Has anybody used Muzzy?

[NatYoung17]

I'm trying to decide if I want to use Muzzy to teach my dd (7) German, or if I should stick to books...? Has anybody used Muzzy successfully with their kids? I saw a couple fairly cheap ones on ebay (I wouldn't pay full price for it), but I'm not sure... I wonder if my daughter would like it and if it will keep her interest?

I appreciate your feedback! :001_smile:

[rieshy]

I taught at a preschool in early 2000's that used VHS Muzzy in all the classrooms. It was the Spanish version.

 

The kids despised it and pretty universally learned to zone out and learn nothing. I despised it, the other teachers despised it, the animation quality at the time was low and the storyline was boring. I'm hard to bore!

 

The school continued to use it as a selling point of our program to parents anyway:lurk5:

 

For much, much less I bought a pal dvd player and ordered some animated dvd's through amazon.de that the younger children watch. Same principle as Muzzy but more enjoyable when it's Pixar writing the script.

 

All said- maybe the program has been re-vamped since then.

Edited January 17, 2012 by rieshy

[cathmom]

We have Muzzy level 1 in German and level 2 in Spanish. My dc like it (all of them) and I've used the German in my adult classes and they enjoyed it well enough (bad animation and all). My students were happy to be able to watch something and understand it. I think it can be a fun supplement. My kids learned some things from it. But I only paid like $10 for each level, so that's fine. I would not pay more than maybe 20-25 dollars for a level and would NEVER buy it new.

[SnegurochkaL]

My children like Muzzy. We used Muzzy I and II for French. My son who was only 2, loved his Muzzy toy and wanted to watch cartoons all the time. Kids didn't care much about poor animation, they just liked the characters. My 9 years old daughter still like to watch it from time to time even she has some other French/German videos to enjoy. I would use it as a supplement to your main course/books.

[PhotoGal]

You might want to check if your library has it. :D

[unity]

I got the Teacher's Guide with lesson plans and the Activity Masters, and when you round out the DVDs with those, I think it's fine. The sound is sometimes a little murky, and a few of the characters have extremely cartoonish voices (make sense?) that make them hard to understand. I think if you try to use it as they sell to parents, without the teacher support materials, it's very weak. But I think the classroom support materials help make it a decent program.

 

I've had all the lesson plans/masters for Spanish I/II available for sale here on these boards for months. I figure someday someone will go searching for it and find it. Definitely not a really hot commodity with this crowd.:001_smile:

[beaners]

My children like Muzzy. We used Muzzy I and II for French. My son who was only 2, loved his Muzzy toy and wanted to watch cartoons all the time. Kids didn't care much about poor animation, they just liked the characters. My 9 years old daughter still like to watch it from time to time even she has some other French/German videos to enjoy. I would use it as a supplement to your main course/books.

 

How funny. My young children did not care for the cartoons at all. I wonder if maybe it was the fact that they really haven't watched cartoons.

 

I think 7 would be a good age to use it, if you could get it cheaply or borrow it from the library.

[NatYoung17]

Thanks so much to all of you for your input! That helps a lot! I guess I will try it out from the library and go from there...

[MelanieM]

I thought the Muzzy storyline was really creepy. I didn't want my kids watching that again and again, so I sent it back. Weird, weird stuff IMO. (And my kids do watch television/cartoons, so they're not completely sheltered.)

[Hedgehog]

We had the VHS French version when I was younger, and we now have the DVD Spanish version.

 

I'm not that delighted with it, nor was I back along, but I bought it because I was familiar with it. Given another chance, I probably wouldn't buy it again because the language quality isn't that good - ie, it's hard to hear exactly what is being said, and for a audio language program that is pretty crucial IMO. I can understand it because I already know what's happening, but my kids struggle to hear and understand, or to repeat it themselves.

[Embassy]

It was a waste of money for us. I had the Mandarin version. It would have worked better to get Mandarin instruction DVDs for kids and I could have purchased a bunch at that price. The animation was poor and outdated. The audio wasn't very clear for us either. My kids didn't learn a thing with it. The Muzzy doll was cute though :) I used Muzzy with my boys when they were preschool age. I used Mandarin DVDs for kids with my youngest at the same age and she has learned a bunch from them.