This year, we are trying something new with homeschool Spanish!

My husband and I are both Spanish speakers, and to be honest, teaching our kids Spanish in homeschool has been a wild ride. You can read more here about this process: things I’ve tried, things that worked, things that didn’t.

In today’s post, I am going to review the Llamitas Spanish: Preschool Morning Binder which I have been using with my kindergartener, Beau this year! We are one month in, and these are our first impressions.

Kindergarten Spanish Curriculum

This year, I wanted something open-and-go for Spanish! This curriculum does not disappoint. Here are my favorite aspects:

• Open-and-Go: there is no prep needed on my part. I do speak Spanish, but this curriculum is completely doable, even if you don’t. (Even the older levels have bilingual instructions, and everything is extremely organized and well laid out).
• Bite-sized lessons: The lessons are short and sweet. And of course, you can always do more, or less! You can gage how your kiddo is doing each time. Today, for example, Beau was really into it, so we did five full pages! Other days, he has felt like doing one page. It’s very gentle and flexible, perfect for preschoolers and kindergarteners.
• Colorful & beautiful: Vibrant colors, hand-painted illustrations, and a generally very cute, classic aesthetic makes this appealing to both kids and parents.
• Thematic and repetitive: since young kids thrive on repetition, this book is thematic and repetitive! It features common preschool concepts like letters, numbers, shapes, animals, and phonics.
• Routine-based: There are seven Spanish songs, with audio tracks and illustrations included. There is also a “daily routine” section you can incorporate, with procedures familiar to preschool like:
  • Calendar
  • Weather
  • All About Me
  • I feel…
• Parent-friendly: this curriculum is incredibly parent-friendly, especially if you don’t speak Spanish! The binder comes with audio tracks and an entire set of resources online, in your account, when you purchase the curriculum. There are audio tracks for everything from pronunciation of the letters and numbers, to the songs themselves.

Homeschool Spanish Curriculum: One Caveat

I started the Llamitas Spanish curriculum about one month ago with my kids. The only caveat I can think of so far is: the leveling may be nuanced, depending on the age and experience level your kids have, with Spanish.

For example: if your fourth grader decides they want to learn Spanish this year, I wouldn’t recommend this preschool binder. That may sound obvious–but sometimes it’s hard to know, especially with something like foreign language! It may be confusing, if you feel like they should start at square one. Depending on a “beginner” fourth grader’s personality, interest, and desire for rigor, Level 1 or Level 2 would work best. For my third grader, Emmaline, I opted for Level 1 this year. She understands a lot of Spanish, and has some background, but we have never done formal Spanish with her before.

So far, some of the Level 1 binder is too easy (fine motor skills, phonics, matching), and some of it is just right (reading from the little reader)! Other elements are difficult for her–like responding in complete Spanish sentences.

If you are starting an older child in Spanish, and they don’t have any background in Spanish, I would just make sure you examine the materials closely. Llamitas provides videos explaining each curriculum in depth, here. They are extremely helpful.

It’s also hard to know how to plan, if you as the parent don’t have any background in Spanish. I would say, that that is where this curriculum comes out strongly–there are an outstanding company, have great customer support, and, the entire setup is extremely parent-friendly. Even at the higher levels, every single instruction is provided in both English and Spanish, so that you as the parent can be sure you are guiding your child in the right way.

Homeschool Spanish Supplements

Along with Llamitas Spanish, I will probably supplement with other things as the year goes on! (Note: as an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting my small business!)

I really love using:

• Spanish Spotify Playlists & Freebies (Llamitas Freebie Resource Library)
• Spanish YouTube videos (my favorites listed here)
• Spanish Verb Flash Cards: I make simple games, and make these cards multi-purpose! We act them out, play slapjack with them, play memory with them (I have two sets), play Pesca (Go Fish), etc.
• Spanish Memory Game: this is a great way to learn animals. My kids love playing memory anyway, so what better way to practice than with Spanish vocabulary!

Also, as the year goes on, I think we will easily finish the curriculum early, since we started school so early this year. I think I will plan to go through it twice (or, one and a half times, depending on how long it takes us) for extra emphasis. The second time around, maybe I will tweak the lessons a bit, or extend them a bit. For example: this time around, in the preschool binder, Beau is tracing letters. Maybe the second time around, I will have him write words instead!

Lastly, because he likes games so much, I love playing simple games of slapjack with him! So far, we have learned: iguana, erizo, pato, oso, abjea, unicornio, and mapache for the animals. It is super fun, quick and easy to set these cards out, then say “uno, dos, tres….MAPACHE!” and see who can slap the “mapache” first.

How about you –what curriculum have you tried, for homeschool Spanish? I’d love to hear!

With love,

Cait