Early Concepts, Grades Preschool - K (Big Skills for Little Hands®) Paperback – April 14, 2016

Little learners will enjoy having their own workbook. “Early Concepts” is part of the Big Skills for Little Hands series; it presents four basic topics that preschoolers need to know. Targeted at ages 3 years and older, “Early Concepts” is suitable, if an adult or older sibling “helps” the little one, for younger preschoolers. Pages are perforated for easy removal; the ability to present only one page to a little one helps keep them from becoming overwhelmed by the volume of “work”. Cute, colorful illustrations will engage the child and pique their interest in the work.“Early Concepts” begins with a section focusing on the alphabet. The presentation format is identical through this section. A review page follows the four pages devoted to one of four different letters. That page incorporates all four letters into a fun activity. The first page highlighting a letter asks the learner to trace the upper and lower case letters with their finger. This is very helpful for little ones who may not have mastered gripping a writing utensil. The child may then color the letters. The back of the letter page includes some learning activity that reinforces the subject letter.Numbers make up the second section of the “Early Concepts” workbook. Groups of five digits - 0 – 5; 6 – 10; 11 – 15; and 16 – 20 – serve as the format for learning numbers. Unfortunately, the number lessons in “Early Concepts” are presented on facing pages. This defeats the positive aspect of being able to give a child only one page. Review and activity pages complete the content of this section.The third section of this workbook teaches colors. In addition to the eight basic “crayon colors” of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, the colors pink, gray, and white make an appearance. Learning activities include identification, matching, and drawing. The final section of “Early Concepts” addresses shapes. These include circle; square; triangle; rectangle; oval; rhombus; star; and heart. Exercises in both sections may be presented either on facing pages or on the front and back of one page. Again, this makes it difficult to remove only one page for a child to “work” on.I was excited to receive “Early Concepts” since my granddaughter wants to do “school” when her big brother is completing exercises in his workbook. The information and the methods of teaching in this workbook are excellent. The exercises are fun to do and the illustrations colorful and appealing. Work is appropriate for the target group and may be used for younger children who have guidance from an adult or older sibling. The book’s one downside is the failure to print exercises only on the front and back of individual pages defeats the positive aspect of having perforated pages. Nevertheless, this is a good beginning workbook for your little learner and you will not be disappointed in its content.

My 4 year old is in preschool and I'm always looking to extend her learning at home and teach her new concepts that school hasn't taught her yet or to reinforce what she's learning at school. This workbook is intended for ages 3 and up, but I'd say it's really meant for 3 and 4 year olds because a 5 year old would likely find this book way too easy. There are 185 activities centered around 4 core concepts that form the foundation for what will be learned and built upon in Kindergarten, which are alphabet, numbers, colors, and shapes.For each letter, there is an introductory page that shows both the upper and lower case letter and the directions ask the child to trace the letters with their finger, which is great for the child to memorize the formation of the letter in a unique way, but what I wish was different about these pages is that for most of them, the child doesn't even get to write the letters to practice. The introductory letters pages are pretty plain with only a large picture of the letter shown on the page, so there was plenty of room for the publisher to put a few lines for writing practice. I even drew some lines for my daughter to write the letters several times each to make up for that. On the back of the letter page, the child gets to practice beginning letter sounds by circling words that start with that letter sound. There are also some drawing/coloring aspects on some of the pages where they can draw things that start with that sound. After every 4 letters, there are a few review pages for those letters where they match the upper and lower case letters to each other or match the letter to the sound. There are a few letter tracing activities throughout and finally a few pages where the child traces the letters, but no full pages where they solely write the letters themselves.In the number sections, there are 3-4 pages per number where the child puts glue on the number and traces it or traces it with their finger, counts and circles that number of objects on the page, counts and colors that number of objects, but again not too much number writing. I would've preferred to have some practice for each number when it's introduced versus sporadic practice. I also like that for each number there are activities like clapping that number of times or gluing that number of objects to the page. I really liked the number match pages that are multiple choice where the child counts the number of pictures and circles the correct number up to 20. My daughter has a hard time with numbers over 10 so these pages are good to help her memorize 11-20.In the color section, there is one page devoted to pictures of each color where the child circles only items of that color and then an activity where the child colors/draws using that color. I found the shape section to be a bit disappointing because all it did was have the child trace the shape with their finger or crayon. I would've liked to see more activities with cutting and pasting shapes into a puzzle or predrawn images, but the shape review pages after all the shapes have been introduced were great to match the object pictured to its shape.Overall, this is a great learning tool for children and is very colorful and engaging, but I supplement this book with other workbooks where there are more letter and number writing practice. My daughter likes using the book and I like that there is a certificate at the end of the book to show completion. I also like the easy to tear out pages. Pretty solid book at a decent price.

I guess this is an OK book except for one minor flaw that keeps me awake at night.That one thing is how the alphabet section was laid out. There are two pages devoted to each letter, but instead of planning the book so you could spread it open and see both pages at once they instead put the two pages back-to-back. So you end up with the "R" activity on the left page and the big finger-traceable letter "S" on the right page. It seems to me this is messy, illogical, slightly confusing, and just missing a chance to reinforce each lesson with all you got. I want the book to say to my child "OK, let's think about the letter 'S' now," and not have "R" still hanging around distracting us. Is that too much to ask? Geez! All they had to do was have ONE stinking more page or ONE stinking less page at the beginning of the book and everything would end up fine, but NOOOO they could not do that. I honestly do not know what this country is coming to. What kind of an example are we setting for our kids to follow? Are LOGIC and FOCUS obsolete concepts? Is ATTENTION TO DETAIL now dead? AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!Other than that, I guess the book is OK.