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Teaching guides

Short, practical guides for teachers and homeschool parents on the subjects of a classical education: how to plan them, what to read, and how to check that the learning has stuck, with escape rooms to try for each.

Getting started

• Escape rooms for a classical education. What a digital escape room is, why the format suits the grammar, logic and rhetoric stages, and where the rooms fit across a classical curriculum.
• How to use digital escape rooms in a homeschool. Setting up, teaching several ages at once, building a weekly rhythm, and using what a room tells you about your child's reading.

Literature, stage by stage

• Grammar-stage literature: books for grades 3–6 and how to check reading. Lasting books for grades 3–6, read aloud or alone, and gentle ways to check that the reading has gone in.
• Logic-stage literature for grades 6–9. Books for grades 6–9, questions that build reasoning, and how to handle older language and attitudes.
• Rhetoric-stage great books for grades 9–12. The great books for grades 9–12, pairings that work, and how to keep seminars from turning into plot summary.

Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare and myth

• Teaching Shakespeare act by act. Why the act is the right unit, which plays suit which grades, and a routine for reading, checking and discussing each act.
• Teaching Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in translation. Which poem first, choosing a translation, a plan in four-book sections, and the questions worth asking.
• Teaching Virgil's Aeneid in translation. The Aeneid's two halves, a plan in two-book sections, choosing a translation and the questions it raises.
• Greek and Roman mythology for elementary and middle school. Where to start with the gods, heroes and legends of Rome, Greek and Roman names, and how to handle the darker stories.
• Novel-study escape rooms for the Chronicles of Narnia. Reading order, discussion that leaves room for the book, and a self-checking escape room at the end of each of the seven books.

Words and languages

• Teaching Greek and Latin roots for vocabulary. Which roots to teach first, little-and-often routines, false friends, and how roots work in English and Latin classes.
• Starting Latin: what a first year looks like. What students learn in Latin I, the habits that matter most, and how seasonal escape rooms keep review going through the year.

AP® Latin passage guides

Summaries, grammar, style and themes for each required reading from Pliny and Vergil are on the AP® Latin page.

AP® and Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks owned by the College Board, which is not affiliated with Locked Lessons and does not endorse it or its escape rooms.