Cha, Cha, Cha - Spanish Learning Songs

These practical and well-designed lessons are easy for parents to follow using the Whistlefritz series. The Lesson Plans for Kids book contains forty lessons using creative and interactive projects like making puppets, trying new recipes, making play dough, and drawing pictures of family. Each new lesson refers back to past learning, helping the new vocabulary and phrases stick. Fritzi is a cartoon mouse found throughout the program and he is darling. The lessons guide a parent/teacher, telling them exactly what to say and do. The pronunciation help comes from the DVDs (make sure you know the correct pronunciation too so you model it correctly). In the lesson plan book are vocabulary words to have your student repeat and practice. These lessons reference specific videos in the series. Don't worry, they are very fun and engaging videos! In the videos, you see a person's face as he/she says a word. Children can imitate how the person looks as they are making sounds that are not in English. This is something you don't see with other language videos. Each 25-minute immersion DVD contains a variety of short scenes including live action, animation and puppets. The series features plenty of repetition, slower-paced conversation, and an easy-to-follow format that is helpful for parents and kiddos. Several short songs are included as well. Expect each lesson to take 30-40 minutes, including the videos and activities. You are only watching a part of a video for the actual lesson. Scripted plans mean very little planning for you! You can assemble materials for the project and get the DVD ready and voila - time for your Spanish lesson! Every single lesson has the following categories: description of lesson, goal, objective, vocabulary, materials, time, focus, teacher input, guided practice, independent practice, closure and extension activities. If this sounds like it was written by a classroom teacher, it was, several very talented ones. Pages may be reproduced for a single classroom/family use. There are several pages you will want to make copies of for the activities. I love that this is a hands-on program without requiring a student to be able to write just yet. This is a good in-between step, from a beginner's initial exposure to a foreign language, and doing something with a written component (aka workbook.) You will need all of the DVDs to get the most out of the lesson plan book. You could, however, use the videos without the plans. All of the voices are native speakers on the Whistlefritz materials, which helps your children develop an authentic accent as they imitate what they hear. The Spanish Matching Card Game is a fun way to practice vocabulary and has a little fox character named Rito demonstrating the words, as well as the printed word with pronunciation help. The 50 cards can be turned face down to play a matching game. Be sure to have your kiddos say the word when they turn up a card! I like the idea of a proper lesson once or twice a week and having the kids watch the videos for fun on other days. Keeping it light and fun, your children will be asking for Fritzi! Educator's Collection includes: Spanish Lesson Plans for Kids, Spanish La Gran Coleccion, Buenos Dias Spanish Learning Songs CD, Spanish Matching Cards and La Musica DVD. La Gran Coleccion is a boxed set of songs and learning videos on 5 DVDs and 4 CDs. The Deluxe Spanish Collection includes: the La Gran Coleccion set, plus the Buenas Dias Spanish Learning Songs CD and the La Musica DVD. It also includes the Spanish Matching Cards. ~ Sara