77 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An abundance of learning opportunities for young minds, July 24, 2008
This review is from: Brain Quest Workbook: Pre-K (Paperback)
This is one in a series of workbooks, each of which offers an abundance of learning activities, exercises, and games that are presented with superb production values. Appropriate to the given age level, much of the material focuses on basic subjects such natural science, mathematics, history, and social studies while enabling children to strengthen their reading, reasoning, and writing skills. The editors of Brain Quest believe that:
"All kids are smart - though they learn at their own speed
All kids learn best when they're having fun
All kids deserve the chance to reach their potential - given the tools they need, there's no limit how far they can go!"
I agree, while presuming to add that children will learn more and have more fun meanwhile if, when completing various exercises, adults are involved. As a parent of four and a grandparent of ten, I can personally attest to the pleasure an adult will also have. Each volume in the series is a WORK book. Exercises are completed with crayolas or pencils on the page on which it appears. Correct answers are provided. One caveat: Resist the temptation to control the learning process as a child completes an exercise.
This volume, Pre-K (ages 4-5), was written by Liane Onish, with Jane Ching Fung serving as consulting editor. It is worth noting that Fung is a past winner of the Milken Foundation National Educator Award. The material consists of organized curriculum-based exercises that help children to gain an understanding of ABCs, 123s, phonics, vocabulary, shapes and colors, sorting and matching, "My World," science, and "Fun and Games." Also included are more than 150 stickers, an all-new Brain Quest Mini-Card Deck, and a fold-out "Alphabet Letters" poster.
Here is a representative selection of exercises:
Find the cars with e and color them purple. (Page 15)
Touch and count the objects in each group. Circle the groups of 10. (145)
Say Fish. Fish begins with the F sound. Circle the pictures that begin like Fish. (65)
These animals are small. Say the name of each animal. Then color each picture. (189)
Color the sun yellow. Color the flowers yellow. Color the bees yellow. (208)
Draw an X on all the silly things that do not belong in the house. (263)
A habitat is where animals live. Draw a line from each animal to its matching habitat. (278)
Help Madison find the magician. (300)
Each of the volumes in this series (pre-K through Grade 4) would be an excellent book for parents, grandparents, and others to purchase and then share with a child at an appropriate stage of her or his development. No doubt there are precocious children who will prefer more challenging material associated with later grades but I think it would be a mistake to rush the learning process. Worse yet, to indicate little interest in it.
Congratulations to the Workman Publishing Company and especially to the editors of Brain Quest. How pleased they must be to know that their materials have already helped to nourish so many young minds and to delight so many young hearts and, fortunately, will continue to do so for the development of other children in months and years to come.
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75 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love It!, August 2, 2008
This review is from: Brain Quest Workbook: Pre-K (Paperback)
I am an elementary teacher, turned stay at home mom. My oldest just started Kindergarten last week, so I was in search of a workbook to use with my 3 year old daughter. I love the colors, and the ability level is just perfect for her. She loves the stickers and that the volume of work on each page is low, setting her up for many successes.
We were already familiar with the Brain Quest decks, so it was a "no brainer" to get the workbook, and I'm glad I did.
PS-I took it to my local office supply store and had them spiral bind the book. It is great because now it lays flat without trying to close while we work or having to tear out pages. Binding cost me less that $5. Well worth the investment. Just remember to pull out the ABC poster from the back, and possibly the stickers and mini deck pages.
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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For all levels (I would say age 2 to 5), November 18, 2008
This review is from: Brain Quest Workbook: Pre-K (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Every child develops different skills at different levels, so it's difficult to find developmental workbooks that are targeted exactly for where your kid is at. However, BrainQuest Pre-K does a fabulous job at providing a variety of educational activities in their workbook that is great for children at different stages of their learning and development.
The book states that it is targeted for ages 4-5, but I would have to say that some of the exercises will be quite easy for some 4-5 year-olds. So, I would say that you can probably use this workbook for ages 2-5. (Of course, you have to select and target the activities to your child's specific learning level.)
The table of contents include 10 different areas of learning: ABCs, 123s, Phonics, Vocab, Shapes & Colors, Sorting & Matching, My World, Science, Fun & Games, and Extras. As I said, there's a range of difficulty levels within each section. For instance, in the ABC section, there's a lot of exercises with identification of capital and lower-case letters. This is something that my 2 year old (and maybe your 1-3 year old) can already do. But then, there's a section on pre-writing the alphabet, which helps kids start to write each of these letters. The numbers section also has figure identification (which my 2 year old has down) but also teaches the concept of numerosity (i.e. not just counting or recognizing the numbers, but actually UNDERSTANDING the concept of numbers) through presenting pictures of lions or trucks or boots and asking "How many are there?".
I also love the section on Shapes and Colors which allow children some free form thinking and creativity with the workbook. They provide large blank space with a prompt like "Can you think of something purple?" and ask the child to color it. It's wonderful. The extras section has a bunch of flashcards with questions on one side and the answers on the other. It is a compilation of all the things the child should learn from the workbook. You can cut them out and use them as actual flashcards.
Other things that I like: The book is large, but not overly so. It's about 12 inches tall and 8 inches wide and 2 inches thick. The paper is not too thin, so the flashcards may be a little flimsy, but not too bad if you take care of them. But the best things may be the wonderful fold out alphabet poster that you can put on the wall or the STICKERS! There are 150 stickers for those of you who have little sticker fiends. Half of them are stickers of the capital letters of the alphabet, but half of them are pictures of little cats, dogs, mice, lions, or rabbits saying things like: "Yeah!" "Cool!" or "Wow!"
A WONDERFUL book and highly recommended for your 2-5 year old.
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