We recently had an opportunity to review a new Spanish program specific to homeschooling families. Homeschool Spanish was created with the intent to get the whole family involved, which is always a plus to a homeschooling family.
About the Program
From the Author...
REAL Homeschool Spanish trains you and your child to be able to learn Spanish together and interact together in fun and interesting ways.
You can interact with your children in an immersion environment using REAL Homeschool Spanish's east to follow "Home Educator Tips" and our unique "idea" sections which give you literally pages of suggestions on how you and your child can use Spanish during your day and throughout the week in a home learning environment/lifestyle.
Learn how to continue your language-learning journey outside of the initial learning stage. Play games with your child...bingo, hangman, create albums, have your child design his/her own board game...These are just a few ways for you to be able to create a personalized language-learning environment in your home.
The curriculum is divided into ten learning units which cover: greetings, colors/numbers, food, family, anatomy, clothing/weather/seasons/months, places/transportation/days of the week/verbs/grammar, animals/nature, sports/grammar, and house/grammar. Each unit introduces new vocabulary using a conversational format, meant to be used throughout your daily life. Then you work through various activities in the activity book and more hands-on projects in the tips and ideas sections.
Our Experience
Wow! I'm not even sure what to say. My download included two "texts, in color and B&W, an activity book, audio files, an answer key, and a daily curriculum guide. This curriculum contains so much material. Pages, and pages, and pages of ideas. At first I was a bit overwhelmed with it. Then I noticed the curriculum guide, which had it all broken down for me. Shew! I don't speak a foreign language, I don't know how to plan for it, I need someone to tell me what to do.
We started off each unit working through the vocabulary using the handy-dandy audio files. They are totally awesome for a non-Spanish speaking mom like me. I have butchered many a foreign language in my time. We use the audio files everyday to help us review the correct pronunciation.
We would spend the rest of the on various activities in the activity guide, projects from the idea section, or visiting cultural websites. One of my daughter's favorite projects was making a comic strip in Spanish. I'm sure that one will be repeated. These are the activities that take the learning one step further and help cement it in their brains. Plus they're fun.
My favorite things: The curriculum guide, audio files, and the fact that I could load the texts on my iPad so I didn't have to read off of the computer. Woot!!
My cons: I need more structure. Sounds crazy since I've already mentioned how wonderful the curriculum guide is. However, a lot of the projects are more craft related. I am not a crafty or creative person and when someone tells me to make a board game or a puppet my eyes start to glaze over and I automatically envision hours of sweeping up glitter. Some of suggestions for extending the learning kind of intimidated me due to my aforementioned craft aversion. I think I'd probably fare better with a "kit" of everything I needed all ready to go for me. I need step by step directions on how to make the board game. Sad, I know. I realize that this is all MY issue and probably won't be a problem for most people.
F.Y.I.
Website: http://www.realhomeschoolspanish.com/about.html
Samples: http://www.realhomeschoolspanish.com/samples.html
Ages: For the entire family
Pricing:
Downloadable Book Bundle $49.95
Downloadable Book Bundle w/ Curriculum Guide $59.95
Book Bundle Hard Copy $89.95 + free shipping
Book Bundle Hard Copy w/ Curriculum Guide $99.95 + free shipping
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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Homeschool Spanish for review purposes. All opinions are my own.
Hey Stefanie - this is not about your Spanish Post... can you do me a favor? A while back (october) when I left facebook I blocked "Heather" from my blog because I had my cyber bullying issue with my friend Heather. Now I have not seen or heard from our Heather in a while and wondered if I accidentally blocked HER instead of the one I wanted to. Could you ask her if she can visit my blog? I am not sure how to see who I blocked once I did it... but I miss her! and pass on a hello to her!
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