Spanish for You Reveiw

I really wasn't looking for a foreign language curricula, so I didn't have an opinion either way on this. Once I received my download files of Spanish for You! Fietas, I was still not too excited as it didn't make sense to me as I don't know a bit of Spanish. It wasn't until I listened to our conference call with Debbie Annett that it all started to fall into place. She has been very helpful!

Pros:

1. Easy to use. (Once you know what you are looking at.)

2. Debbie gives you both a native speaker audio file and an audio file of her speaking. This really helps as it's hard to understand the native speaker if you don't know the language. I use the native speaker file the most because that is what I want my kids to hear and learn.

3. It had all of us, including my 5 year old, speaking and understanding Spanish the first day!
4. At only $39.95 per grade level, this is a really affordable curricula!

Cons:

1. If you aren't familiar with Spanish at all, you may have to take some time to figure it all out. 

For my review, I received "Spanish for You!" Fiestas in a download format. In this package I received;

1. Spanish for You! textbook.

2. 30 week lesson plan for grades 3-4.

3. Self-checking worksheets.

4. Audio files of the entire textbook.

5. Flashcard/activity pictures.

I had everything I needed, once I figured out where to start. Like I said before, I did not speak a bit of Spanish so I had no idea what I was looking at. Part of it could have been that I like to have a physical book in my hands. It helps me make better sense of things. To remedy this, I printed out both the textbook and the lesson plan files. It still took me a bit to figure it all out though. This is most definitely an "open and go" type curricula! 

Once I had it all figured out, it was a snap! I had my 1st and 3rd grade children do this with me. I know that 1st grade is a bit below the target age, but I figured I could help him along. He has done very well! I have to help a bit with the worksheets, but I'm not too fond of worksheets anyway. What I'm impressed with is that it had us speaking Spanish the very 1st day! The flashcards are a huge help. We use them to play games, not just memorize.

We have been moving slower than Debbie suggests, only doing 2 days a week instead of 5. I don't want to fill our schedule so much that we burn out! Next school year I will add more days of Spanish though, as we are enjoying it so much! Even doing just 2 days a week, my children are retaining what they have learned! 

Overall, this is a great curricula! I plan on purchasing the other package, Estaciones, when we finish with Fiestas.