Speekee utilizes the immersion method. It is entirely in Spanish. There are captions in English and Spanish which is helpful to me since it's been over 25 years since I had Spanish in high school. The captions can be turned on and off with the click of a button.
Speekee is a 10 episode program that includes 40 weeks of lesson plans. The lessons are found on the website and can be sent to you each week by email. Below is a clip of 3 different weeks of lessons. By clicking on any of the daily lessons, it opens up to a full lesson plan page giving you full details of what you can do. You will find ideas for activities, worksheets and flashcards to print.
clip of the lessons for each week |
This is a clip of the actual lessons for week 5. Links to the print outs that go along with the lessons are found in the margins. |
Emma working on a worksheet about colors. |
Watch this clip of one of the songs:
All of the songs are catchy and fun. I get them stuck in my head and I often hear the kids singing them. The kids age 2, 4, 6, 9 and 10 all watch this just about every day. I've been scheduling it in for every day. The lesson plans are for a 4 day week. We've mainly just been watching the videos and I try to speak Spanish to them every day (that I'm learning from the videos--ahem--re-learning from high school Spanish). Even my 12 year old said he is learning more from Speekee than he is from the Spanish curriculum I have for him. This is probably true because it is so much fun.
I have printed out flashcards (2 per sheet, I didn't want full size flashcards) and laminated them. We haven't used them much though because most of the kids enjoying this either can't read yet or are just learning. I do wish they had an English translation page for the teacher. Without sitting down and watching the videos myself I don't know what everything on the cards mean.
A few of the printables |
The children earn points from watching videos and there is a "mercado". They can make a sock puppet avatar but I didn't tell the kids about it because there is only 1 sock puppet avatar and 5 kids using this. I think you will understand why I didn't tell them. I've tried it myself and I kind of don't get it. I'm not really sure if you can do anything else with the points. There is another screen that pops up with a picture of Speekee and blocks of color you can buy, which I have done BUT I don't know what I'm "paying" for really.
Each episode is between 16 and 20 minutes long. There is a total of over 150 minutes of video. The kids enjoy watching these over and over.
Speekee, Dino and Lupi |
I highly recommend Speekee. It's not often that the kids enjoy learning this much. You can try it free for 2 weeks and I recommend that you do! We really, really love Speekee!! I think this would be a great introduction to Spanish for any child under the age of about 12. I probably wouldn't buy this for kids in the older category if I didn't have younger children as it really is geared toward the younger ones. The older ones will enjoy it though.
See what others are saying about Speekee TV on The Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.
disclaimer: I received a 6 month subscription to Speekee TV in exchange for an honest review
1 comment:
Hola Karen, This is Jim from Speekee checking to say GRACIAS for your review. Much appreciated!
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