Song School Spanish {A Review}

In our homeschool, we have been studying Spanish for about 4 years and I’ve found that the best time of day for Spanish with our schedule is at lunch time. We generally listen to our composer and folk song while lunch is being prepared and then sit down to work on Spanish together for about 10-15 minutes. We've just had the opportunity to review a new program for the last several weeks and I want to share.

Disclaimer:  I received both the student book and the teacher edition through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

 

Song School Spanish Book and CD is a soft back consumable student book with CD (a plastic pocket bound in the back of the book holds it). The student book contains recommendations with an additional resource list, words to learn, lyrics to the songs, workbook activities, and a show what you know section.

Song School Spanish Teacher's Edition has the pages from the student book with answers, additional activities (crosswords, word searches, word/picture matches, etc.) that go along with each chapter, answer keys for the additional activities, and the recommendations found in the student book. It is also soft cover.

The student book is recommended for kindergarten through 3rd grade. We’d recommend it for 3–10-year-olds that enjoy music.  We started the program on a Monday and by Friday Li was singing the songs to us at dinner. 

Some extras available from Classical Academic Press and online for the Song School Spanish book and CD are MP3 files of all the vocabulary being pronounced (available on the product page) and at the company has a game called Flash Dash for additional practice for the chapter reviews. There is a supplemental available for purchase called Spanish Amigo Match.

The recommended schedule is for 3 days a week. On day 1, students should read the first page and focusing on the words/phrases to learn while listening to the MP3 file. Then follow up with the songs from the CD. On day 2, the words/phrases should be reviewed and recited from memory along with the songs. Any activities up to the show what you know section should be completed. On day 3, start by pronouncing the words/phrases to learn from memory and then the songs. The songs should be listened to a couple of times and review from other chapters is encouraged. This day is to be wrapped up with the show what you know section.

We actually made our own 5-day schedule as we prefer to work on Spanish every day for the routine and consistency. Monday through Thursday we listened to the vocabulary pronunciations from the MP3 files and practiced saying the vocabulary along with the audio. Then we would sing the songs from the CD.  My plan was to only listen to the songs for that week for those first four days, but Ceesa and Jo-Jo loved listening to all of the songs every day (Monday-Friday!). We are going on week 5 now and they still like to listen to all of them, but it takes a bit of time and we don’t listen to all of them every day. After we listened to the songs, we would do an activity from the workbook or from the teacher’s edition. On Friday, we sang all of the songs, reviewed the vocabulary, and did the show what you know pages. This would be a good day to use the card game Spanish Amigo Match to review the activity. We did not purchase it, but we made our own vocabulary cards – 1 card has the Spanish vocabulary word and another has the English translation. Then we played Matching, or Go Fish, or Old Maid. We like how the program is about incorporating music as a mnemonic device. I’ve found all of our pronunciations have improved through singing them versus only repeating them back in speaking.

The possibility of using the interactive, online practice is a bonus and the oral pronunciation audio is very helpful (especially for those of us with a limited Spanish speaking background). The kids liked the short written practice in the form of handwriting and the hands-on opportunities with plays and stories.

Ceesa and Jo-Jo are working together on an activity page from the Teacher's Edition. They are using the
cards we made to work on a crossword. 

The songs are generally easy for us to learn with the exception of the alphabet chant. It is hard to remember even as far as we are into the program. We have found it helpful to write out the lyrics for the chant and we look at the lyrics while we sing that song.

As the company appears to have new things coming, we’d love to see some videos to go along with the songs, so that the kids can match their learning to stories or “real” situations. Also a spiral version of the student book would make it easier to write in or even show the lyrics to the kids while singing.

For those of you that love the first book, there is a second book available now as well!

Song School Spanish book and CD costs $24.95 and the Song School Spanish Teacher's Edition costs $24.95.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

Making Language Learning Fun: Teaching Spanish to Kids with the Salsa Series

Spanish Links for New Year

Connect with us!

Want more?

Sign up for our email list! We'll send you a newsletter with all of our freebies, updates on blog content, and notifications about new posts!

Sharing with you is so much fun! You can share too!

If you enjoyed this post, we'd love for you to share. Like it, save it for later, or share it with your people! Or all three! It helps us know which content you want more of and your support opens up our little corner of the internet and builds the blessings in our community! Simply click the share icons below.