Raise Bilingual Kids with Feppy Box
Ever since we started to homeschool (or unschool) both of our children - now 6 and 9 - we’re constantly on the lookout for creative and fun ways to learn. Quite frankly, that’s exactly why I do what I do on Dad Suggests. I write about books and games that we love because they’re fun and often inspiring - and they represent so much learning potential as well. And it’s fun learning potential at that.
Many of you probably know fully well that I can get grumpy and complainy about traditional education. Those who know me, especially education colleagues, would be very quick to tell you that I’ve always been a vocal champion for the subjects that are often known as “electives” or “extracurricular.” Some schools even further demean these classes by calling them something like “outclass.” We’ll bend over backwards to make it clear to kids how unimportant these classes are.
Of course I’m talking about classes like choir, band, p.e., art, and foreign languages. And if I had it my way, they would take up about 90% of school - all the way through high school. So when Feppy Box reached out to us to show us their bilingual subscription box - a box that includes books, music, and games - I was naturally very receptive to the idea and excited to see what it’s like. I’d absolutely love to get more foreign language practice into our home.
Disclosure: Feppy Box provided us with a sample box to get our opinion. We are sharing this article with our personal thoughts because we had a good experience. If you decide to try Feppy Box through any of our discount links in this article, we can also earn on purchases through an affiliate program.
Feppy Box (a combination of feliz and happy) is a monthly subscription box for Spanish and English language learning, and it’s aimed at kids 3-6. And, best of all, every box includes the very things we talk about on Dad Suggests every day - a book and a game. And that’s not all that’s in there either. They claim that their original bilingual picture books are their main pillar, but I think they’re selling short the quality of their games when they say that.
Everything that comes in a box is built around that original picture book. Our book was called The Smokey Sun (El Sol ahumado), and inside it featured key vocabulary like Luna, Sol, estrella, caliente, frio, etc. Then the very same vocabulary (and cute cartoon art) shows up in a game of memory, a song to listen to, and a sticker sheet. It even came with a pair of sun-shaped glasses (or sunglasses, if you will) that our daughter was quite happy about.
The book has the Spanish and the English side by side over a two-page spread - and it even comes with a QR code that leads you to a great video reading of the story to help with pronunciation. The original song is also accessed through a QR code, and we quickly had it playing on our Spotify account in both English and Spanish.
Our youngest is currently 6 so it’s a really good fit for us, and she turned out to be an eager guinea pig. She was particularly a fan of the memory game, and I was very impressed with how quickly she picked up all of the new Spanish vocab just from playing the game. As well-made as everything else was, I think I have to say playing together was the highlight for us.
Right off the bat I was very impressed with the quality of the components in this box. The hardcover book is well made and it features very cute cartoon art - and I can easily see how it would be nice to build a collection of these bilingual books next to each other on the shelf. You know I’m a sucker for nice-looking book collections.
And like I said before, the game really impressed me. It was just a simple game of memory in our box, but our daughter loved it. The pieces were high-quality cardboard and it featured the same cute art of the suns and moons from the book. We’re definitely going to place the game right on our board game shelf, and it’s highly likely something our daughter would grab when she wants to play something. I’ve also seen that other boxes feature games like dominoes or bingo - and I’d really like to try those out too.
We are no strangers to the concept of gameschooling, and I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that the game was actually the quickest and most effective item for teaching all of the new Spanish vocab to our little one. After that, the book, the song, and the sticker/activity sheet all served as reinforcement and practice for us. And I can see this strategy working out well for us.
A subscription to Feppy Box comes in at $30/month, but they also sell individual boxes and books without subscriptions. And they offer several gift packages if you’re looking to do something like send a kid Feppy Box for a year without a subscription.
Value is the big question when it comes to any purchase, especially subscriptions. So I suppose I sit back and look at the $30 asking price as the cost of adding a new book and game to our collection, and that sounds about right to me. So when you toss in the other extras and reflect on the concept that you’re signing up to focus on consistent language learning, I have to conclude that the value is there. Which of course is the reason I’d want to write about our family’s experience in the first place.
We also have an exclusive discount code for you that offers a very awesome 20% off of a purchase - which can come in very handy on those big gift packages! Just head to FeppyBox.com and use code DADSUGGESTS20 at checkout. I love being able to offer discounts on things we enjoy, so I really hope that comes in handy for some of you out there.
If you like the sound of Feppy Box, you might also enjoy reading about the other way we work on foreign languages using picture books in our house.
Do you subscribe to any boxes that your family loves? Do you work on foreign languages in any other fun ways in your home? Let us know in the comments!
