium is basically like living rooms today.
How would you describe the atrium?
[Possible answers: spacious, large, bright]
Me: Why do you think there are these paintings and
this impluvium, shallow pool of water?
[Answer: to impress the guests]
Me: Right, the atrium was the first room and main
room a guest would see. Therefore, the owners
lavishly-decorated the atrium to try to impress
people.
[Pause]
Me: Now, moving on. What is a Cubiculum?
[Answer: bedroom]
Me: Bedrooms were private spaces and tended to be
fairly simple.
[pause]
Me: Next question: What is a Tablinum?
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6817 Scio Church Rd, Ann Arbor, Michigan • (734) 395·0971 • neenapio@umich.edu
5 Mins Part III: Floor plans of a Roman House
Show the students a few floor plans of
Roman houses (domus). Explain the context
behind these houses (who lived there).
While the students now have the vocabulary,
they still need a closer look at the layout of a
Roman house. If students continue with their
studies, they will need to know how to read
a floor plan. Even if they do not continue
with their Latin studies, they will most likely
look at floor plans during their lifetime.
Therefore, this activity, although they may
not realize it, may help them later on.
[Answer: Office]
Me: This is where the head of the house, the
paterfamilias, would handle any business he had.
[pause]
Me: Question number 5: What is a Peristylium?
[Answer: open-air courtyard]
Me: Question number 6: What is a triclinium?
[Answer: a dinning-room]
Me: and what is a culina?
[Answer: kitchen]
Me: Yes, a kitchen! The Latin word for culina is
where we get our word “culinary” from.
[Pause]
Me: And last, but not least, what is a Cella?
[Answer: A storage-room, a room]
Me: So a cella has several meanings. Generally, it is a
room. It can also refer to a storage room. In this
video, it functions as two things: a storage room and
the slave’s quarters.
Me: Alright, in a couple minutes you are going to
create your own floor plan of a house. Before you do
that, let’s look at a few together.
Me: Romans had three main types of houses, insulae,
domus, and villas. I am going to show you floor plans of
a domus and a villa.
[Show the Domus]
[Explain who lived in a domus.]
Me: a domus was occupied by a single family. Often
times, as mentioned before, there was taberna in the
front of the house.
[Show the Villa. Explain who lived in villa. ]
Me: There were different types of villas. There were
villas that were for agricultural purposes. And then
there were extravagant villas, often owned by
emperors.
 NEENA PIO
6817 Scio Church Rd, Ann Arbor, Michigan • (734) 395·0971 • neenapio@umich.edu

2 Mins Preview tomorrow
The students will create their own floor plan
tomorrow. They are to draw out their floor
plan and label it in Latin. I want the students
to get familiar with the names of the room.
My hope is that students will discuss with
each other and have some fun with it.
1 Min END CLASS
1 Min End class.
Me: Now that you have some background on Roman
housing. Tomorrow you will create a floorplan. You
will to draw it out and label the rooms in Latin. As
you decide on the layout of your Roman house, think
of who lives there. Do you want a shop attached to
the house? How many bedrooms? etc. Be creative and
have some fun with it!
Me: Alright, the bell is going to ring in just a minute.
Please turn in the worksheet with your name on it.
[Students turn in work][Bell rings]
Me: Valete! (bye!) See you tomorrow!

BACK-POCKET ACTIVITY
MATERIALS REASONING
Lingua Latina Per Se The text is fairly simple to read, especially in the beginning. The students read from this
Illustrata book occasionally. The story follows a Roman family. Therefore, students receive both
linguistic input and cultural input.
DIRECTIONS & EXPLANATIONS
Have the students get out their Lingua Latina* books and turn to the next page of the reading. Begin reading out
loud to the students, one sentence at a time. Go through the translation together. By reading the text out loud to
the students, the students can hear how the Latin is pronounced. Once students are more comfortable reading
Latin out loud themselves, I will ask for volunteers to read. We will read the chapter on Roman houses.

*Lingua Latin is a textbook of sorts that is meant to teach people Latin. The entire textbook, even the explanations
of certain grammatical points are all in Latin.
 NEENA PIO
6817 Scio Church Rd, Ann Arbor, Michigan • (734) 395·0971 • neenapio@umich.edu

Nomen (Name): ________________

Domus Romana (A Roman House)
Directions: Before watching the video, identify the declension (first declension or second
declension) and the gender(female, masculine, neuter) of each nominative, singular nouns.

Room Name Declension Gender (F/M/N)

Example: Ala 1st F
Taberna
Atrium
Cubiculum
Tablinum
Peristylium
Triclinium
Culina
Cella

Directions: While watching the video, define/translate the italicized words below. The italicized
words are Latin words for the different rooms in the Roman house.

1. What is a Taberna? _______________________________________________

2. What is an Atrium? _______________________________________________

3. What is a Cubiculum? _______________________________________________

4. What is a Tablinum? _______________________________________________

5. What is a Peristylium? _______________________________________________

6. What is a Triclinium? _______________________________________________

7. What is a Culina? _______________________________________________

8. What is a Cella? _______________________________________________