Summer Math Bridge by MamTalk

 

Genre: Children’s workbook
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

 

For this review I am going to step into my teacher mode. I am currently teaching middle school English. However, my background is in elementary education. I started out teaching kindergarten. This would have been a wonderful book for that age.  I love the idea of using it to bridge the summer months when we see so many students slide backwards.

This book is geared towards children ages 5-7. It’s table of contents breaks it into  parts. Part one is learning numbers. The idea is that children learn their numbers or reinforce their learning by counting, tracing, and coloring.  Part two is all about counting. Kids count the shapes and circle the correct number, leading up to coloring, counting and writing the correct number. Part three is all about comparing things. They start out drawing lines from the same number to the same number shapes. They move on up from that to more, less, fewer, bigger and smaller.

Part four is about putting objects inside, outside, to the right, left, top or bottom of shapes. This section reinforces direction and shapes and of course there is plenty of coloring to make it interesting. Part five is all about recognizing patterns. I believe this is an area student  don’t get enough practice with. When asking middle school students to recognize patterns in different subjects, and especially math, many struggle. Maybe if they had a book like this when they were younger they wouldn’t struggle so much in middle school.

Part six is all about recognizing size, such as big, small, tall, short, long.  This not only asks the child to recognize  the difference, but is teaching the youngest child important vocabulary words they will need to be successful in school. Part seven introduces them to basic, simple addition. We start with simple shapes, fingers and finally writing and adding the numbers. Part eight is your basic subtraction. It is handled very similar to the basic addition. Part nine  is naming the basic shapes. Some of this is more of a reinforcement as they will have been introduced to many of the shapes throughout the workbook.  Connecting real life objects to the basic shapes help with that reinforcement, as does making them choose the shape that is different.

So, putting my teacher hat back on for a minute, only because my grandkids are in upper elementary or have graduated. This is a book I would recommend to parents of all young children who would like to keep the learning fresh over the summer. With this book it can be done in as little as ten to fifteen minutes.