Customer Reviews

My Book Of Easy Crafts

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just discovered the Kumon books for children this summer, and I am so glad I did. My son has loved them! There are books of mazes, books for cutting, books to learn numbers, books to tell time, books to color, and books to make easy and amazing crafts! EASY CRAFTS is meant by Kumon to be a book for 4-6 year old children. The sequel book, AMAZING CRAFTS, is meant for children 5-7 years old. I own them both, and I can say that the crafts are no easier in EASY CRAFTS, and that my son is 8 years old and still needs an adult to help him with some of the projects. So don't expect to give this to your child and have him work alone to have success with all the projects, for some require things done in a certain order step by step exactly to turn out right. These projects are truly AMAZING!!! Kumon prints them on sturdy paper, in bright colors, using nice graphics; not babyish, yet cute and fun. I am so so weary of today's idea that everything made for children must have disturbingly deformed, cartoon-like, unrealistic artwork. Cover art on the covers of the Kumon books in no way relates to the art style inside. The art is child friendly, pleasing, colorful, and simple.

To use this book, the child needs to know how to cut fairly precicely, fold carefully, and know how to use glue neatly. These are skills you can teach your child in other Kumon books BEFORE having your child do EASY CRAFTS. The books by Kumon: Let's Fold, Let's Cut Paper, Let's Sticker and Paste are good preparation books for a child to learn the skills needed to make EASY CRAFTS. I have reviewed all the "Let's..." books here on Amazon. They are great little books as well!

Okay, be sure to give your child GOOD scissors for cutting, and glue that is easy to use; a good glue stick or a glue pen. Then enjoy some time sitting with your child as he makes some wonderful things such as: Surfing Animals (a simple project that involves only cutting and folding, and my son loves to have surf races across the dining room table---you blow gently for the animals to zip along!), a long long snake, leaping frogs, flying hippo and pig, a spinning alien, a bobble head dog, a walking robot (your fingers make him do the walking!), a clapping cat, a flapping chicken (very clever and one of my favorites!), a barking dog, a biting alligator (special fold techniques make the toys "move"),a buzzing bee popping out of a flower, a very clever toy that spins called "space travel" (one of my son's favorites), and then assorted paper animals that stand such as a giraffe, elephant, turtle, bunny, and paper jewelry such as watches and rings. There are 40 crafts in all. Projects do range from easy to more difficult; there are some the child could have success with alone. Many of these projects are nice for a child who is sick in bed and needs something to do to occupy his time while being still. This book would make a great get well gift or a birthday gift for any child even up to age 10. An older child could enjoy making the paper toys for or with a younger sibling. All in all, an EXCELLENT book that every child should have the opportunity to enjoy. I am so glad for Kumon's efforts to publish these beautiful and fun books for children! I don't know how anyone would be disappointed with this book! Enjoy!

I am glad I purchased this workbook. However, some of the activities are a bit difficult for my 4 year old to cut out on her own. It has definitely helped to improve her skills in cutting with scissors. She usually needs my help/supervision, but I love giving her a variety of activities to do each day. The pages are thick enough and the illustrations are cute and unique.

The crafts in this book include masks, finger puppets, games, toys, etc and all are bright, colorful and quickly constructed with just glue, scissors, and some pretty easy folding. Full instructions are included for each project. Adults will likely have to help some but young kids will enjoy watching the process even if they can't fully participate. The crafts are all printed on sturdy paper and do not lend themselves to photo copying so teachers wanting to do these projects as a class will need to purchase a book for each child.

My six-year-old has been working from this book non-stop since she got it, and she rarely has to ask for help. I am very pleased, since she's having a blast and it's not too complicated. The crafts are also cute and intriguing and they are not all the same, though there are sometimes more than one version of something (animal masks, for example). So far she has made finger puppets, rings, masks, a man that smiles or frowns depending on how you view him, a cool balancing eagle, etc. (I like that some of the projects deal with optical illusion, etc.) My only not-really-a-complaint is that I would prefer a different kind of illustration. I don't particularly like contemporary animation-like drawing with lots of gradients. But this is picky and doesn't affect my daughter's enjoyment of the book.

This book has been a life saver for days my daughter dosen't want to play outside or says she is bord. Once we get started she dosen't want to stop! There are lots of things to make in this book, some are kind of cheesy like a paper ring but there are many really nice things that you can actually play with.Like a paper bird that you put 2 pieces of string in and make it race up the strings and a hen that flaps its wings.She is always very proud when she has completed a project and has to go around to show everyone her masterpiece.

Cutting skills are needed with this book.So you can cut around all of the dotted lines and there are marked spots for glue and lines for folding.

I can see even using the book to create your own projects from cardstock,this would be great for teachers!

Thank you Kumon for putting out a kids craft book that is actually usable and has so many pages of projects!

This is a great next step after My Book of Pasting. In this wonderful book, children get to cut, fold, and paste their way through 40 delightful little crafts. I believe this book is recommended for children ages 4 - 6; however, my three year old son loved it (though it did take some time for him to learn to fold properly along the dashed lines).

Though the book is called "easy crafts," "easy papercrafts" would probably be a better title. These are not really *crafts* in the real-world sense of handicrafts that use materials beyond the printed page, scissors and glue. But for what it is, it's extremely cute and we have enjoyed it tremendously.
I am doing these projects with a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old, both of whom have pretty much average coordination, and I find that some of the cutting and folding is quite ambitious even for the 6-year-old; with the 4-year-old, he does the easy pieces and I do the tricky ones.
If they insist on folding the projects themselves, sometimes they don't work out as well, so these are not exactly the most independent craft projects - they require constant vigilance, to make sure nobody cuts through a critical line or cuts off a hand or head or other essential part.
The printing is lovely and precise, and I really appreciate how these are printed on both sides of the page - it certainly puts these a cut above papercrafts we can find and print off the Internet, which are only printed on one side. Also, the colours are vibrant and beautiful; far superior to anything I could get from my home printer.
After having done quite a few of these projects now, we know that the precise printing and careful directions mean we can be reasonably confident the project will turn out just as well as the example picture.
I feel somewhat guilty doing these instead of "real" handicrafts - teaching my kids to sew or knit or weave or some such thing. But they have been perfect for getting us through several winter evenings so far.
With their limited supplies and tiny size, these would be fantastic for bringing along with kids to any confined situation where they can't run around as usual - airplane ride, hospital stay, grandparent visit. (perhaps not a restaurant, as you don't necessarily want glue everywhere!)
For the reasonable price of this book, I feel we've gotten great value - in fact, I've been pleasantly surprised, and would highly recommend this book.

My 4 year old loves this craft book. The paper quality is very good for craft work. The crafts include a combination of simple and slightly complex ones.

and fun too.. the best part is once you finish doing them with your little one, your little one want to give it as a gift to one of the day care friends. and they all love it)::

My almost 5-year-old daughter and I have been quite pleased with some of the Kumon books (including the ones the emphasize reading skills, such as the short vowels and long vowels practice books), and I was excited to find this Kumon crafts book. The basic skills that a child will need before doing the activities in this book are the ability to use scissors (safety scissors for younger children of course) and glue. The crafts in this book get progressively difficult over the pages and there are 40 activities in all. The activities are geared towards improving fine motor skills and enhancing brain functions. The paper quality is impressive - it's thick enough that cutting and pasting can be done with relative ease and the finished crafts are able to withstand frequent play.

The colors are bright and the various projects are engaging so that a child would be keen to complete this craft - an example would be finger puppets, a bobble-head dog, a walking robot, flapping rooster, space travel, and many more fun and engaging crafts. My daughter still needs help with the more complicated cutting projects but she managed the gluing quite well with some instructions. This is a great project book for independent learners, and also perfect for parent-child bonding. Older siblings can also do some of these crafts with their younger siblings. Highly recommended!