Homeschooling with a MISSION

Because we love communicating with our friends in Venezuela and other Spanish-speaking countries, our daughter was so excited to review the Educator’s Spanish Collection from Whistlefritz. Although we all try using little phrases, Daddy is the only one who has reached a conversational level of Spanish.  The Whistlefritz Educator’s Spanish Collection uses exciting, immersive techniques to teach basic Spanish to pre-K or early elementary children. Offering a complete package, the Educator’s Spanish Collection is full of material to aid the child and parent as they step into a world of “Spanish-only.”

What does the package include?

When our box arrived, our daughter was SO excited to sort through the colorful contents which  included:

• Lesson Plan Book – A 277 page guide that covers 40 lessons and takes the parent from preparation time to actual teaching time. Reproducible pages with activities for the student are also included.
• 5 DVDs – With a mixture of real adults, puppets, cartoons, and children, the viewer is sure to be captivated and “immersed” into the Spanish language. Our daughter was tickled to sing along and converse with the cute little Fritzi and the other characters. With these DVDs, learning Spanish was fun, and these became the favorite lessons that she asked for over and over.

• 3 Music CDs – The music CDs reinforce the songs used during the DVD lessons and are played and sung in the traditional Spanish music flare.
• Matching Card Game – The cards add variety and an extra dimension to vocabulary review time.

How we utilized the program?

The Lesson Plan Book offers 40 lessons that give an overview, material list, time allotment, and activity guide. Independent practice ideas and extension activities are also included. Each lesson usually includes an instruction time by the classroom teacher, a segment of the DVDs to view, and other art/game type activities used to reinforce what has been learned. These 40 lessons require the teacher to speak  Spanish to the young learner. For Mom, this was sometimes a challenge. Even though I took Spanish in high school and am familiar with general conversational Spanish as a result of several trips to Venezuela, the formal Spanish used in the lesson guide was quite different and difficult to use without any pronunciation assistance. Also, the DVD segments that were required by each lesson were used in random order and, because the DVD itself was not broken down with a chapter/menu option, these segments were very difficult and time-consuming to locate. After attempting to sort through a couple of lessons, we found the goldmine! The Whistlefritz website has additional free downloads available, some being activity pages and others additional lesson guides. The additional free lesson guides were a jewel. These simple to use plans seem to be written with the home teacher in mind. We completed all of these lessons without any difficulty, utilizing the DVD portion of “Inside and Out” and the extra activities pages that accompanied the free lesson download.

Our daughter thoroughly enjoyed the engaging DVDs, became fast friends with Fritzi the mouse, and had fun with all the activity pages. It’s been fun to test Daddy on his Spanish skills and to run about the house asking “Dónde estás?” and answering, “en el dormitorio.” We look forward to continuing the use of the DVDs and learning more Spanish!

Check out the Whistlefritz website for the Educator’s Spanish Collection, the additional free resources, and the Educator’s French Collection.