Customer Reviews

Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills, Preschool

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I purchased this book from Amazon on 4/24/05. I had read the reviews and looked closer at the item and "inside the book". Just wanted others to be aware that this is not a book with Sesame Street Characters in it. From a previous reviewer years ago it's apparent that Sesame was involved then. Anyway....

This book is excellent! It is 544 pages which are all VERY colorful with lively characters and good detailed objects. My 2 year old has had no trouble identifying what the illustrator is displaying in each picture. All pages are perforated to pull out. My only gripe is that the publisher should have put more thought into the ordering of the pages and activities. For example - if we are working on the color RED today, the book was printed so that the color Red starts on the back page of another color and continues to the following page. So you can never tear out just one page per color for your child to work on.

I love the Introduction section for the parents on what to expect from your 3 yr old and another page for age 4. There is also a personal checklist where you can record the dates your child mastered certain developmental skills (basic skills, reading readiness skills, mathematics skills, fine (small) motor skills and gross (large) motor skills).

From the Table of Contents page...
Basic Concepts and Skills (Colors, Shapes, Sizes, Opposites, Go-Togethers, Same and Different)
Writing Readiness (Tracing dotted lines... Left to Right, Top to Bottom, Slanted & Curved Lines, & Forward and Backward circles)
Reading Readiness (Letters and Letter Sounds, Beginning Sounds, Rhyming Pictures)
Mathematics Readiness (Numbers and Counting 1-10, Next... First, Next, Last, Ordinal Numbers, One to One Correspondence, More and Fewer, Patterns)
Appendix (Manuscript Alphabet & Teaching Skills)

My 2 year old is loving this book! (She was aching to do "homework" like her big sister). This book is really increasing her vocabulary and she is identifying objects and shapes while we are out in public now. Money well spent!

This is a great book, but because there are alot of pages that include tracing of words I am personally using this book after I have gone through the Kumon workbooks about upper and lowercase letters. The Kindergarten book in this series has more content and at a higher level, but it does not contain any tracing of words. This seems strange to me, because in Kindergarten is when kids really start learning how to read. Overall the books (Pre-K and K) are definitely worth the investment, I just question the order of the content between the two books and within each book. I ended up going with the School Zone books first and I will do these books afterwards. The School Zone books are definitely at a lower level than these books.

I used this book with my daughter the year and a half before kindergarten. She enjoyed the characters and exercises. She also felt very comfortable with the learning material in kindergarten, and did extremely well on the tests. I know it is not all attributable to the book, but I had fun going through it with her and she really enjoyed the 'homework' activites with Mom, and I'm certain that is beneficial for any child. I have recently reviewed my daughter's completed workbook and plan on buying one for my preschool-age son.

I bought several of those books < different grade levels> just so I am prepared for the next few years.

Education of our children has changed in so many ways it's just amazing. When my son started showing signs of wanting to learn I bought a whole bunch of different Basic Skills Books and found this one to be the best one.

Why? Because of all its activities. From coloring to learning the alphabet its all in here. Cutting activities teach your child motorskills. My son loves learning numbers and even though he cannot read yet he loves writing the color, number and shape words < which are pre- printed>. I sometimes have to stop him or he would try to finish the entire book in one day lol.

I also like the assessment pages in the beginning of this book, that way you can keep track of your childs progress.

All in all this is a great way to get your childs education started. Its fun and even if you only sit down with your child for 10 min a day you will be amazed how fast they pick up on things.

I bought the Comprehensive Curriculum to do with my 3 year old son last year. A lot of the time it was the only "school" activity that interested him at all. This year, with my son being 4, I purchased a different preschool cirriculum only to find my son begging to do pages out of the "Big Book" as he likes to call it. He will sit and do 10 or 15 pages in one sitting, begging for more when I tell him that we're done for the day. The material is still benefical, and so I have decided to purchase another copy of Preschool Comprehensive Cirriculum for this year (since there are not many pages left undone in the one we already have). The bright pictures make the material interesting and exciting for preschoolers.
My sister used the 3rd grade Comp. Cirriculum to supplement her daughter's math work, and my niece did much better with the Comp. Cirr. workbook than she did with the same concepts taught in her text book. It is well laid out, and I've never talked to anyone who didn't like it.

I got this to supplement our preschool home school curriculum. I rated it just okay because most of the pages are tracing of words that introduce the concepts instead of more active pages. My son LOVES the pages that have what he calls "games". For instance, draw a line to the picture that is opposite of the such and such picture. Those are great and help reinforce the concepts but he loathes the tracing of "big" and then "small". There is nothing to do on those pages but trace. Also, my son already knew his shapes and colors before we started the book, so that was a little repetitive for him. If you want to use this book for early handwriting skills, then it would be great. There is a lot of tracing and later in the book actually writing of letters and numbers. If you are just looking for some extra busy work, for the price, it isn't bad, but if you are looking for a solid preschool curriculum, I really don't find this that great.

...At any rate, if this is the same book...I LOVE it and highly recommend it!! I have several preschool level workbooks, and this one is the last one I bought, wish I'd bought it and nothing else! It really has everything you need to cover the necessary preschool skills: colors, shapes, same/different, matching games, letters, numbers, beginning sounds. The pages are very colorful without being too "busy". I've coupled this workbook along with some flashcards and hands-on learning activities, and we've had great success!

I didn't think my 4 year old boy would be ready for this yet when I first got it. Although advanced verbally, he has poor pencil skills and so two days ago I started the Kumon Tracing book with him and also bought this book hoping for more finger strengthening exercises.

When I first looked at this book I saw it started with coloring and tracing of letters and I thought it wouldn't hold his interest but just tonight I brought it along with us to the restaurant and he enthusiastically did the first three sheets of it. He usually doesn't like coloring so much and always avolds tracing over dotted lines of letters but I think between the Kumon book helping him with pencil skills and this book being so colorful and fun looking, he was coloring with gusto. He wanted to do more but I stopped him after three sheets. Didn't want him to burn out.
I'm really pleased with the Kumon books I've bought (4 for 3 special). They look great. And I'm pleased with this book as well and think they're a great complement to each other. I plan to do the Kumon book every day (either tracing or cutting) and this big Comprehensive Curriculum book every once in awhile to mix it up.

I read one review where they said they were holding off on this book because of the letter tracing. For us, it wasn't a problem. He did it with crayon and I think that's easier than pencil for him and it is helping him with gaining finger strength and control.

As others have said, it's massive. It has tons and tons of activity worksheets that are easily ripped out. My son is homeschooling and for difficult areas, I can remove one of these worksheets, copy it and have him work on it several times until he is ready to move on. He loves tracing, so I removed a few of these pages and copied them. He can now use them over and over for practice and fun. I am VERY impressed with this and recommend it to anyone.

My 2 1/2 year old Son loves this workbook! He is still too young to understand a lot of it, but he loves doing his "homework" from it. He enjoys the photos I think. It does a good job at capturing a childs attention.