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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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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