Gail Cooper shared this teaching idea to help students with learning the number and persons of Latin verbs as well as the 5 cases of nouns.  Ginny Lindzey remembers   learning about the Verb Actions in classes with the late Professor Gareth Morgan of the University of Texas at Austin.  Gail and her students devised the Case Actions.

VERB ACTIONS

Gestures are really hard to describe sometimes, but here goes.  I can do number and person, but not tense.  Haven't figured that out yet.

I = thumb pointing at my own chest

You = index finger pointing at someone in front of me

He/she/it = thumb backwards over my shoulder (i.e.,that guy in back of me)

Plural: same using two thumbs.

Imperative = admonitory/reprimanding index finger out front.  Two fingers for plural.

Infinitive = This is hard to describe!  Two hands clap in front of me up high, then jazz hands in a circle back down.

NOUN ACTIONS

NOMINATIVE = two arms "making muscles".  (subject = most powerful noun in sentence)

GENITIVE = two arms crossed over chest ("mine!")

DATIVE = two arms held open in front of me (dat = benefit, so "for you")

ACCUSATIVE = right fist hitting open left palm.  (DO = victim, recipient of action)

ABLATIVE = hand swinging gavel/axe/whatever (tool).  With abl of time I sometimes add a finger to my watch.

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE = making parentheses with my hands, can be followed by gesture for whatever case is being used.

Sometimes I will have the students make the gestures with me as we read through a passage.  I don't do this as often as I would like.  A nice small group activity is to assign a paragraph to gesture.  I also have instruments that I can put with each gesture.  And vocalizations for nominative (he-man grunt) and accusative ("Ow!").

This has been a tremendous short-cut for me.  Reading a verb and  wanting them to notice the subject, all I need is a gesture.  And I  see the kids using it all the time when quizzing or reading.  I should probably do a workshop on it some time.

(Note from Latinteach -- Yes, you should do a workshop!)