Last year Maddilyn participated in the three year old preschool program at our local elementary school. She had a blast getting to know kids her age and enjoyed all of the hands on activities inside the classroom. It was a great experience but we’re moving in November and she wont be able to attend this year. Just as my husband and I were beginning to discuss Kindergarten prep ideas, we received the LeapReader™ Read & Write Activity Set: Ready, Set, Kindergarten and the riddle was solved.
The LeapReader™ Ready, Set, Kindergarten program works in conjunction with the LeapReader to introduce our preschoolers to so many of the necessary skills needed for kindergarten. Over the 3 books, 30 worksheets and poster, Maddilyn was introduced to fellow Kindergarteners Daniel, Grace, and Pilar. Like my own child, each character brought their own unique personalities and learning habits. Through their adventures both in and out the of the classroom the Kindergarten Kids learned concept like early literacy, mathematics, science and social studies, including more than 10 key kindergarten readiness skills. In total there are more than 45 activities in this awesome book set.
But it’s about more than learning. It’s about getting familiar with terms, activities and the classroom setting they will experience in kindergarten. Each book begins with a fun Show and Tell scene that expands into an exciting adventure. Kids can also choose how they want to learn. Whether they want free play, to work on along the stories on their own or to have each page read to them.
As she reads along, she can tap words with LeapReaderTM to hear them pronounced and touch objects on the page to elicit different actions or sound effects. In total there are more than 40 re-playable activities integrated into the curriculum to immerse kids in the journey. All of these activities translate to key skills every kindergartener needs inclduing:
- Reading & Writing
- Mathematics
- Science
- Pattern-Matching
- Free Drawing
- Scientific Sorting
- Rhyming
- Creativity and Music Skills
- Position Words
- Letter Names
- Phonetics
- Identify Numbers and Count 1-30
- Trace Letters
- and More!
As fun as the books are, Maddilyn REALLY loves the worksheets because we can “pretend” to be in the classroom doing important school work. The sheets are made of special mess-free worksheets and an interactive poster that interacts with the LeapReader.
Each morning we also go over the social skills poster. We talk about our emotions that morning, aspirations, weather, seasons and the day of the week.
Last but not least the entire learning program is also carried over to her LeapPad via the Get Ready for Kindergarten Learning Game Pack. The game brings the Kindergarteners and their classroom to life and incorporates additional learning material. It’s the perfect addition to the program because, as most parents know, preschoolers have fairly short attention span. We if were to just do books and worksheets everyday it would become old hat quickly.
This entire program serves as an awesome way to prep our preschoolers for Kindergarten and you really can not beat the value. Bonus, LeapFrog provided this printable Kindergarten Readiness Checklist to make sure we’re fully prepared for this first step in her educational career.
A big thank your to LeapFrog for supplying this awesome program to review and share. All opinions remain my own.
This sounds like a great program. I’d like to get it for my grandkids.
We love Leap Frog and actually have this. These are great learning tools.
What a fun program. We adore LeapFrog products and have quite a few of them.
We tried Leap products for kiddo when she was younger. She never really got in to them. It resulted in a lot of ‘play time’ and ADHD would become sensitive. She learned to memorize things so she could get through it quicker, which did not help her in school when her teacher would push the kids to do things on their own. We had to put a ban on electronics as educational devices because she was just too interested in playing with them and not enough about wanting to learn. I see a lot of children with this problem and the teachers in her life over the years say it is common because of the overstimulation of gadgets. Too many parents abuse them and use them as electronic babysitters. Such a shame because their are some great programs out there.
I love this program! My son is two, so I will get him set up with this program soon. :)