Immerse your children in Spanish

The closest we've been to having our children learn Spanish by immersion are our visits with my mother-in-law. When we visit, a couple of Latin American phrases are practiced, but the conversations are predominately English. It's difficult to pick up a lot when there is such a great physical distance between us, making visiting very infrequent .. and hubby isn't very fluent in his Spanish either since he moved to Australia at a young age and focused on learning our language.

So, I do try and teach my children Spanish as best as I can. Finding resources to catch my children's attention has been a bit of a challenge, especially when they were younger, but I did take up an opportunity to review a product so I could add something fun to our holidays and our Spanish learning.

Speekee - Spanish for Children offer an online/tv presentation to young children so they can hear the language and imitate through catchy songs with puppets and real Spanish children. Yes, we found ourselves singing some of those songs to ourselves, especially when drying up dishes together. I think Abuela will be impressed if Mariposa and I could sing her a couple of these songs on our next visit!

One thing I really liked about the online episodes was that the subtitles were in English and Spanish, so we could see the written word as it was spoken. There is an option to turn this off, too. Just click the "CC" option in the top right-hand corner of the screen to toggle between 'on' or 'off'. No English is spoken in these episodes, though. It's all Spanish (European Spanish rather than Latin American).

The 10 episodes are consistent in their presentation format, so there is repetition that helps with absorbing some fundamentals, as well as breaking the episodes into smaller concentration timeframes. Each episode will also present optional worksheets in the right sidebar for you to print off and present as a reinforcement activity page.

Speekee is set up in a spiral learning approach. This means that once new language has been introduced, it will be revised in future episodes along with a little more new language. This helps build consistency and keep learning happening at a regular, gradual pace. Therefore, it's best to work through the episodes chronologically.

The programs are aimed at a young audience. The site says from ages 2-10, but Mariposa did think that the pace and puppetry was too young for her. I somewhat agree. There was a lot of repetition between each episode for her, and in a very simple format. BUT! .. she did learn and I really think that it won't hurt having some time still going through these episodes regularly to reinforce the language lessons. (Truth be told .. I like them and can see them working, even if there is a bit of mild resistance because it appears 'easy' to an almost-10yr old.)

If you'd like to have a look at Speekee TV, visit the home page and watch a quick preview of the program. A monthly subscription may be purchased at the site for £4.95 (almost $8AU. Check the conversion rate here.) The first 2 weeks are for free, and you can unsubscribe at any time with no minimum time period.

NB - I received full use of this online product for one month, for the purpose of review. There is no other compensation and the opinions are my own. Thank you to TOS and Speekee for the use of this product. If you'd like to read further reviews on this product, please click HERE.