Michael graduated from pre-k on June 19th. My plan was to give him a two week break and start up with our summer home schooling on July 6th. Well, I’m about 3 weeks behind on the plan! Now, we’re playing catch-up. Fortunately, because I do a variety of parenting writing, I’m often sent a variety of learning materials to review. There are two items that have especially stood out recently. I’m sharing about one of them below. (I’ll be writing about the other on my monthly “Gaming Notes” post on Thursday, since it’s an educational CD game.)
Summer Bridge Activity Workbook (P-K)
I accepted this workbook to review, because I had read a great review about it from a blogger whom I know and respect, Jennifer of 5 Minutes for Books. (Her son and Michael are the same age/stage of life. They were “fast friends” at a past event that we all attended.)
Anyway, the Pre-K to Kindergarten activity book is very helpful. For the most part, I like the layout. There are three different sections. The first and second sections review what the kid (should have) already learned in pre-k and the third section previews what they will be learning in kindergarten. There are also a variety of bonus sections in the workbook as well as an online site with additional material. Since Michael is so goal-oriented (I wonder where he gets that from…), I especially like the included incentive contract calendars and the certificate of completion. Since we’re behind schedule, Michael is doing 2 activity pages four days a week. That’s enough. When my little gamer boy completes the workbook, he has requested (yes, you guessed it) the video game of his choice.
My only concern is that the material in the book doesn’t seem as challenging as Michael’s pre-k work. (Then again, I thought that it was a little too much that the students were expected to “match spoken word to print” at the pre-k level anyway). I think that if I include “sight words” and art projects to the workbook’s daily activities, that Michael will be just fine in September.
(I’m always a little confused though – should I expect him to know all of the pre-k stuff at this point or most of the kindergarten material as well?)
On a side note, if you’re in the NYC area, you can find pre-k expectations in this pdf and on this Early Childhood site. For Kindergarten standards, you’ll have to click through each Academic subject on this page.