Talkbox.mom language curriculum

[Quercus]

Has anyone used this? 

If you have, did it work as intended? What else did you use with it?

https://talkbox.mom/

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Quercus
to add link

[Moonhawk]

 Yes!*

*A little bit, lol

We've received the first box in October, next box will be coming in the next week or so. So far so good! The kids really enjoy it much more than the other curriculum we are doing (Spanish for Children) and it immediately got us talking in Spanish. We've had a crazy couple months and haven't given it half the attention it deserves, but we are still speaking Spanish around a lot of food.  The kids' accents are starting to improve. The 2yo has immediately taken to it especially and my mom (who's original language is Spanish) is overjoyed to have her walking around asking for naranjas y queso, lol.

The app is helpful, and the charts are used every day. The app has a good accent, slightly different than what is used in my family, but one of the better ones I've heard and I like that the kids have a good model. We are still struggling with some of the vocabulary, mostly the foods that aren't eaten on a daily or weekly basis, so the charts will probably stay up another couple months at least. 

We are primarily concerned with being able to do conversational Spanish, as we're in the minority as English-only-language in this area, and it's a part of my heritage that I want to pass on (I am not fluent, either, so I guess a part of my heritage I want to reclaim). I'm not as concerned with formal grammar at this point, though they are picking some of that up naturally (and 4 weeks of the Spanish with Children and past attempts seems to have given them the basic structure to apply to this program).

I've never paid this much for 1 single curriculum before, and wasn't sure I was going to let the subscription continue. Now, I'm definitely intending to stick with this.

[Quercus]

@Moonhawk Thanks so much! How old are your older kids? 

Also, did you get the book as well as a a box?

Edited December 8, 2019 by Quercus

[Moonhawk]

49 minutes ago, Quercus said:

@Moonhawk Thanks so much! How old are your older kids? 

Also, did you get the book as well as a a box?

 

Kids are 10, 8, 6, 2. (Older two will be 11 and 9 within the month)

We did get the book but haven't been using it. It will probably be just on the shelf for the kids to browse through when they want to. I won't say it's not helpful, but we have enough with the box to keep us occupied, and I don't want to throw too much at them. 

[Jentrovert]

We've used it, although I haven't been keeping up with it as I should. It's the only thing I've found that allows us to easily learn phrases that we actually use in the home every day. Everything else seemed to teach individual words and/or phrases that we rarely use, so wasn't that practical. It's expensive; I've only done 2 boxes and have really stretched that out. But it's very good.

As I said, I've fallen off of using it as I should, though, so I've paused the boxes for quite a while. I've needed to concentrate on other things for now, but fully intend to pick back up with it. The kids are currently doing a lesson per week on Language Convo. I feel they learn more when I'm able to take the time to learn and implement Talkbox at home, but the lessons are good exposure and they are remembering a lot of the vocabulary. So, for now, we will keep on with Language Convo and when I can we'll focus on Talkbox more.

[Quercus]

12 hours ago, Jentrovert said:

It's expensive

 

It's so expensive!  I keep thinking I should be able to put this together myself. But am I realistically going to do that? No.

[Jentrovert]

1 hour ago, Quercus said:

 

It's so expensive!  I keep thinking I should be able to put this together myself. But am I realistically going to do that? No.

 

I know, right?!? It's so convenient and realistically I wouldn't have put it all together myself.

Even if I had been able to keep up with it as I wanted to, I still would have paused the boxes to spread out the expense. And I think it's ok to do it that way.

[ktgrok]

ooh...DS has a scholarship that would cover this....may need to look into it!

[Quercus]

30 minutes ago, Ktgrok said:

ooh...DS has a scholarship that would cover this....may need to look into it!

 

https://pambarnhill.com/ymb54/?fbclid=IwAR1iXPlG3QRj4STJK6WLM-Jg1nEoVoJDNTFozMJCg7rfPmymJJQBwSeS7lM

[Renai]

On 12/8/2019 at 4:35 PM, Jentrovert said:

We've used it, although I haven't been keeping up with it as I should. It's the only thing I've found that allows us to easily learn phrases that we actually use in the home every day. Everything else seemed to teach individual words and/or phrases that we rarely use, so wasn't that practical. It's expensive; I've only done 2 boxes and have really stretched that out. But it's very good.

As I said, I've fallen off of using it as I should, though, so I've paused the boxes for quite a while. I've needed to concentrate on other things for now, but fully intend to pick back up with it. The kids are currently doing a lesson per week on Language Convo. I feel they learn more when I'm able to take the time to learn and implement Talkbox at home, but the lessons are good exposure and they are remembering a lot of the vocabulary. So, for now, we will keep on with Language Convo and when I can we'll focus on Talkbox more.

Take what they are learning in Language Convo and find ways to integrate it in your day. Even if it's just one phrase or sentence, use it consistently. The draw of TalkBox is that it's all put together for you in a way that it *can* be done consistently, but if you need to only use Language Convo, then make it work for you the same way.