TOS Review: Spanish for You! — a big (little) family

Liberty (9) and Eden (8) have been using Spanish for You as part of a review for the Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Review Crew. They’ve used it usually 4 days each week for 30 minutes or so. I received downloads of Fiestas for grades 3-4 and all of it’s complementing materials that are part of the Fiestas purchase. There are 30 weeks of instruction included with this grade level.

My girls weren’t over their heads in the slightest without any previous Spanish instruction. They jumped in and began and did their best Spanish pronunciation in their very-English speaking voices. It was pretty fun – and funny – to listen to. The audio files are great to help with pronunciation. They learned common phrases, the song ‘Happy Birthday’ in Spanish, and colors and numbers and more.

I’d never heard of Spanish for You! before this review. I want my children to learn another language, and they’ve had fun with this. At first I wasn’t sure how much they were

remembering with short lessons and what sounds to me like super-fast speech (It’s not – but with one college semester of Spanish under my belt, anything sounds super fast!), but after just the first lesson I heard conversations about colors and their Spanish names. Once I made a correction on the pronunciation of ‘azul’ (one dear daughter kept saying ay-zull) and sent them back to the audio files, I decided they must be learning!

It’s not the easiest curriculum to use. My head was spinning at first, and I kept wondering if we were doing it properly. Once we got into it, though, we fell into a routine and it got easier. I made the flashcards from their files and we were off and running. (I color-coded them based on lessons for ease of finding them quickly.) For the price, I think it’s a great introductory program and a lot can be learned from it. It’s not set in any certain order from Fiestas to any of their other books available, so you can choose where you start and where you move to next. They learn a lot and have gone back to listen to parts again to be reminded of words they couldn’t remember.

What I liked: the girls jumped in without issue. They enjoyed themselves and learned a lot. There is a lot of material in this curriculum. The drawings are primitive, but that helps keeps costs low and I really appreciate that.

What I didn’t like: It was confusing, especially at first. There was so much in the e-book guide, I was swimming in reading trying to figure it out. I wouldn’t choose the e-book option again if given the choice. I’m told reorganization was done shortly after this review began – that might help.

Overall, I wouldn’t shy away from this curriculum. If you have a little bit of time to work with it, you’ll really appreciate what can be gained from it. By studying Fiestas through Spanish for You!, we learned a bit about culture, lots of words, and began a foundation for learning Spanish in our homeschool.

Spanish for You! Fiestas is available here for $64.95 for grades 3-8, or for to purchase for either grades 3-4, 5-6, or 7-8, it can be purchased for each grade combo for $39.95. This includes a softcover student book and PDF downloads of lesson guides, worksheets, audio files, flash cards, and activity pictures. Additional student books are available for $12.95. Teacher lesson plans are purchased separately for $12.95 – $14.95.

About Adrienne