17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flapping Great Fun at School with Clifford, the Big Red Dog!, March 23, 2001
This review is from: Clifford's Schoolhouse (Board book)
This book has many charms. It makes the idea of going to school exciting and fun for children. It also builds on the universal love of peek-a-boo as a learning tool. Many important school preparation skills are developed with this book including reading readiness, counting, colors, and shapes. The illustrations are beautiful, vivid, and appealing to youngsters. As a book that can provide lots of learning, it is a remarkable value. The book's only major drawback is that many of the flaps are hard to open. You will need to spend quite a bit of time with a metal fingernail file carefully getting them started before your child will be able to use many of the flaps.
This is a board book and should hold up to considerable use. Just in case it doesn't, you might want to buy two so you will have a back-up should you need one in the event the book ever goes out of print. This book will be a perpetual favorite, and having it disintegrate or lose its flaps could be upsetting to your child (like losing a favorite blanket or stuffed toy).
In the first section, your child is invited to school by Clifford. He invites your child to learn colors by lifting the flaps and saying what color is seen. The tops of the flaps also have the same color on them. Beneath the flaps are colored images and the words that describe the images are printed on the underside of the flaps. So this helps with learning words, as well. The colors are red, grey, yellow, orange, blue, green, purple, brown, and black.
In the second section, Clifford says, "Let's see what's in our cubbies! Count the objects under each flap!" Like the first section, there are colored images under the flaps with the words printed on the back of the flap. The numbers go from 1 through 10.
In the third section, Clifford says, "Lift a letter to find a surprise that begins with that letter." The alphabet is totally represented in the same format as the first two sections.
In the fourth section, Clifford encourages you to "Lift the flaps to find the different shapes." The same format is used.
The final section is for reading. "It's time to read! Lift the flaps to see what each story is about." Book covers are shown, and the underside of each one has a sentence or phrase. These can be easily memorized with repetition, and then you can point to words and ask your child to "read" them to you. This will help with word identification, and create self-confidence in your young reader.
After you have finished "flapping" around with your child, I suggest that you create these same experiences in flash card form. Your child will have more fun with these if she or he makes the words, letter, shapes, and images. You can extend beyond what is in this book to make your child feel like he or she is really making progress. You can praise your child for being able to exceed what's in the book.
Make learning as much fun as possible, and it will be irresistible . . . for both you and your child!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Fun for Preschoolers, June 20, 2003
This review is from: Clifford's Schoolhouse (Board book)
This book is wonderful for preschoolers. It teaches the abc's, counting, shapes and nursery rhymes. Our daughter loved hers so much she wore it out so I purchased another copy for her. We have several other Clifford books in our library but this is her favorite by far. Hooray for Clifford!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More than you expect, August 2, 2007
This review is from: Clifford's Schoolhouse (Board book)
This book has achieved suprisingly long-lived popularity among my two kids, who are now ages 6 and 4. They've enjoyed this book on and off for years. While other books will get some attention and then are dropped, this is one they seem to keep coming back to.
Though it's only 10 pages, there's a lot here: shapes, colors, numbers, letter and basic nursery rhymes. The kids love the tactical fun of the lift-a-flap discoveries, and that's a good way for them to learn.
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