Let's Get Ready For First Grade!

I was asked to review Let's Get Ready For First Grade. I was a little nervous that I should have said no to this one since I have two current first graders, and it said "get ready for". When I received it, my daughter and I sat down to look at it. She made me read every page with her. Since she knows how to read pretty well, she was able to read me the pages that talked about the vowel sounds. She wouldn't have been able to read them before she started first grade, so if I had this book then, it would have been great practice!

My favorite part of this book was that since it is dry erase, both of my first graders could do it and since they could erase, they could repeat the exercises until they felt like they knew it. My son didn't have much interest in the book except for the addition and subtraction pages. In his class, they do timed math tests, and he said this was great practice.

When I was done reading the book with my daughter, she took it to the playroom and continued to look at it. She finally decided to use it to play school with her three year old brother. It is amazing to me to see her teach him even and odd numbers, geometric shapes and measuring and have him understand it because they are having fun while learning.

At the end of the school year, the school my kids go to sends home a huge ditto book that you can buy to practice things over the summer to get your kids ready for the next grade. I find the current ditto book extremely overwhelming, and because of that we buy it and then it sits on a shelf all summer because we don't want to begin something we can't finish. I am going to meet with the principal to see if we can change the book that gets sent home to this one. I was really impressed with it. It isn't overwhelming like the current book they send home, and since it is dry erase, the kids can practice as much as they want on the parts they need help with.

My kids have a really tough time with money and coins, so they have used that part of the book several times already. The part about the government was all new to them, and actually inspired them to ask me to search on the internet to learn more. What a great springboard to introduce new topics! It was interesting to me to see that some of the subjects in the book were very easy for them, while some they had never heard of. It gave me a clear sense of what they might be missing in school and what I should work on with them on our own. I love that the book can be used both by them individually, and also with us working together.

It seemed to make learning new things and practicing challenging things fun for them, which makes me happy. One other thing that makes me happy is that Cedar Valley Publishing is donating 10% of profits to literacy programs. If you go here and comment about why you need these books on any of the "Get Ready For" posts, you could be a random winner.