Olivita Oink's Bilingual Barnyard is a full semester of Spanish instruction for elementary aged children. There are 4 DVDs and a paperback workbook to go with the DVDs. There are 40 lessons on the DVDs, and each one is intended to be used twice for the sake of the repetition.

Olivita Oink, as you can probably figure out for yourself, is a cartoon pig that the lessons revolve around. A native speaking teacher from Colombia is the teacher on the DVDs. She uses a classroom setting and shows the words and phrases and asks the students to repeat what she says. I especially like the approach this course uses because this is not an English-speaking teacher whose second language is Spanish. This is a Spanish-speaking teacher whose second language is English. Her accent is genuine. When I was in school, I took several years of Spanish, and one summer I took an immersion course at Kansas University for six weeks. All the teachers were Spanish-speaking instructors from other countries. We did nothing but speak Spanish all day and all evening and all weekend long. Because the teachers were native speakers, we actually learned more, and our pronunciation improved exponentially.

This is a very comprehensive and well-prepared course. I love the fact that it provides a workbook to go along with the DVDs and the fact that a teacher is holding regular classroom sessions on the DVD. There are of course plenty of visuals and even some changes of scenery, but it has a classroom feel. This will work very well for me because I intend to use this program for both my kindergarten student and my middle school student. As my kindergarten student is just learning to read, she will only do the DVD portion this year, but my other student will also do the accompanying worksheets. I feel they will both do quite well, and neither will be bored or overwhelmed with this course. I myself have found it interesting, and I am looking forward to brushing up on my spelling and pronunciation as we complete this course.

If you are looking for a full-semester Spanish course for your homeschool student, this would be an excellent curriculum to choose. The book and DVD set is $129.00. If you compare with other comparable language curriculums, this is a very reasonable price. I would purchase it myself at that price and be very satisfied with my choice.