REVIEW- Kindergarten Spanish Curriculum

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I’ve taught Spanish for almost 20 years, and am now raising bilingual children at home. While I wish I’d been able to send my girls to a bilingual school, I did find the next best thing- Llamitas Spanish homeschool kindergarten Spanish curriculum.

In this review, I’ll tell you exactly what you need to know to make your decision about buying the program for your bilingual children.

Key Takeaways

Llamitas Spanish is the best kindergarten Spanish curriculum on the market because it is comprehensive, age-appropriate, and culturally relevant.
This Level 1 Spanish curriculum is the perfect way to transition from an oral bilingual journey to a written one
You can use the Level 1 kindergarten Spanish curriculum with multiple kids because you have lifetime access for your family- making it a budget-friendly way to bring bilingualism into your home.

Do you already know you want it? Shop Llamitas Spanish Curriculum here

About Llamitas Kindergarten Spanish Curriculum

Llamitas Spanish is a thematic homeschool curriculum with a gentle academic approach to early childhood education. Currently, it includes a Spanisih Morning binder for preschoolers, a Level 1 kindergarten Spanish curriculum, and a new Level 2 curriculum for grades 3-5.

Llamitas Spanish was created by Corrie Wiik, who quit teaching Spanish to create the Spanish education blog Mama Llama Linguist, in collaboration with a global team of illustrators, voice actors, and bilingual educators.

After leaving her teaching career to stay home with her children, Corrie started a blog about raising bilingual children to share about the Spanish resources they were using in their home.

Over the years, Corrie had the opportunity to write dozens of reviews on Spanish curricula that she used with her children.

Corrie found that although the lesson plans supported their Spanish language acquisition, many were missing two fundamental aspects for early years language study: authentic Spanish literature and Kindergarten readiness skills.

Corrie is passionate about literacy and, much like native Spanish speakers, prioritized exposing her kids to traditional Latin nursery rhymes and music early on to help them connect and appreciate the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world and culture.

She kept the focus on hands-on, joyful learning, but also needed materials that gently introduced phonemic awareness and foundational numeracy like counting, sequencing, and classifying in preparation for school.

So she gathered a team of native speakers to help her create her dream curriculum: a series of 12 thematic and academic units, rooted in wholesome Hispanic literature and music.

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What Is Thematic Learning?

Thematic learning in its simplest form is creating Spanish lessons by themes and topics.

It is based on the theory that children learn most effectively in real-life contexts. This couldn’t be more relevant for language learning and should play a central role in a family’s bilingual parenting strategy.

Themes allow the child to make deeper connections with the language, as they learn about the same topic, such as La Granja (farm), Los Ayudantes de la Comunidad (community helpers), or El Bosque (forest), across all their subjects including Math, Literacy, Phonics and Art.

Llamitas kindergarten Spanish curriculum (Level 1) extends learning themes beyond the surface level of many other Spanish programs by nurturing deeper connections with the language and encouraging children to speak Spanish.

The program avoids rote learning like vocabulary drilling and instead focuses on language acquisition through hands-on activities and cognitive skills such as memorizing, thinking, listening, and questioning.

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What Skills Does Thematic Learning Develop?

Llamitas Spanish provides a gentle approach to early childhood academics, meaning that it supports your child’s transition from all play-based learning, to more structured and formal learning, while still keeping the focus on interactive learning.

The units are designed so that they can be completed individually, but they do build on each other in terms of skills and level. For example, the math portion starts with counting 1-10 in unit 1, and then builds to 11-20 in the second unit and so forth. So completing the units in order is better, although not imperative.

Some examples of the Kindergarten readiness skills included in the Llamitas kindergarten Spanish curriculum units are:

Phonics: Letters and sounds, phonemic awareness and spelling
Early Math: Counting, sequencing, classifying, adding and subtraction
Literacy: Memory recitations, poetry, artwork discussion and comprehension
Fine & Gross Motor Skills: cutting, cooking, coloring, crafting
Gross Motor Skills: music and movement through songs and family games

What’s Included In the Kindergarten Spanish Curriculum?

The Llamitas Spanish curriculum offers an ‘open and go’ scripted course book. The scripts are bilingual so you can facilitate the lessons in English or Spanish– and this ain’t your middle school Spanish! 😂

Generally speaking, if you as the parent have an upper intermediate (B2+) Spanish level, you should definitely take advantage and teach the lessons in Spanish yourself. If you don’t, you can follow along in English and the audio tracks will do the heavy lifting for you.

Each unit includes:

Libro de actividades’ (Course Book)
Bilingual Readers
Authentic Songs sung by a Latin Grammy-nominated Voice Producer
Unit Flashcards
Native Speaker Audio Tracks
Thematic Music Playlist
Thematic Book Menu

Although the Book Menu does not form part of the core lessons, it’s a great resource as it provides suggestions to extend your child’s thematic learning through read-aloud and literacy.

Who Is Llamitas Spanish Curriculum For?

Llamitas Spanish is perfect for children ages 3-6, as it builds those foundational early childhood educational skills. For children younger than 3, I recommend the Preschool Spanish Morning Binder.

In terms of language level, both bilingual families and complete Spanish beginners alike can enjoy the curriculum, due to its bilingual scripts.

Worth highlighting is that, although there are dozens of Beginner Spanish curriculums on the market, the fact that native and heritage speakers can truly benefit from Llamitas Spanish has filled a huge gap in homeschooling foreign language curricula.

By providing bilingual scripts, bilingual and native-speaking families can nurture their child’s language acquisition (often the minority language) at home.

In addition, non-native families are supported with native speaker pronunciation guides through audio tracks, as it assumes the parent will be learning alongside the child.

Why It’s The Best

Llamitas Spanish is deeply committed to making language learning at home affordable for all families. Not only is the price point truly unbeatable for a high-quality, full-year curriculum, but it also includes lifetime access, meaning no annual fees or memberships.

The curriculum is also very visually appealing, with beautiful watercolor illustrations, used throughout the curriculum on flashcards and worksheets. These will draw your child in and engage them with the materials.

Written in collaboration with native speakers, Llamitas Spanish also stands out for its culturally rich connections to the Hispanic culture. Traditional Hispanic nursery rhymes, songs, and recitations are a core feature of the program.

The native speaker recordings are another highlight of the program. Recorded in clear and beautiful Spanish by a Venezuelan Voice Actor, her character voices are highly entertaining and bound to engage your kids.

Finally, parents appreciate the flexibility of the Llamitas Spanish curriculum. You can either choose to follow the lessons step-by-step, or simply select the most age (and skill) appropriate activities from the Course Book (Libro de actividades).