Flip Flop Learning, See It and Say It Flip Flop Spanish, A Review

3 Decks of Flash Cards
4 Audio CDs
(in a plastic sleeve sheet for your binder)
White Board Paddle & Marker
45 Complete Scripted Lesson Plans (printed on 3-hole punched paper)
a two-year curriculum

Ages 3 and up, complete Spanish program sells for $99.95.

So that’s the hard core details. It was enough for me to spend just a few minutes on Flip Flop Learning to know for certain that this program would appeal to my very hands on 12 year old learning boy. We have taken a couple of approaches to learning Spanish this past year and this program promised to combine the best of each program. So – Let me give you a visual tour, and I’ll let you know if all of their web site claims are true.

A beautiful box, shown in photos below, arrived at our house in perfect time and postal condition. We were able to quickly pull out our supplies. I wish I had photographed how beautiful the packaging is, but trust me it will feel like a gift.

On review items, I usually give myself a week or two to go through the entire program myself and get a feel for the publisher’s goals, the content, and map out how much we can get done in our 4-6 week review period. I needed about all of 2 minutes for this program.

I had a 3 ring binder on the shelf and put in the scripted lessons, and the CD holders. They even provide front, back and side covers, glossy and full color. Details. The attention to detail with this product amazes me.

Public service announcement – Please do not store your Black Sharpie next to the Black Expo Marker included in the kit. You might feel the need to draw La Zanharoria for a photo graph and learn the fingernail polish removes sharpie marker ink. Sort of.

This is a scripted program. Each lesson lets you know which cards to pull out and a quick browsing of the two pages per lesson will show you what order you will need them in. The words are printed in Spanish, English and Phonetic. The cards are numbered, and the numbers are included in the book to help you find them. They suggest keeping the cards in order bound, we used a rubber band, to make it easy to sit down to a quick lesson.

Yes, I did include it in the photo – See how it says Lesson 4 CD1 Tracks 10-13? Each lesson is on the CD that is scripted in the book. This makes it SO easy to find your spot for the practice session!

The cards – Again – the details. Crisp Color. Beautiful Graphics. Easy to read fonts. Numbered. This is the first program that has included the phonetic as well as Spanish and English letters. Such a wonderful detail.

We are lucky enough to have a small table in our resource room that has a CD Player on it. We found it less frustrating to sit as close to the pause button as possible. The first 3-4 lessons were a bit rushed as the teacher speaks quite quickly. If I sat beside Jon and read the script to myself, I could help him arrange the cards or offer a word that was missed. If you are too far away from pause, then well, it gets frustrating.

However, on the lessons 3-6 we learned the words first. I pulled them out, and we read through the script together. Then, as we listened to the CD, the speed didn’t seem to bother us at all. Jon says it made it “too easy”. Well. For this mom, Too Easy is perfect.

Which adds another detail. We have had CD driven programs, and had to deal with broken equipment, power failures, traveling, etc. You could just bring the binder and read the text.

Each lesson has visual cues of what to do with the cards as well. I can’t imagine that any teacher/helper/parent/sibling would have troubles helping to lead this class.

After practicing the cards she gives us game ideas to play, using the cards, the paddle and the marker. Jon loved playing Pictionary type guessing games. We played a Matching Game and that was a hit as well.

This was a program that we did between Math and Writing each day. It was a fun break, almost like a game. It didn’t feel like “work”. When I asked Jon about it, here is what he shared with me:

You have to read the cards over and over – but now I know 8-10 Spanish words.

The lessons are really easy.

I like learning the greetings and main words, but do not like learning words like Carrot and Skirt.

The teacher made it fun.

I’d rather focus on it once a week, rather than every day. (Crew expectations was to do it several times per week. We may switch to a once a week and see if there is retention.)

Again – It is Easy.

It was easier to practice the words before the CD. It was hard to understand the teacher because she talks so fast.

Things you may want to purchase include a 1/2 inch 3 ring binder, something to keep the cards in, like a 3 hole punch pencil holder and a spiral notebook for the Spanish dictionary.

She has tips for older students to write down the words and sentences. We were able to combine a history/missionary study with this as well, writing down some Spanish phrases from the book. I don’t know that Jon would have been confident writing it in Spanish had he not been exposed to it in this curriculum.

(I have sand on my camera lens. Surprise.
Please pardon the black spots – they are not on the crisp white paper.)

I liked seeing some of the words that we have had in Latin and Geography like Mesa. La Mesa – Table. I liked talking about Tines? of a fork. El Tenedor helped me remember fork. Tene Tines, well it helped me. Which is my other point. I’m picking up Spanish too! This program is fit for early pre-reader kids all the way up to “Yer Not Dead Yet”.

Jon thought I was taking pictures, but I accidently hit movie mode. This is Jon in his natural personality. First is 30 seconds Second is 16 seconds:

Yes, I believe that this program delivers all of the claims on the website and more delightful surprises along the way. At 5 weeks – it is too early to know how the journey will go to having a conversation. Each week the words get easier to remember and I can see it building. This will be a review program that we will continue to use after the review period is over.