Learn French with Whistlefritz {Homeschool Review Crew}
Learn French with Whistlefritz
Homeschool Review Crew
About the Curriculum
When you’re ready to Learn French and get your Educator’s French Collection you’re going to receive a nice package in the mail. That’s the first positive for this curriculum. I love a physical product. There’s just something about bein able to touch and feel something.
In the package you receive 5 DVD videos, 3 music CDs, lesson plan books, and Matching Cards Games. There are also translation guides available for you to download through the website. We did not use the translation downloads.
This curriculum is recommended for ages 1-7. So for toddler who is still learning English up to approximately the first grade. You can use this program easily with multiple children. Because I have kids who are over the age of 7 I did use this with older kids as well.
The DVD’s are done in immersion fashion which means they’re done all in French. I find this amazing and fun to listen to as I love foreign languages. It also helps to give you more clues to what they’re talking about and how sentences are formed. Within the DVD sessions you have both “real” people and animated puppet type people. They get to have fun and carry on conversations.
The CD’s include fun songs that your children will love to sing over and over and over and over again. Seriously. If you don’t like to hear repeated songs you might want to skip listening to them. In all honestly I have not gotten to the point of being annoyed by the songs yet and I hear htem daily. This would be a great part of the course to take with you as you travel so you could easily listen to the radio on the way.
To add in some fun hands on learning there is a card game. The game consists of 50 cards with the most adorable little foxes on them.
The Lessons
The lesson book deserves it’s own subheading in this post so here you go!
Within the lesson book is everything you’ll need to know to use the program correctly. These lessons are so fun! They include not only learning the words of the language but crafts and so many fun things plus other subjects within the learning of French such as PE, history, math, and science. Who doesn’t want all that extra learning??
Within the lesson plan you’re going to get a breakdown of what you need for the class, the appropriate songs and DVD lesson to watch etc. So for instance, you’re going to be given the vocabulary that this lesson works on, the goals and objectives for the lesson, materials needed for that lesson, a short description of the lesson, and an estimate of how long this lesson will take. Next you’re getting the how to of the lesson. It tells you what the focus should be put on and gives you a short script to use for teaching. Then there is a guided practice and an independent practice followed by a closure. Oh and don’t forget the extension activities to help cement it all!
Our Thoughts
I love that this is a physical product and does not require me to get on the internet to use it. My kids thought the videos were cute. The older kids were significantly not impressed with them but the target age range kids thought they were great.
We love music in our house and it was considered great fun to listen to the music cd’s and try to sing the songs in French as well as identifying what the English song name and lyrics are.
Native French speakers are used in this program. This means it’s more enjoyable to listen to for one but that it’s also a more accurate portrayal of the language. Being an immersion language course also means that you’re going to get more chances to listen to them talk and mimic them. Not only do they use “real” French, but they also teach French to you in such a way that you feel liked you’re truly learning to speak the language. I realize that sounds a bit weird but it means that you’re being taught French almost as if it’s your first language.
We used this for ages 1-12. Oh and me. I listened too. I love learning foreign languages so this was a no brainer that I was going to be sitting in on the DVD and CD sessions. My one year old really didn’t get much from it that I can tell. But he also really doesn’t do much talking in English yet. My older kids liked to act like they weren’t really all that interested but they also were doing quite a bit of showing off of their newfound language learned to friends and family. I have to say one of my 6 year olds probably picked this up the fastest and with the least amount of effort. She loves languages!
Learn More
Want to learn more about Whistlefritz? Want to learn French? Or how about Spanish? Whistlefritz also offered up the Educator’s Spanish Collection for review so you can see both sets linked up for reviews. Check out the Main Homeschool Review Crew page and see all the reviews! Each review will let you know if it’s for French or Spanish. You can also find Whistlefritz on facebook, twitter, and youtube.
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