Monday, July 22, 2013

R.E.A.L. Homeschool Spanish Review

In the beginning of this month I wrote about our new Spanish curriculum- R.E.A.L. Homeschool Spanish. In exchange for an honest review, I have been given the opportunity to review it and I have been beyond excited!  

Juan and I had several criteria when looking for a Spanish curriculum. Because of our schedules, one requirement was that it must have a guide that is easy to follow and already set up for us to cut down on prep time. We wanted something with a teacher's guide that we could both follow in case I had to take over lessons. We wanted a workbook because we are classical homeschoolers and prefer incorporating worksheets into our lessons for practice. We decided it had to be an ebook so it would be easy to reprint for future children. We also wanted an immersion style learning so that we could all learn together. Lots of requirements for a curriculum to fill!

We had been searching and searching for a long while and finally stumbled across R.E.A.L. Homeschool Spanish. It literally fits exactly what we had been looking for.  
Initially Juan was in charge of Spanish lessons because even though neither of us speaks perfect Spanish, his is definitely better than mine. But when I had a chance to look through the e-books I felt confident that I would have no issues teaching my children Spanish with this curriculum. 

Here are the pros of this curriculum:
  • The curriculum is set up as an immersion style learning, which allows us all to learn together. I really like that it is a conversational Spanish that we are working on, instead of just colors and numbers.
  • There are audio files included with the correct pronunciation of the vocabulary words. There are 10 units altogether. Each unit has a general theme. Unit 1 (which we are still working on) is about greetings. Other themes include colors, numbers, different foods, family, body parts, seasons, and a LOT more. Verbs and grammar are also addressed a little bit in this curriculum.
  • Each unit comes with activity ideas and tips to the educator on how to help the lesson sink in. I really loved this part because I am not very creative but the curriculum gave me ideas on things I could do. Our favorite activity idea so far that both children loved was our puppet show. 
  • There is an answer guide for the activity book.
  • There is a curriculum guide which breaks down everything day by day for 48 weeks. It is open and go with very little prep time.
  • While the curriculum guide does have a breakdown of things you can do, I feel it is laid back enough that you can stretch out lessons if your little one is having difficulties with it. Jayden (7yrs old) picked up phrases very quickly, while Cait (4yrs old) had a little more difficulty memorizing some of the phrases. I like that this curriculum focuses on learning the language in a fun way and I don’t feel rushed to continue through the book. The name of the curriculum itself is R(elax) E(njoy) A(spire) L(earn). Maybe the title helps me feel more laid back about it!
  • There are FREE culture links on their website. These culture links also incorporate science, history, geography, music, and more!
  • Dr. Karyn Williamson-Coria, the creator of this program, was incredibly kind and helpful. She took the time to respond to all of my emails in a timely fashion and even offered ideas on how I could adapt the more difficult areas to better fit my children.  Seriously fantastic customer service!
  • Dr. Karyn Williamson-Coria was a homeschooling mother. This is something I consider a pro because she created a curriculum based on the experiences she had when looking for a curriculum for her children. The work that she put into this is amazing. She truly thought of all aspects of learning and put it into one curriculum. The audio files work amazingly for the auditory child. The ideas section has fantastic ideas for the kinesthetic learner. And the workbook is perfect for the visual learner. Because she was a homeschooler, she understands that different children have different learning styles. It also appeals to different types of homeschooling methods ranging from unschooling to classical homeschoolers!

Con:
  • There is literally only ONE con that I can think of with this curriculum and it is something that Dr. Karyn correctly warned me about before I even downloaded the program. She warned me that the activity guide was “wordy” and might not be work for children under 8 years old. I definitely have to agree with her on this. The activity guide was definitely above Caitlin’s level. If Jayden was more fluent in Spanish I think the activity book might work for him. But right now he cannot spell or write in Spanish so the activity book doesn’t work for him either. This is definitely not a problem though. The activity book is not mandatory for the curriculum if you choose not to use workbooks.
Overall this is the absolute perfect curriculum for our family!

 
Dr. Karyn Williamson-Coria was kind enough to offer a temporary promo code for anyone interested in trying the program! Click here and select "Promo" in the tab on top. Then write the code "promo2013" (no caps, spaces, or quotation marks) in when prompted. You will receive the entire bundle for $34.95 (regularly priced at $43.99). 

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