EduReview- Let's Get Ready For Kindergarten

"Let's Get Ready for Kindergarten" is the first book in Stacey Kannensburg's "Let's Get Ready" series. If you have little ones getting ready for either Kindergarten or First Grade, you will love these two fabulous books by Cedar Valley Publishing - “Let’s Get Ready for Kindergarten” and “Let’s Get Ready for First Grade.

“Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten!” and “Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!” are both award winning books receiving national acclaim by winning the 2006 Best Educational Book of the Year Award by the AWA, a Silver Addy for illustrations from the American Advertising Awards and by being selected by Orca Communications as one of the top new products for kids in their Fall/Spring Media’s Best Guide. “Let’s Get Ready For First Grade” is the winner of the 2007 Teacher’s Choice Award for the Family.

The books are sturdy and made to use with Dry Erase Markers so your kids can practice in them over and over and you can use them for more than one of your children. (My son loves the dry erase marker feature - it makes completing the exercises more of a game to him and he just loves to use them!) These bright and colorful books will make getting ready for September fun for you and your kids.

I had a chance to speak with Stacey and find out how she came up with the idea for the Let's Get Ready books. Behind Cedar Valley Publishing are two stay-at-home moms - Stacey Kannenberg and Linda Desimowich - who wanted to help get their own kids ready for school. So in 2004, they set out to help parents get involved in the educational process for their kids.

Award winning author Stacey Kannenberg says, “I believe parents are responsible for getting their kids ready for that first day of school! It’s not just knowing your name, address, phone number, and tying your shoes, it’s about taking an active role in learning. These books are helping parents get involved in education at the core!! Never fear, it’s never to late to start. These books are working inside homes and schools across the nation.” And a great bonus - 10% of all profits are donated to literacy programs!

I liked the size, too - I was able to tuck it into my bag easily and tote it along on a few outings where I knew we'd have some time to kill and it was perfect. Each page has a separate activity, so you can touch on things fairly quickly and move onto the next thing.

Not only does each page have a different activity, but at the bottom you have "Mrs. Good", the teacher, who suggests other things you can do on the page - like "Can you name another pair of opposites?" I liked that feature a lot - not only did they have some creative ideas, but sometimes just a word of encouragement like "Magnificent!"

Game Review: How Tall Am I?

The game "How Tall Am I?" by Jax Games is a great way to teach children both measuring and counting skills. Recommended for ages 3 through 8, the game consists of thirty character parts (HAT, HEAD, ARMS, BODY, and FEET), a special measuring ruler, and one die which has a picture of each part on it. The concept is to collect one of each part to try to build the tallest fun character. A cool twist is that you can choose any character part you want (meaning you can mix Fireman parts with Ballerina parts and so on) in order to achieve your winning character.

To play you mix up all of the character parts and then spread them out in the middle of your playing surface. The player who is the youngest begins the game and rolls the die first. Whatever character part the player rolls (say a BODY or HAT) is the part they get to choose. All other players do the same thing at each turn. If you roll a part that you already have then your turn is over and it moves on to the next player. If you roll "WILD" then you can select any character part you want which can be alot of help if you're missing only a few more parts and trying to get ahead. After each player has collected one head, one hat, one arms, one body, and one feet then it is time to measure your character. The player with the tallest character is then ruled the winner! What if there is a tie? Well then the player who completed their character first is the winner.

It might sound like a long process but the game goes really quickly and will have your kids giggling at some of the characters they make. You also have to watch out for the kiddos because they will catch on quite quickly and learn what parts will make their character the tallest. My youngest son was amazingly quick to figure this out and would grab the neccessary pieces every chance he had. It was alot of fun and laughter for the rest of us as well.

The best part besides playing the game itself? My youngest son now goes around the house announcing to us all, "Two? Two is not very tall. Where is something I can measure to 11?".

How Tall Am I? would make a great gift for the holiday season for the whole family to have fun with. It's a great addition to Family Game Night and gives the younger kids the chance to feel smarter than the grown-ups which once you see their eyes light up with that knowledge is totally worth it!

EduLinks 07/25/07

Boy has it been busy around here this week! This blog went from less than 10 visits a day to almost 200 a day thanks to the Dog Days of Summer Giveaways! If you haven't headed over there and entered the more than 450 fabulous giveaways then please do so now. Don't forget to sign up for the eight great prizes I'm giving away here and at Onorach as well!

Definately don't forget to attend the 8th Country Fair of Homeschooling put together this month by my wonderful friend, Meg from Get In Hang On. She put alot of thought into the theme for July and I think she did a fantastic job as did everyone who submitted something.

I hope you enjoy today's EduLinks and if you have any you would like to share please feel free to email me and let me know. :)

Alphabetical List of Educational Card Games- A collection of 132 card games for you to use and learn with. Please do not use for resale.

Butch’s Secular Homeschool Links- Doc/Butch has a great collection of links for just about every subject. She has been an unschooler for many years with wonderful and successful children to show for it.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art- Excellent art resource! You can download publications, check out online features that teach about the art of several different cultures and eras, browse themes and cultures that would be great to use with Unit Studies, and much more! I mean, this IS The Met we're talking about here!

Everyday Spelling- Awesome spelling site for "grades" 1-8. Enjoy the Workout Room, Reference Room, spelling lists for each grade and alot more! Lots of fun stuff to do.

Let's Play Math- Denise actually makes Math fun! Coming from me that is a huge compliment as I'm more of a History gal myself! Her series "Alexandria Jones" is too cool and my younger kids love it! Anytime my math hating daughter hits a brick wall I put her on Denise's site and it's like getting her second wind.

This week's Blog Of The Week belongs to my blogfriend Summer at Mom Is Teaching. Summer always has great posts and information to share with the homeschooling community and she is also alot of fun to know. If it wasn't for her I would probably miss out on well over half of the blogging carnivals that go on. Thank you Summer for all the time you put into your blog and for sharing with the rest of us. Now go get your award girl and you can display it on whichever blog you'd like (if ya wanna.). ;)

Review of Crayola Large Washable Crayons - 8 Count

When our youngest child started wanting to color with crayons like his siblings the first thought that entered my mind was "There go the walls"!! I knew that when I bought him his first set of crayons I would also need to buy a gallon of paint to keep on hand to cover his wall art.

Until I went to the store and found the Crayola Kids' First Large Washable Crayons. These crayons are perfect for little hands and when these guys say "washable" they really mean it. All of us have bought crayons in the past that state they are washable yet you can't wash them off anything right? Crayola's washable formula was designed to wipe off of most walls and non-porous household surfaces with just warm water and a sponge. No extra cleaners or scrubbing required!

These Crayola crayons have so far washed off of walls, counters, furniture, TV screens, books, dolls, a a mini-van dashboard after baking in the sun, and even my beloved Buddha statue (the little one thought he needed a mustache). I haven't come across anything yet that these crayons won't wash off of which means no waiting with baited breath every time my son decides he wants to color.

On a rating scale I would say-

Affordability: 2.5 They are definitely more expensive than the smaller crayons.

Usability: 5 They don't break easily in small hands like regular crayons do.

Safety: 4 Only because of course, a small child could eat the wrapper but the crayons are non-toxic.

Reliability: 5+ These crayons do what they say and will definitely impress you!