Speekee Review

I took three years of spanish in high school and only remember the phrase we learned on the first day of class.

"Hola!  Como te llama?  Me llama Nicole.  Como estas?  Muy Bien!"

Even though I didn't care at all then, I'm totally bummed now that I can't speak a second language.

I've been thinking about working spanish into our schooling but wasn't sure how since what I can teach would be wrapped up in about one lesson.  So when I heard that Speekee was up for the TOS Reviews, I jumped at the chance to try it out.

We were given a six month, full subscription as well as the Speekee FastTrack lesson plan.

We have been using Speekee for three weeks now and are loving it.  Seriously, this dude is enough to hook anyone.

Speekee TV is basically just a 15 minute show that you watch online.  It is all in Spanish.  You can turn the subtitles off or on, depending on your preference.  I left ours on since I don't know any Spanish.  

The shows are great!  Very musical and eye catching.  The kids are just normal kids doing normal kid things while singing in Spanish.  It was easy to pick up the meaning of most words by just watching what they were doing in the show.  Josie and I both loved every episode and watched them multiple times.

No more then a minute into our first episode of Speekee TV, Josie was singing right along with the kids on the show!  I know she didn't know what she was saying, but I was really impressed!  After doing some role playing she picked the meanings up and was having a (very basic) conversation with her Dad that night!  

After watching the first video I knew it would help us out if we had a few words under our belt before we kept going.  I went in and watched a few videos and picked out some vocabulary words that I wanted Josie to learn and made some pretty homemade looking flashcards.  We used our whiteboard for practicing them.  This made a huge difference in watching the videos (for me, Josie loved them either way).

We also made sock puppets like the ones used in Speekee to add some more fun to watching the videos.

This was a HUGE hit with Josie.  It made practicing fun.

We were also given the 40 Week FastTrack plans.

If you get Speekee, I highly recommend also getting the FastTrack.  This was emailed to me weekly and outlined what to do each day to get the most out of each week's episode.  You also get flashcard words and worksheets that are optional.  There were only a few flashcard words given with each week's lesson.  I recommend making extra to really teach what they are saying in the videos.

The video and each day's activities took about 30 to 40 minutes depending on the activity.  We did each suggested activity and did a lot of role playing and practice so our lessons were closer to 40 minutes each day.

This program is awesome.  

I plan to subscribe after our trial runs out so that we can finish the entire 40 weeks of lessons.  This is a great place to start teaching Spanish.  It wasn't difficult to teach at all and was a very gentle and fun way to introduce a second language to Josie.

You can add Speekee to your schooling for $7.50 a month or $60 for a full year.  There are also videos available but you need to be sure your DVD player will read them since they are based out of the UK.  

To subscribe to Speekee TV, visit their site by clicking here.

Read what the rest of the Crew is saying about Speekee by clicking here.

Disclaimer:  I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are mine.