School Zone Big Kindergarten Workbook: 320 Pages, Early Reading and Writing, Numbers 0-20, Basic Math, Matching, Story Order, Ages 5 to 6

BIG Workbooks

by Joan Hoffman, Barbara Bando Irvin, Barbara Gregorich

Big Workbooks promote comprehensive learning from preschool through sixth grade. Each workbook includes activities organized by major skill areas. Contents are drawn from the I Know It and Get Ready series. 320 Full-Color Pages.

Genres: Childrens

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

Joan Hoffman, M.A., is the author and co-author of hundreds popular storybooks and workbooks for children. Among the titles are Peter’s Dream, I Don’t Like Peas, and The New Bike (the latter two published under the pen name Marie Vinje), the Get Ready for Preschool, Kindergarten, and First Grade workbook trio, along with the entire Get Ready, Little Thinker, I Know It!, Try-n-Spy, and Little Busy Book workbook series.

She is also co-founder, along with her late husband James Hoffman, Ph.D., of School Zone Publishing. Visionary in business, she has long looked at the world through a child’s eyes, infusing her stories and lessons with joy and relatability.

As a mother of 4 back in the ‘70s, like moms the world over throughout history, she wanted what was best for her children. And she knew that teachers didn’t have the time to give her kids everything they needed. As an elementary school teacher, Hoffman worked hard to give her students what they needed to learn. And parents would ask her what they could do to help. That’s why she started School Zone—to help give children every possible chance to reach their potential.

She brought retail experience gleaned from previously founding and managing two regional educational book and supply stores for teachers and parents. Her husband lent his blended talents of educator and entrepreneur. A professor of education who also had first-hand experience as an elementary teacher, he was involved in teacher education programs at several colleges and had served at the helm of a company that published classroom materials.

Combining rock-solid editorial judgment and creative instincts with a thorough understanding of early education, Joan Hoffman was an exemplary proponent of design thinking long before it became a conceptual label. An innovative problem-solver, she has always sought to reach out to end users and challenge convention. Separating fleeting trends from legitimate advances has been essential to her company’s longevity.

The results speak for themselves. With the next generation—both son Jonathan and daughter Jennifer—taking on creative and strategic leadership roles in the company their parents started, School Zone seamlessly integrated digital learning platforms. The company received Apple’s exclusive Human Interface Design Excellence Award for software development, and its apps were part of the first-generation iPad launch in 2010. School Zone’s flagship product, the Little Scholar Learning Tablet, has earned industry-wide recognition and awards, as has its online learning destination Anywhere Teacher. Inspired by mom’s story-telling excellence, son Jonathan continued that legacy with Charlie & Company, an original series for ages 3-7, available on Oznnoz, Kidoodle.tv, ToonGoggles, BatteryPop, Ameba, and Highbrow.

Reviews

[Caterpickles]

Unlike I’m Going to Write! Upper Case Letters, which is geared to teaching a single skill and can use a single set of instructions all the way through, Big Workbook: Kindergarten strives to teach a wider set of concepts and contains a variety of worksheet formats.

The book is divided into five sections:

* Alphabet, designed to teach your child to recognize and write the letters of the alphabet
* Colors & Shapes, designed to teach your child to recognize and identify colors and basic shapes
* Numbers 0-12, designed to teach early math skills such as recognizing the numbers 0-12, the concepts of more or less, and of course, learning to write the numbers themselves both as numbers and as words
* Transition Math, designed to prepare your child for first grade math by introducing the numbers 13-20 and teaching them to count money and tell time
* Reading Readiness, designed to improve your child’s reading comprehension by teaching them to notice details, classify items, identify opposites, and working with positional words such as before and after.

Obviously, this is not a book that I can simply hand to The Five-Year-Old for her to use on her own. Fortunately, although there are a variety of worksheets in this book, the directions for each style of worksheet are simple and consistent, which means it doesn’t take long to set The Five-Year-Old up to successfully complete each set of pages.

And because The Five-Year-Old enjoys working through the book, the only complaint I’m likely to hear during these sessions is the parent-pleasing “Can’t I please do one more?”