I want to get my kids something to dig down and teach them Spanish. What is your favorite program for this? What are your thoughts on the following, if you have used them?
Thank you in advance! I don’t speak Spanish myself, but I am hoping to learn with my children. My husband speaks Spanish, but doesn’t have the time to do more than supplement their education, so I need something to help me.
I highly recommend whistlefritz because of its full immersion. Other programs (I am not sure about the ones you mention) teach vocabulary but not the language. If you just teach vocabulary your child still only knows English plus some foreign words. Even Little Pim is mostly vocabulary. Not to say that its not helpful though. I don’t know. But, I would definitely recommend whistlefritz.
I bought the set from Amazon and paid a premium to use a shipping service because they don’t ship to my country. And too bad for me, 1 of the 4 DVDs is a completely blank DVD. I wrote in to their customer service and didn’t get a reply.
Although I’m stil bummed :mad: , I must say the other 3 DVDs are pretty good. Total immersion, fun videos and songs. My toddler loves it.
My husband and I have been talking about this, and I think we are going to go this route to get our feet wet. When a child first learns to speak, they start with basic vocabulary, and we like how YBCR products show the word, and take the guess work out of what word correlates with what meaning. It’s not a complete program by any means, but this is how we are going to start. For immersion, during this process, they can watch their favorite children’s movies in Spanish, to get a feel for the language. We’ll branch out to Whistlefritz later (although I did tell my mother-in-law that it would make a good Christmas present…).
Thank you for the feedback, everyone! It was mostly the new, lower price of YBCR products that swayed us to go this route.
I also love Speekee for Spanish. My DD loved this although I must admit we have been less disciplined about watching in recent months. I think they have a two week free trial to watch their videos online (so you need a good internet connection). I think there might be a discount via Brillkids too
Thank you for adding that to the list of options! I can’t buy Speekee because it’s not compatible with our DVD system here in the USA, so I had forgotten about it. I guess I could look into their TV subscription option when we are ready.
Thank you, TMT! My kids loved it, and the pdf activities that go with each episode look great! I shared it with my local homeschooling group and many of them liked it too. You are amazing.
It’s still buy one get one free through Midnight November 24th, 2012 on every CD or DVD on our web site if you like the bilingual approach. No discount code needed at all.
I realize this is an old thread, but Tamsyn, I am wondering how your kids did with YBCR in Spanish. Did they like it and learn from it? Also, did you use any other programs? I’m thinking about getting it, but I’m on the fence as I’ve also recently learned about Kidstart Spanish.
Thanks!
We did get YBCR in Spanish. It’s well done, but my kids didn’t like it as much as they had already seen YBCR in English so many times and think of it as a baby show. We then got Kidstart Spanish. The format of both is very similar- see words isolated on the screen, then a little clip demonstrating the word, plus a few Spanish songs. They’re both well done. If you were to get just one, I’d recommend Kidstart Spanish, as there are more songs. I can’t say my kids are bilingual, but I don’t blame either program as it’s simply something we haven’t been consistent with. Still, they have gained a lot of vocabulary from both programs. Salsa is their favorite. I’d like to try Whistlefritz when our budget gets around to it.
Thanks for the insight! I am a native Spanish speaker, so I’m looking for something to reinforce spanish for my 9 month old. I started YBCR in English with her a couple of weeks ago, and now I’m wishing I would have started it in Spanish or Kidstart Spanish instead.
Even though I speak to her in Spanish, she hears English all of the time because that’s the main language that my husband and I communicate in, although we are working on changing that. In addition, we are doing other educational programs that are only in English.
We tried LR Spanish Lite. She seems to really enjoy that. We will probably make that purchase in a few months.
I am going to go ahead and order the Kidstart program then. She seems to really like the format of YBCR, and she loves songs!
Even if your kids are not fluent in Spanish yet, it sounds like you’ve laid a great foundation for them!
I actually checked out a Whistlefritz DVD from the library, and I have to say I liked the little bit that I saw. I wanted to see if my LO was interested, and she definitely liked it.
I’m so excited that I found this site and this forum. When I was pregnant my husband and I looked for information on teaching our daughter more than one language. He speaks English and French, and I speak English, Spanish, Italian, and French, and we both see the value in raising our daughter to speak more than one. We had trouble finding useful info online because most of it is geared towards OPOL families, or MLAT families. We’re neither.
We have had some success with BSL, and are expanding the vocabulary we use day to day as she grows. We read stories in French, but hoping to start LR french in the next month or so. It’s great hearing from families that have tried upwards of 5 languages with children under the age of 5. Thanks for sharing stories.
, I must say the other 3 DVDs are pretty good. Total immersion, fun videos and songs. My toddler loves it. 
