Spanish for You

Spanish for You

Curriculum Review

* I received a copy of this product for free to use with my family and review.

I have received nothing else for doing this review and the opinions 

within it are entirely my own. *

I received my copy of Spanish for You: Conversaciones in late September or early October and I had intended to begin using it right away. Unfortunately my printer was out of ink and with the holidays coming up I just couldn't purchase more ink right away. I used their free mini lessons (found here) since I had already printed out most of them before my printer ran dry. The girls (Peanut, age 8 and second grade ... YCJ, age 11 and fifth grade) seemed to enjoy these mini lessons and the Spanish videos that I could find on YouTube so I figured that the actual work for Spanish for You would be a big success as well!

I figured wrong.

Peanut working on
a worksheet.

But, before I get to that let me say a few things. This is a good product and would be awesome in the right hands to teach children with. We've only been working the lesson plans for about a month now (finally got ink in my printer) and everything is pretty neatly laid out for you so that you can do lessons without having to think about it. Go to that week's lessons, print off the worksheets you need for that week, make sure you have the flashcards ready and your audio ready and boom! You're in business.

I even got ECJ involved by having him color and cut out the entire packet of flashcards so that I wouldn't have to worry about not having them for the next lesson and so on. I spent the time before getting the ink for my printer going over and over the lesson plans and the text book thinking to myself that this was going to be awesome.

I was wrong.

YCJ working with
flashcards.

They're not enjoying it. They're really disliking doing it. As a matter of fact they're not even learning Spanish while using it! I don't know what I could be doing wrong but neither of them like this program whatsoever. It's the least favorite thing in lessons right now and they whine, complain, and pout every time we go to do anything involving it. This is not a good fit for my family. And I had so hoped that it would be. I have been drooling over this curriculum for a little over a year and a half and I am so disappointed that it's not going to work for us.

Ah well, back to the drawing board. YouTube and Duolingo (for Spanish) here we come! ECJ has been using Duolingo for most of the year to go along with the Spanish he's studying so I made YCJ an account as well for her to give it a try. Peanut's a bit young for it yet but that's ok. I'll find something that will work without the tears.

I'm sure this is a great program for some families. Just not mine.