Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Rod and Staff for Homeschooling Preschoolers

I don't know about your preschoolers, but mine are not contented with a coloring book and crayons while big brother does his own work.

I found that Rod and Staff has an excellent set of books for preschoolers. Granted, I do have to limit how many pages the girls are allowed to do at once or they'll just go through the books in no time. I usually let them do 2 pages and then ask them to color the pictures on the pages afterwards.

I bought the set of four books for my daughters who are 3(Nora) and 4(Giovanna). Each book has about 32 pages, which is why I have to limit how many they're allowed to do.

I found these while looking around for something completely different than preschool activity books, but what a great discovery. The price for buying the set of four books was only $9.00. A great value, fit my girls skill level perfectly, and kept them happily occupied during school time.

The set includes the books called : About Three, Bigger Steps, Color, Count, and Cut, and Doing My Best.

About Three is a perfect fit for Nora. While it's a bit too simple for Giovanna, it's a great one for beginning pre-writing/pre-reading skills.

I started Giovanna off with Bigger Steps after I saw that About Three was not nearly challenging enough for her. The first several pages of Bigger Steps practices the same sort of concepts covered in About Three, it then progresses to a few more challenging concepts that were perfect for our 4 year old to begin with.

Color, Count, and Cut is described as an activity book for four year olds. But I found that Nora could do the exercises just as well.

Doing My Best is suggested for preschoolers age 4-5. While I think that's an excellent age recommendation for the book, I would also tell you that my experience was that if your 3 year old completes the other 3 books first without much problem than progressing on to Doing My Best will not be too hard for them at all.

3 comments:

Hannah said...

My mom used Rod and Staff for all us kids at the beginning and we loved them! She too had to put a limit on how many pages we were allowed to color a day!

Kristin said...

We love the A-B-C series, too. It's great for little ones. I let Maddie (3) do the A & C books and Gavin (5) did the D,E, & F books as part of his kindergarten. They are so much fun and the best part is all the pictures they get to color.

Unknown said...

I will have to keep these in mind for when Lauren is a bit older. Last year it was such a challenge to keep her occupied while I tried to do school with the boys.