Product Details

• Actors: Jerez, Anaya, Juarez, Teran, Foster
• Directors: Stock, Echevarria
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Whistlefritz
• DVD Release Date: May 21, 2009
• Run Time: 30 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0029KN8BC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,599 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • #87 in Movies & TV > DVD > Special Interests

Editorial Reviews

Winner of a 2009 Parents' Choice Foundation SILVER Award. Winner of Learning Magazine's 2010 Teachers' Choice Award for the Family. Winner of a Dove Foundation Family-Approved Seal. Winner of a 2009 iParenting Media Award. Winner of a Dr. Toy Best Play and Learn Vacation Program Award. Winner of The National Parenting Center's 2009 Seal of Approval. Winner of a Grandkids Gift Guide Super Product Award. Endorsed by KIDS FIRST!

 In this Spanish immersion DVD, it's non-stop fun as teacher Maria and the Whistlefritz kids search for the mischievous mouse Fritzi. Using live action, animation, puppets, music, and fun, children explore their world -- inside the house and out on the playground -- learning the words for everyday objects along the way.

An ideal introduction to Spanish, and perfect companion to the award-winning Spanish immersion DVDs Los Animales and Vamos a Jugar. A Translation Guide is included which provides an easy reference for parents who are first-time learners of Spanish.

Designed for children ages 2-7, Adentro y Afuera is perfect for the whole family!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spanish Immersion Made Fascinating!, September 19, 2009

By 

Jennifer Bogart "@ Quiverfullfamily.com" (Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spanish for Kids: Adentro y Afuera (DVD)

Educational research continues to point out that the best method for learning a second language is in early childhood, through immersion - the same way children learn their mother tongue. Living North America puts parents who seek to give their children a bilingual advantage in a difficult position. The vast majority of us are monolingual, speaking only English, the international language of trade and commerce.

So, what's a mom to do who wants to equip her young children with a solid foundation in a second language when she only speaks one? The lack of high quality resource for Spanish immersion was just the catalyst needed for one mom to launch Whistlefritz and the Spanish for Beginners series in 2006.

The latest release in the series - Adentro y Afuera (Inside and Out) is designed to appeal to children from ages two through seven - and does it ever. Who would have thought that a 30-minute DVD, entirely in Spanish, would so captivate the hearts and attention of my one, three, and six-year-old?

I was a bit skeptical as I popped in the disc. My children are largely unfamiliar with Spanish. They've seen Dora, watched some educational DVDs that teach common phrases through English to Spanish translation and repetition, but have no formal language education under their belts. I was so surprised to find my children singing, dancing, and laughing throughout an entirely Spanish presentation of what could pass for cable television children's programming.

The animated host "Maria" leads children through scenarios revolving around a small, animated mouse named Fritzi who whistles to communicate (hence the company name, Whistlefritz.) Similar in style to the popular television series Blues Clues, Maria and her gang of multi-cultural children in the target age ranges interact against a colourful, cartoon backdrop with the animated mouse, and a variety of entertaining hand puppets. Live action segments are also interspersed throughout the DVD, showing the children interacting and singing in real settings.

Maria communicates the meaning of the Spanish words she uses through repetition, exaggerated facial expressions, props, hand gestures, and body movements. Her level of enthusiasm is contagious, and she is an excellent teacher. Narrative teaching is broken up with songs from Horge Anya which include activity songs where children are prompted to perform certain hand movements in response to the lyrics, songs about food, songs about the directions (up and down) and so on.

The narrative teaching focuses on greetings, room names, common locations (in front of, on the side of, on top of, etc.), food names, numbers up to ten, bathroom tasks, and more. A vocabulary guide which includes the Spanish words in the order they are presented on the disc, and their English translations is provided to help children decipher the meaning of words which are more difficult to determine from context. Parents who watch the DVD with their children and discuss the onscreen action and vocabulary with them will greatly enhance the effectiveness of the DVD, and pick up valuable Spanish skills themselves.

With Maria and Horge both speaking Spanish fluently, their accents are bang on to my untrained ear. They speak at a slower pace than a native speaker would in order to allow children to follow them, and often repeat words and phrases to encourage children to join in with responses. My two oldest girls were already chattering away from time to time with the disc on it's second play through.

The DVD menu provides options to play the disc through, put the disc on auto play, or play only the song segments. No scene selection option is provided, though with a 30-minute disc that isn't a hardship.

I've been teaching my six-year-old the five-star rating system; when I asked her how she'd rateSpanish for Beginners: Adentro y Afuera (Inside and Out) she replied, "Six stars, I'd give it eight if I could." The natural humour, infectious joy, and enthusiasm contained on the DVD have already made it a much-requested favourite in our home. My six-year-old has asked for it four times today (I had to stop her or she would have kept going.) It's just this sort of repetition in an immersive language experience that will help build a solid foundation for future studies in Spanish.

Whether you want to give your children a taste of Spanish for National Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct 15, 2009), supplement a more traditional language program, or use the Spanish for Beginners series as the first step in a full-immersion course of study, Adentro y Afuera (Inside and Out) is well worth your investment in time and money.

Video clips of every Spanish for Beginners DVD can be found at [...]

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well-constructed but lacks subtitles, October 17, 2009

By 

M. Kim - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spanish for Kids: Adentro y Afuera (DVD)

The first time I watched this DVD, I winced and thought to myself, "How lame!" Then I realized how well this DVD was put together so that I could think it was lame instead of being completely bewildered by watching a DVD in a foreign language. As an ESL teacher, I was impressed at how simply Sara Jerez presents grammatical concepts. The song and visuals for "Arriba/Abajo" (Up and Down) were genius. While watching a parachute that the children throw upward and downward, even the slowest language learner can understand the meaning of the song. Lovely. It takes skill and experience to teach grammar without overwhelming a novice learner. Well done. An especially nice touch was the use of mini-reviews to reinforce learning, such as the brief scene where the mouse puppet asks for something to eat. Just that short review helps cement the learning from the earlier segment.

Full disclosure: I took a year of high school Spanish, I have forgotten all but the basic words, and I have no child. Yes, I am an adult language learner unabashedly using a children's DVD. Long vocabulary lists suck. :)

To that end, I have submitted two suggestions to Whistlefritz:

1. Add subtitles, at least for the songs.

2. Modify the suggested age range.

1. For this DVD to be more useful for older learners and adults (which I firmly believe the company should tap into to expand their selling market), including a subtitle option will allow older learners to reinforce spelling, especially of accents. I support the idea of full immersion and appreciated that the enclosed translation guide forced me to make connections in order to figure out what songs and conversations meant. However, novice learners, especially older ones, would benefit from seeing sentences written as well as spoken.

Regarding non-pedagogical concerns, the acting by the children was awkward and stiff. The live-action shots in the park and at the picnic were a delight, but the responses to "Maria" (such as telling her where Fritzi was hiding) were extremely stilted. If you look at the children's eyes, they are clearly watching someone for directions. The child most enjoyable to watch was the little girl with long hair, painted fingernails, and front teeth only partially grown in. She managed to look and sound natural, and her giggle was infectious.

2. The notation "Ages 2-7" on the front cover are unnecessarily limiting. While the overt content of the DVD is certainly geared toward a young age, the DVD can be useful for children much older, not to mention adults. This DVD would make a good gift for my niece, a pre-teen, but I doubt that she tolerate a DVD with the label "Age 2-7". I'm not suggesting changing content but to simply change the marketing label.

Overall, a nice product and very useful. I'm looking forward to the next DVD!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, draws kids in with real people & music, December 13, 2010

By 

F. Prado "curlytaz" (California, USA.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spanish for Kids: Adentro y Afuera (DVD)

I am a native speaker from Venezuela and have tried lots of Spanish DVD's from the library. Many of them are boring, annoying, or poorly done in Spanglish. I am not a big fan of the Spanglish used in popular cartoons like Dora The Explorer. I prefer the whole video to be in one language. My 4.5 year old has been watching Plaza Sesamo since he was 2 and loved it for a really long time. After 2.5 years he's become curious about the many other English cartoons available, so I was extremely happy to find this DVD to get him excited about Spanish again. He loves all 3 DVD's in the series, and I wish they made more. His 2 year old brother also loves it, even though his Spanish is not as good as his brother's, but the cute songs really keep them both entertained. I highly recommend this one as well as Vamos a Jugar and Los Animales.