Let’s Get Ready For… Final Round Up: None of Our Children Will Be Left Behind

I’ve realized that I’ll be lucky if my daughter leaves the house with her clothes on the right way out let alone whether she’ll be prepared enough for what has become quite a challenging Kindergarten curriculum. It’s both refreshing and scary to know that our kids are attacking more difficult skills more than we ever did; it’s nice to know our kids might have a better edge, but sometimes it seems as though their little brains could just use a little more play.

And so, now more than ever, the need for books like Stacey Kannenberg’s “Let’s Get Ready Series” — two books for children entering Kindergarten and First Grade that help teachers, parents, and kids prepare for what lies ahead. And as we all know, familiarity breeds comfort — and with everything else they have to deal with at school, it would be nice to know that the academics were the least of their worries.

The parents who tried out these books during the first half of the campaign were raving about the wide range of skills addressed, the wipe off pages — perfect for making mistakes and erasing, and the fun friendly characters. So, let’s see how our final group of bloggers felt about these books.

I’m not surprised that this group of Kindergarten moms found that their kids loved the bright colors and shiny pages as well. “Each time I’ve gone over some of the concepts in the book with Jacob, like letters, placement, or shapes, it has held his attention. No scratching. No talk of hops. He really likes the shiny pages (you can use dry-erase pens on them, a huge plus) and the bright colors.” “The pages are brightly colored and visually appeal to kids. Seth dove into the book right away and got quite a kick out of ‘Mrs. Good and the Cedar Valley Kids’.”

This group was also a fan of the dry erase feature. “…one of the coolest features of the book is that kids can use dry erase markers to practice writing their letters, numbers and contact information.”

Since using the book for over a month, one little boy has gained invaluable skills.

BEFORE we got the book… Malachi had trouble counting, did not know his address or phone number, had trouble with the alphabet… But NOW after about a month with the book, he can count to 100… he can name all the numbers mixed up, he knows his alphabet, he knows his phone number, and almost has his address down. SERIOUSLY. He LOVES the book SO much, he carries it with him EVERYWHERE…he even took it to school to show his preschool teacher and all his friends. I am amazed. Truly.

And while one parent felt it was a bit flimsy, for the most part, the K-parents felt that it was a very sturdy book. “This is a seriously sturdy book — good thing too since Mike ended up sleeping with it for a few weeks!” “The book is not only an amazing teaching tool, it is durable… trust me…this book has been through it all…”

The 1st grade parents didn’t have much different to share, noting for a small book, it was chock full of excellent information — and both the size and the contents were not overwhelming. “For such a small book, this educational series is packed with practical and interesting material.” ”Unlike many of the popular worksheet books available, this book is something that even my four-year-old was happy to sit down and flip through the pages.”

Not only did these 1st-grade parents love the book, but the kids and their teachers did too. “She showed it to her class and her teacher proudly announcing that she was “getting ready for first grade” and that she would be ready! (That pride was enough to keep me thrilled with the book!).”“My son’s kindergarten teacher agreed: “It’s a great resource for parents. It’s succinct…(parents) can wrap their arms around it.”

The best testiment for the Let’s Get Ready Series has to be that one parent loved it so much, she’s taking it to her principal to see if they’ll use the Let’s Get Ready series instead.

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.

The winner of the set of these amazing books is Avalon. Congrats! Drop us an email to claim your prize. And if you’d like to purchase these books, you can find them here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Books, Elementary School, Kids, Pre-school. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Let’s Get Ready For… Final Round Up: None of Our Children Will Be Left Behind

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