Customer Reviews

Big Preschool Workbook

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My 4-year-old son is very bright and imaginative, but has a hard time focusing on tasks -- as a result, his small-motor skills were beginning to lag behind. This workbook helped him develop skills in drawing shapes, solving puzzles, and beginning to write letters.

The workbook has bright pictures and a variety of actitivies. Parents (or kids) can choose to skip around the book if the child gets tired of one kind of activity. We chose to work straight through, stopping whenever he got tired or frustrated. The activities are challenging but not impossible.

One caveat -- are preschoolers really expected to know how to write the alphabet in upper and lower case? They learn how in this book, but I seem to remember taking that up in the first grade, oh a million or so years ago.

I recently purchased the Big Preschool Workbook for my soon to be 4 year old. She went to a preschool for a few months and I can tell you that this is exactly the kind of material they were using in the preschool. The worksheets start out by having the child circle items in a row that match the first item, then circle the item that is different and so on. The first time my daughter and I sit down to work on this she did not stop until she had completed 10 pages and wanted to do more. I think it works really well if you have pretend school. I tell my daughter that it is time for school, explain what she is to do on a page and when she is finished with that page I check it to make sure it is right. This is a GREAT book and I would definatley recommend it for any 3-5 year old.

Big Preschool Workbook is a huge, 320 page compendium of single page activities organized by major skill areas ideal for use with preschool ages children. Each page in this comprehensive workbook is illustrated in color. Big Preschool Workbook is Ideal for day care center and home school use, as well as classroom curriculum supplementation. Also very highly recommended are the other volumes in the School Zone Publishing "Big Workbook" series: Big Kindergarten Workbook; Big First Grade Workbook; Big First Grade Workbook; Big Second Grade Workbook; Big Phonics Workbook.

My son was almost 4 when we got this a couple of months ago, and he really likes it (still does), but it's a bit frustrating in the following way: many of the pictures that it uses for learning letters (e.g. "circle the picture that begins with u") are of vocabulary items that 4 year olds don't necessarily know. E.g. for "u" they had a batter and someone who I guessed was an umpire. But my 4-year-old doesn't know what an umpire is, even though he's cognitively just at the right level for this book in the sense that he finds it fun to do, and when he knows what the pictures are he can pick the right one. Another page had a frilly heart as one of the choices for "v", and you were supposed to know that the heart was a valentine. My kid has a pretty big vocabulary for a 4-year-old, and knows the word valentine, but it just was a little abstract for him. The result is that I have to help him a lot, and I think it'd be more fun for him if he felt he could do it himself. If anyone knows of a similar book with more age-appropriate vocabulary pictures, it'd be great if they could post that in a review, since he does really seem to enjoy the activities in the book, and views getting to do the book as a treat.

I purchased this book on a whim. I was looking for a book that had a little bit of everything so my son could practice writing, circling etc. This book is so much fun. The sections are:
Same or Different, Mazes, Does it belong?, Uppercase Alphabet, Lowercase alphabet, Thinking Skills, Preschool Basics, Preschool Scholar etc. It has many activites all of which my son love. He loves the Mazes section, matching and finding differences. He also like the thinking section which has activites where you look for things that don't belong in the picture. It's really an excellent book with 320 pages full of cute bright cartoon animals, toys and children. I can never flip the pages infront of my son when going to a specific page because he'll want to stop and work on something different. It really helps children learn on so many levels. My son is getting better at holding his pencil, learning to follow the directions. Here are just a few examples :
- Circle pictures that are the same
- Circle the pictures that are differen
- Draw a line from this object to the matching one
- Circle two pictures that make a pair
At first I thought it was a little too expensive but after seeing the way my son loves this book it's worth every penny. There was a day he worked on it for close to 2 hours. I am purchasing individual books from this company too. A must buy.

My son just turned three in August, but he has already completed this book. We did a few pages everyday - I think we spent a couple of months on it. He is now able to write upper and lowercase letters, and can do simple math concepts, such as greater vs. lesser, which group has more...there are mazes, coloring activities, and a variety of lessons to teach shapes, sizes, counting, writing, etc.

What I liked best about this book is the different phrases that they use in the instructions. My son learned the relationship between phrases "which ones match" and "where does it belong", "which one is different" and "which one is not the same"...just to name a couple. My son immediately applied what he learned from the book to his everyday activities, so I know that he did absorb some, if not all, the lessons.

Since this book is a combination of smaller books from School Zone, it's not necessary to buy the others unless your child has trouble with a particular area. My son struggled with the pages dealing with "beginning sounds," so I bought him the book that is just activities to teach beginning sounds.

I prefer School Zone to all other preschool workbook series, with the exception of Kumon.

As a graduate student in education, this is one of the better books I have found in creating a variety of lesson plans that include fantastic creative outlets. In every idea in this book it leaves room for change. Kathy Douglas is phenomenal!

I've been using this workbook to teach my daughter all sorts of preschool activities. It's been wonderful! She loves it as well! Highly reccommended!

I ordered this book for my 3 year old son. He rarely wants to sit still and do anything, but the bright colors of the pages enticed him and we were able to do 3-4 pages at a time. I even walked into the livingroom the next day to find him doing some of the mazes on his own. He loves this book! We do 3-4 pages a day and it is really enjoyable. Would highly recommend this book!

Everything I was looking for to teach my 3 year old how to write her letters and numbers. With plenty of other learing activites. All in all a wonderful pre-school work book! I also purchased the Brain Quest pre-shool work book but definitly prefer this one.