Whistlefritz Spanish Educator's Collection Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Spanish Educator's Collection from Whistlefritz for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Whistlefritz is a great foreign language curriculum with videos on DVD, music CDs, lesson plans, matching cards, etc. Whistlefritz’s award-winning French and Spanish products teach children these languages using the immersion method. This means the child is taught by the exclusive use of the language by hearing and speaking only that language without translation. This is one of the most effective ways to teach a language.

The Spanish Educator's Collection from Whistlefritz is a wonderful Spanish curriculum for ages 1-7. This collection includes a lesson plans book, Spanish videos for kids on 5 DVDs, 3 Spanish music CDs, and some Spanish matching cards. These work together to provide a complimentary program that appeals to all types of learners.

Whistlefritz Spanish Educator's Collection.

  
The Educator’s Spanish Collection comes with:

• Whistlefritz Spanish Lesson Plans for Kids book
• Whistlefritz Ultimate Collection Spanish for Kids DVDs & CDs
• Whistlefritz Spanish Matching Cards

Whistlefritz Spanish Lesson Plans for Kids is a 273 page book of 40 reproducible lesson plans. This manual doesn't rely on drills or memorization to learn Spanish. Instead, it uses a multi-sensory approach with projects and activities like: crafts, sorting, playing games, drawing pictures, coloring, etc. to go along with each lesson. This helps the child learn the language easier because they are actually learning by doing and making as well. The lesson plans start with the lesson number and title with: a short description of lesson, goals, objectives, vocabulary, materials needed, and time taken. Then it has activities and their: focus and review (if any), teacher input, guided practice, independent practice, closure, and extension activities. This lesson plan book also has over 50 flashcards and other pages to copy, print, and use for use with the lessons. This can be used as a stand alone lesson book to teach Spanish, but it does reference the other products in it as well for the some of the extension activities. These lessons build upon each other and come back to words and themes that were previously taught to reinforce the vocabulary. You can also find Translation Guides and extra Lesson Plans to download on the website.

Spanish Lesson Plans for Kids book and some pages. Zari with her puppet.

Whistlefritz Ultimate Collection Spanish for Kids is a compilation of 5 DVD videos and 3 music CDs. This educational and fun series is a blend of animation and live-action with Latin rhythms to get kids dancing and singing. These programs have fun characters: Maria, Jorge, Fritzi, and the rest of the gang that engage the learner with enjoyable themes, songs, and stories. It also features live, native-speaking adults and children so the child learning can hear the language spoken in complete sentences. This helps teach the structure and cadence of the language. The child learning the language learns the vocabulary by actually using it too. You can listen to a Spanish music sample here. The videos can be watched in any order, but recommended to be watched in order in which they were created if you have a child 3 and under and if you have a child older than 3, start with Adentro y Afuera, then circle back to the earlier videos. The videos were created in the following order from first to last: Los Animales, Vamos a Jugar, Adentro y Afuera, Las Estaciones, and La Fiesta de Fritzi. Each video focuses in depth on specific themes and vocabulary. All teach greetings, introductions, and numbers.

Some images from the Spanish DVD videos.

Whistlefritz Spanish Matching Cards are a set of 50 fun memory cards. These are made up of 25 cards with a match to themselves. These show a illustrated fox that has been drawn to be doing different commonly-used action words. At the bottom of each card is the action word or phrase in only Spanish. These cards introduce new vocabulary and reinforce words that are introduced in the DVDs, CDs, and Lesson Plans.

Zari found her first match!

  
How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
I used the Whistlefritz Spanish Educator's Collection with my daughter Zari who is 6 years old. She knew a bit of Spanish from me teaching her at home. I had taken 3 years of Spanish in high school and so I remembered how to pronounce the words well, but I was still not as fluent as I would have liked to be. I am glad we got this program to try together.

We started watching the videos first. We started with Adentro y Afuera like they suggested. Even though Zari can't read yet, I still thought it best to turn off the subtitles so that it could be viewed without translation. We found that this video was about directional terms, rooms in a home, and foods. The lady named Maria was trying to find the animated mouse named Fritzi with the help of children and audience. She also showed foods by asking a dog puppet what he liked to eat...then later she asked a mouse puppet, and in the credits a horse puppet. They are educational, fun, entertaining and Zari learned quite a bit while watching. I loved all of these. They are very pleasant and can be watched over and over for repetition without being irritating.

After we got done with the videos she did some lessons out of the lesson plan book. The first lesson she did had an activity to make a paper bag puppet and then make it say phrases in Spanish about personal identity and greetings that she learned in the lesson. Each lesson takes about 30-40 minutes depending upon if you do all the extension activities as well. These lessons had great hands-on activities and Zari liked the projects and playing the games and seemed to learn Spanish better when engaged with making and doing something with the vocabulary.

We also tried the matching cards out. First we set them all upside down on the table and she flipped two over trying to match them. Since there were 50 cards total it took a while for her to finish finding all the matches. She had fun anyway and as she matched up two cards together I would tell her the action on the cards reinforcing the learning from the videos and lesson plans.

I highly recommend this foreign language program. We love Whistlefritz! The Spanish Educator's Collection is great for teaching Spanish to children ages 1-7. These programs are a wonderful multicultural homeschool curriculum for a child to learn to be bilingual.

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BUY IT
Now you can purchase Whistlefritz Spanish Educator's Collection for $165.00! Save more than 20% (regularly $202.90) by ordering the Educator’s Spanish Collection of Spanish Lesson Plans for Kids + 5 Videos + 3CDs + Matching Cards!
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Middlebury Interactive Languages Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 from Middlebury Interactive Languages for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Middlebury Interactive Languages offers online world language courses for students in a classroom setting or homeschool. They offer courses in Spanish, French, Chinese and German in elementary, middle and high school. Course levels range from introductory through advanced. These courses are for one student to do and are yearly subscriptions that go a semester (about 6 months) at a time. Each semester for Middle School & High School consists of 18 weeks (90 days) of content. Each semester for grades K-2 consists of 35 days of content. Each semester for grades 3-5 consists of 45 days of content.

Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 is one of the courses from Middlebury Interactive Languages. Other than Spanish they have Chinese and French for grades K-2. Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 has twelve units total. Units one through five and seven through eleven have six lessons each. Units 6 and 12 are review for previous lessons. When your student finishes an activity it will automatically check mark it to show you where your student is in the program and what activities have been completed. There are Authentic Stories, Course Vocabulary (in both Spanish and English) & Songs and Translations as PDF files to download and print out. The lessons consist of: an introduction, parts to explore, warm ups, practices, speaking labs (these need a microphone), stories, find and color, review, where is/which has, coloring pages (to download and print), culture, songs, worksheets (to download and print), vocabulary, unit summaries, and quizzes & tests. Some lessons have places to click, drag and drop, interactive videos, videos to watch, and click to listen activities. There are places where the child can click to hear what is being asked or said. This is wonderful if the child doesn't read yet. If you start from the Home/Dashboard instead of the Table of Contents you can continue the course from where your student left off and see where your student is supposed to be in the course.

Above: Table of Contents, Below: Home/Dashboard (notice check marks indicating finished work)

  
Contents of Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2:

• Unit 1: Greetings
• Unit 2: Numbers
• Unit 3: Family
• Unit 4: Colors
• Unit 5: School
• Unit 6: Review of 1-5
• Unit 7: Body
• Unit 8: Animals
• Unit 9: Calendar
• Unit 10: Food
• Unit 11: Descriptions
• Unit 12: Review of 7-11

Zari watching Las manchas del ocelote for learning greetings in Spanish.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
The Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 program is a totally immersive Spanish language study. My daughter Zari who is in Kindergarten was able to do this even though she isn't reading yet.  We worked on this about 2-3 days a week or when ever we had some free time. She did fairly well with the instructions and understanding what to do. I love that it teaches the basics.

The lessons are short (about 15 minutes), interactive, and held my daughter's attention. The stories, songs, and  activities are done all in Spanish. If you want to know what the stories and songs are in English you have to download the PDF files. They have vocabulary words and phrases that you are supposed to look out for and learn. They tell you what these mean in English within the program as well as the PDF files to print. We made flash cards with the words and phrases that were being taught.

The stories and songs are fun animated videos that are spoken in Spanish. I liked to read the stories/songs in English to my daughter after they were told in Spanish within the program so that my daughter understood better what was going on. Before I read the English version I would ask her what she thought was going on.

Zari enjoyed learning Spanish with Middlebury Interactive Languages. The lessons are not difficult and after Zari got the directions down on how to use the mouse and microphone within the program she had no trouble with it on her own. She enjoyed working through the online lessons and always was enthusiastic about coming back and doing more.

Middlebury Interactive Languages has a lot of great online foreign language courses that meet multiple grades and levels. I love that they have so many to choose from. I highly recommend this Spanish Middlebury Interactive Languages course to anyone that homeschools or supplements their child's public education at home. This is a wonderful homeschool foreign language course!

BUY IT
Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 is $238 without teacher support and $588 with teacher support for both semesters. You can also find other courses of Middlebury Interactive Languages in Spanish, French, Chinese and German in elementary, middle and high school with course levels ranging from introductory through advanced.

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Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids Spanish Program, with the Starter Set 1 Review

Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids Spanish Program Starter Set 1.

My family had the privilege of trying the Spanish Program, with the Starter Set 1 from Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids is a program founded by Kit Strauss. She created Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids because of the lack of quality foreign language programs geared towards children and she wanted something for her three sons. Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids is geared towards ages 3 and up. It teaches how to speak and understand practical words in Spanish for everyday use in a short amount of time. With immersion and visuals this program is great for the whole family combining real life situations with humor and fun.


The Spanish Program Starter Set 1 Includes:

• Spanish DVD, Vol. 1 with videos Levels 1-3 - Flight 101: Basketballs Aren't for Breakfast, Flight 102: The Little Magic House Part 1, and Flight 103: The Little Magic House Part 2. These are stories of kids speaking Spanish in funny realistic situations.
• Three Parent-Teacher Guides (one for each level) - includes video summary, vocabulary list in both Spanish and English, geography, suggested lesson plans with activities to do, extended learning activities, course completion award and picture of Squisher (the international inchworm) to cut out.
• Flashcards and Go Squish Card Game for Levels 1 to 3 - Set of 150 flashcards that have the student match cards with memorable scenes in the videos to words or phrases in Spanish. These flashcards are in three distinct colors (blue, green, and pink to go with orange books) to similarly match the teachers guides and workbooks that this set comes with. The bonus Go Squish! card game is similar to Go Fish, but all in Spanish and the object is to get Squisher flyer miles enough for an airline ticket to get him to his destination.
• Workbooks for Levels 1-3 - These workbooks have activities, culture, Squisher says (which is a comic with the inchworm in it), and an answer key. 
• Stickers Set for Flight 101: Basketballs Aren't for Breakfast - Place these around the house or classroom to reinforce Spanish vocabulary that was taught in the first video.

Teela and Zari watching the Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids Spanish DVD.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

All of us enjoyed the DVD. These episodes are an essential and mandatory part of the program. We liked how each episode started as an in-flight-movie on FLK Airlines. It was fun watching the three main characters, which were brothers, go about their daily lives speaking Spanish. There were some funny parts and things that kept it interesting and engaging. My kids loved this way of learning Spanish, not by reading or writing, but through context and clues. To keep it an immersive experience we as teachers and parents are told not to tell the students the word translations or the video summaries. It seemed like the Spanish was sinking in better than previous programs we have tried and the videos made us feel a part of this Spanish speaking household. I thought the "Rapid Review" of each part was very nice at summing up the vocabulary learned and helped my kids remember what was taught and helping me to know if they are ready to move on or repeat the session.

I was instructed to read the first three pages of the first Teacher's Guide which was "How To Get Started". It went over an overview of the program, program goals, about the guide, and who/where to contact if you have questions. These Parent-Teacher Guides are very helpful with giving different lesson plans so you can pick the one that suits your learner the best or pick multiple ones so that your learner can experience more than one. These activities are an extension of the learning from the DVDs. I liked how they had all sorts of learning activities that coordinated with different subjects; for example: geography, grammar, and vocabulary. They also have games, workbook pages, flashcard games, review, etc. in the lesson plans.

I was expecting the flashcards to have the picture and name of the object in Spanish on the front and the English word equivalent on the back or the picture with the English word and the Spanish word on the other side. Instead I found that because of the immersive qualities of this program the flashcards were pictures from the DVDs along with other cards with Spanish words and phrases they matched up to. Each were placed on one side of the card only with the Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids logo on the back. These cards are printed on glossy card-stock so as to preserve the quality longer. The Go Squish! Card Game instructions were a bonus that came with our set and for a limited time it is included in the sets and some of the products.

Teela working in the Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids Spanish Program workbook.

Since there is only one set of workbooks that we received with this set I picked my 8 year old daughter to do them. These are best for grades 3 and up, but Teela is a strong reader and just going into 3rd. These helped expand her knowledge of the words and phrases with fun crosswords, word searches, geography information, facts, idioms, comics, etc. Teela loved doing these workbooks.

The stickers we will be placing around our home to help us learn Spanish. These are 9 pages of large print Spanish words and phrases in full color. These will help me reinforce the concepts learned in the DVD. These also help my kids see the actual word in written format.

This Spanish for kids is a wonderful program! We love this for learning homeschool Spanish. We recommend it as a Spanish curriculum for all homeschoolers. We hope to be able to partake of more of the Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids Spanish Program soon because we really enjoyed the Starter Set 1.



BUY IT
The Starter Set 1 is regularly $165.00, but it's on sale now through August 31st for just $140.25! That's a savings of 15%! For a limited time the Go Squish! Card Game instructions are included.

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