What Should I Know About The Cultured Kid?
The Basics: Shannon Kelly launched The Cultured Kid in 2014 with the mission of providing affordable, immersive, and fun language learning experiences to children all over the world. The Cultured Kid’s programs are designed for children from 2 years of age but older children can also reap the benefits of the program’s visual and audio-rich content.
- The Cultured Kid connects learners with native speakers through video lessons and phonetic exercises consistently throughout each lesson, which is one of the best ways to learn a language.
- The Spanish Monthly membership costs $29 and the annual membership costs $297.
This might seem like a big investment – because it is! Learning a language will change your child’s life, and we believe investing in their future is well worth it; not to mention that these prices are agreeable when compared with other online self-paced programs. Unsure about getting a membership? The Cultured Kid remains transparent and allows you to join for a month to see if the program fits your family’s needs and benefits your child, with no penalty for cancellation.
- After you purchase a lesson, a link to all of your materials gets sent directly to your email so you can start as soon as you want.
- You can finish a lesson in around 30 minutes but the schedule is designed to be flexible and fit the needs of your family.
Our team at Trufluency Kids respects fellow language learning companies that put the needs of their students first and foremost. The Cultured Kid does just that by providing play-based, listening-focused activities that take pressure off your child and encourage them to learn a language by having fun. Now that you know a bit about The Cultured Kid and its mission, let’s dive into our review of the Spanish membership bundle for weeks 1-6.
What Do I Get With The Cultured Kid Spanish Bundle?
Getting Started: Each bundle at The Cultured Kid contains four weeks of material. Learners start their language acquisition journey and unlock their first monthly bundle by completing an evaluative quiz. The quiz asks the age of your child and allows you to post a comment and connect with other users. This adds a personalized element to the language learning experience.
- The Cultured Kid gives learners the ability to access lessons, videos, songs, and games from their tablet or iPhone, making the experience easy to fit into a busy schedule.
- A short, informative video shows learners how to print flashcards, access materials, and find everything in the course.
- Flashcards are included in each of the lesson bundles so if you select a lesson, they are downloadable for each topical bundle.
A great aspect of this course is that users can post comments, ask questions and directly connect with course creator and The Cultured Kid founder Shannon Kelly. Shannon gives timely, efficient feedback and also provides her email address to make communication channels as open as possible.
What Did We Think About Bundles 1-6?
We worked our way through six Spanish language bundles covering topics that are great for learners who are just getting started on their language acquisition journey. These topics include actions, animals (check out TruFluency’s post on Spanish animal names!)
numbers, a review to assess information retention, colors, and family.
Each bundle is broken up into a four-week plan, and each week is divided into fun, interactive lessons that utilize different mediums to keep kids engaged five days a week. Videos are high-quality and the included games are a great way to see your child’s progress and reinforce the vocabulary to make sure it sticks. Here’s what we thought of the bundle layout:
Music Monday: Your child can start the week off right with a list of songs specially curated by The Cultured Kid. One complaint you might have is that the lyrics to each song are not provided, and there is no visual component to accompany the audio (technically, your child will not likely be reading the lyrics, and should be trying to copy the sounds just like they did with their first language – but we know adults like to see what they’re saying, so it’s not a huge downsie). If you’re an adult that wants to see the words, we suggest printing out the lyrics online before starting this section. But we do encourage you to listen and not read, as you could be saying it wrong when reading.
Teaching Tuesday: This section includes a video with adorable visuals and a structured worksheet. Be aware that In Bundle 1, week 3, and week 4 have the same Teaching Tuesday worksheet documents as weeks 1 and 2 respectively. This repetition can be used to your child’s advantage, however, as it reinforces the concepts they have covered.
Web Wednesday: This was our favorite part of the week. Web Wednesdays allow kids to have fun through listen-and-learn exercises, multiple-choice games, matching games, and click-interactive activities, all complete with clear audio pronunciation and storybook-like visuals.
Thoughtful Thursday: This part of the week focuses on telling stories that reinforce target language with fun audio. Be mindful that the text of the story isn’t always fully visible as the camera pans slowly over each page, making it potentially difficult to focus on specific words and read along as you listen (but we previously discussed that listening should be the focus anyway). To be able to read the words – if desired – we recommend pausing the video when you want to focus on a specific word.
Fun Friday: Your child ends the week with a printable activity that can involve the whole family and set a great tone for the weekend. We love that the games review material learned throughout the week.
If you think that your child can’t learn a language through play, think again. The Cultured Kid Spanish bundle gives your child the opportunity to build their language skills while interacting with materials, playing games, and listening to audio that will get them up and moving.
Starting a Language Acquisition Journey That Suits Your Needs
At TrueFluency Kids, we recognize the importance of having fun while learning a language. If you have a child that is a little older or want to work with a tutor in real-time, consider TrueFluency Kids. We use the Bellieu Method to get your child fluent and emphasize speaking to build confidence. Check out what our students are saying about their time learning with TruFluency Kids, and find out if it’s the right fit for you!
