Disclosure: This is a Mama Buzz review. The product was provided by Timberdoodle for this review.
Timberdoodle is a company that sells all sorts of products and resources for a variety of topics for homeschooling. Lorelai, who will be two at the end of the month, is not ready for “schooling” yet, but she has shown an interest in crayons, colors, scribbling and her ABCs so I was very excited when this tour became available.
We received the I Can Trace book and a package of Prismacolor Pencil Set.
From Timberdoodle‘s website, this book is aimed at the early writer or preschooler. Big Skills for Little Hands
Brighter Child makes the experience even more delightful with Big Skills for Little Hands, a series of six books. The Big Skills for Little Hands series supports national standards for early childhood by working to build necessary motor skills. Each paperback book is over 200 colorful pages and includes a write-and-wipe laminated page in the back of the book.
When I first looked through the book I was struck by the variety of activities – and there is some guidance for how to use them as well. There is discussion of fine motor skills, writing tools, safety, brain research and a kindergarten screening guide. I have experience teaching middle school students, so this information was useful to me especially as I can apply it right away to my own child. The book is divided into sections – tracing from side to side, paths, shapes, completing a maze, numbers and letters. The pencil set is top of the line – what I would expect from a beginning artist set! I was relieved to see that the pencils did not come sharpened – Lorelai currently uses crayons and some markers and I am a bit hesistant about giving her something sharp and pointy.
She took to this right away – I showed her the book, which caught her attention with the friendly spider on the front and we looked at many of the pages – they are bright and colorful, but not too busy. She was able to trace with her finger after I showed her an example and then she was off and running on her own. She loved the colored pencils – I didn’t sharpen them, as she was content to use them as she uses her crayons!
I tend to let Lorelai take the lead on any activities we do in the course of the day. When she wants to draw or color, that’s when we do it. I can see us taking out this book more as she gets older and starts to understand a bit more. The pages are perforated so they can be torn out, but I wish the book was spiral bound – it would be easier for Lorelai to look through the pages on her own. I’ve noticed when we do a coloring activity on a doodle pad she will frequently flip back to other pages to see drawings or letters we have done earlier.
The book retails on the Timberdoodle site for $10.50 (a sale from $13.99) – a good deal for 200+ activities and information.
Timberdoodle also sent us a package of stickers – they were like photographs and had bears. Lorelai also enjoyed sticking them to me, thank you!
