Customer Reviews

Brain Quest Workbook: Pre-K

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4 star:		(13)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

If you found this review helpful, please let me know!

My wife and I are both fans of Brain Quest and this book does not disappoint us. What Brain Quest does is take boring workbook chores that we remember from elementary school make them fun, interactive, and fresh. I think this is especially important for preschoolers who have very short attention spans and are used to having lots of fun. Here's some examples of what you'll find in the book.

1 Basic writing skills, here is a letter "a" to draw and here are instructions on how to do it. These instructions are usually broken down into multiple steps.

2 mazes, fun and colorful and just about the right size for little hands to make it to the end.

3 logic puzzles ( my favorite) which of these shoes are different. Here's a picture of the ocean with sea creatures. Which animals don't belong?

You can find tasks like this in many books but Brain Quest appears to have taken the extra step of adding a little bit more creativity enhancing the quality and usability of this learning tool.

I have two little girls and lots of PreK workbooks in our house. I ordered this not thinking it would really be any different than the ones I have. BUT, it is! It really is better than the other books I've seen on the market. I love the pictures and the colors on the pages. It is easy to look at and clear. The publisher didn't pack the pages with information, but just put on there what was important. There is a section on safety and another one on science which are completely appropriate for a PREK 4 yr old.

The one thing I would say is that it doesn't have any instructions for parents going through it with their child and you do need to sit down with them to read the instructions on each page.

These are my observations that I wish I had known before trying to teach my older daughter her letters (but now I know). I hope this will be helpful to share them in this review because it is relevant to using this book. To begin reading instruction with children, first children need to learn to recognize all of the letters (the first section of this book), and then learn the sounds that go with them (which this book put in the second section). Not all 4 year olds have developed their fine motor skills enough to write and learn how to write their letters, but they can experiment. When using this book and teaching them how to write their letters, have them trace the letters several times with their index finger before they try to write. They have to imprint it in their brain what the letter looks like. It is really easy for me to get frustrated and think that my children should remember what the letter looks like, but I know I shouldn't. It takes all children time to make those connections and a lot of practice.

One more quick note that really encouraged my husband. When children are learning to count, don't get frustrated when they struggle to count one number for each item. It is completely natural. They are learning one to one correspondence. Developing Number Concepts, bk 1 by Kathy Richardson has a great introduction that explains what young children struggle with when they are learning to count. I did not understand it at all until I read her book. It helped me to have a lot more patience with my children after I learned that and now I have gotten to see how my oldest daughter really can count this year after a lot of practice last year.

This is a great book and I do highly recommend this book if it is what you are looking for!

I call it a Mother of All Pre-k books.A book That must be found at every preschooler's home.I bought lot of books for my preschooler but none of them gave me the right information of how to start .What other topics should i cover other than ABCs or 123s?

It covers all the topics, what a preschooler should need to know or we as adults need to teach.

I love the book.I use it to homeschool my daughter.She loves this book

The book's fantastic.

I thought this would be an excellent book for my 4-year-old. He likes to do "homework" when his older brother does his. This book has been perfect for him.

Packed with hundreds of pages, the age appropriateness of the tasks is right on track for a preschooler. My son just turned 4 this month and has only been in school since August and has been easily able to complete the pages.

Although the book goes from easy to more challenging lessons, I've let my son pick the page he wants to complete. We haven't had any problems with certain sections being too difficult for him.

One of the aspects I like most about this book is repetition. There are several pages of like work in each section. This allows the children to practice concepts more than once, thus reinforcing them. It is also a great self-esteem booster for the child to confidently finish a page. My son also likes to review the work he's done and explain to others what he did.

Overall a great book and I'm giving it 5-stars because we've been using this for almost three weeks and my son still hasn't become bored with it yet. I'm going to be ordering the other books in the series to save for him as he ages. Well done Brain Quest!

Part of the popular Brain Quest series, this workbook for kids ages 4-5 contains a diverse array of learning exercises, activities and games designed to stimulate your child's mind and teach him/her basic information.

The activities are broken down into different sections, including letters, numbers, shapes & colors, phonics, science, etc. Many of the activities in the book will probably be too simple for the average 5-year-old. So you might want to get this book out a little earlier. I think most 3-year-olds would certainly benefit from and be entertained by this book.

The Brain Quest Workbook doesn't present much in the way of structured learning -- there isn't a plan, per se, to follow with your child. But it does contain a host of activities that will help you work with your child as s/he learns valuable basic concepts.

My 4-year old nephew loves this activity book - it's a lot of fun and he even learns in the process. He's a pretty hyper kid and it's hard to get him to sit still sometimes. He does like this colorful book and the activities. It even includes a page each of ABC stickers and "Good Job!" "Super!" etc. animal stickers that you can give them for completing activities.

Here's a run-through of the book contents:

ABCs: Pages 5-120

123s: Pages 121-158

Phonics: Pages 159-186

Vocabulary: Pages 187-202

Shapes & Colors: Pages 203-236

Sorting and Matching: Pages 237-256

My World: Pages 257-270

Science: Pages 271-296

Fun and Games: Page 297-308

Brain Quest Extras: Page 309 (Brain Quest Mini-Deck of cut-out cards, stickers, alphabet poster, Brainiac award certificate)

Sample Exercises:

ABCs: Match the uppercase letters to their lowercase letters

123s: Writing letters - one page each for uppercase and lowercase A through Z

Phonics: Circle the pictures that begin with A, for example -- Apple, Alligator, Astronaut

Vocab: These animals are big (Lion, Hippo, Bear) name the animal then color the animal.

Shapes & Colors: Color the apples red, color the wagon red, color the ice-cream bar red. Draw any other red items you can think of in the empty square on the opposite page.

Sorting & Matching: Circle the two items that are the same

Science: Which items are living? Which are plants?

Fun and Games: Mazes, coloring pages, etc.

Overall this is a very comprehensive fun workbook for 4 and 5 year olds. Each page is perforated and can be torn out to work on one exercise at a time. I highly recommend this for your preschool age child to give them a great (and fun!) way to learn.

The Brain Quest Workbooks are a series of educational books ranging from pre-kindergarten to 7th grade. Based on the philosophy that "It's Fun to Be Smart!" the books educate at the same time that they entertain, and boy are they entertaining! The books themselves are brightly colored, which captures the young readers attention, and are definitely high quality.

This Pre-K book has lots of activities that teach basic concepts, like ABCs, 123s, colors, shapes, and so much more. My four-year-old daughter absolutely loves this book, and enjoys doing the activities. In fact, she's starting to wear us out with it! But, that's a burden I really don't mind.

So, if you want a fun and educational book for a pre-kindergarten child, then consider getting this book. It really is as good as you hear. Take my daughter's suggestion, and get this book!