Fundanoodle Orange Level Review -TOS Crew #hsreview

As you've seen we get lots of homeschool review through the TOS Crew review team, but most of them are geared towards older kids who are already in school.  This time we got to review a fun activity through Fundanoodle.  We received I Can Bead, Lace, Rip, Trace which is for ages 3 and up or preschool.  Well.. . . . I have to change that a bit because my 2 year old was a bit better suited for it than my 3 year old, but more about that later.

This orange level or level 1 kit is designed for preschoolers to help develop their fine motor skills by using beads, lace cards, ripping sheets, and tracing.  It also helps them get ready for writing and school activities.  For me the main thing was it gave my preschoolers something that they could call "school" besides the special coloring books I had purchased for them specifically to use during school time.  My kiddos favorite activity was lacing up the cards.  There is a warning for choking hazard, but most of the pieces were big enough none of mine tried to put them in their mouths.

If they have some hidden artistic talents, this kit is great for bringing those out.  We also worked on practicing our color names with it as well as counting.  It's a great little kit with lots of potential to use it in different ways.  The hand eye coordination is also worked on to help develop that.  Really this little box contains everything you need to help your little one get ready for school and none of it seems like work.  It's all play for the little ones while they work on these things!

This particular learning tool won the 2011 and 2012 National Parenting Center Seal of Approval!  It can be purchased for $29.99.  It comes in a cardboard box case that has a carrying handle so you can take it with you to work on the go or simply use it at home.  We liked to take the lacing cards with us but not the rest as I was afraid we'd lose the pieces.

I have to put a personal note in here.  My older brothers have Cerebral Palsy and I remember as a child having their occupational therapist out to work with them.  A lot of what she did was to help them develop the muscles and skills that this box works on.  Yes they were older when they worked on these, but I want to go out on a limb and say that no matter the age, if you have a child who is challenged in some of these areas please give this kit a try.  I know my brothers hated doing lace up cards(a bit girly for them) but it really did help their fine motor skills and hand eye coordination.

Now back to my first paragraph.  I have a 3 year old who is developmentally delayed and I have a 2 year old who is advanced.  My 2 year old grasped a lot more of the concepts than the 3 year old.  They were both able to string the beds onto the pipe cleaners, yarn, and shoe strings.  They also were both able to punch the centers out of the cards.  My 3 year old though was not able to do the lace cards at all, had difficulty tracing and could not figure out ripping. . . . at the beginning of using the box!  By the end of using the box, she could at least do all of these things.  Yes they were not perfect, but they were much better than when she started.  My 2 year old also made great progress using the learning tools inside the box.

We give this a thumbs up and 5 stars.  My girls loved it and couldn't wait for play time during school the next day.  I loved that they were still learning even while I was working with their older siblings instead of directly with them.

Make sure to hop over to the Main Crew Blog Post to see what other fun items everyone got to review from Fundanoodle!  They have so many great items it was really hard to choose just one to review!

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Gryphon House Global Art Review -TOS #hsreviews

Do you like art?  Do your kids like art?  Well in answer to those questions. . . . I always HATED art class in school.  Really and truly hated those classes and wanted to get out of them.  Of course I couldn't do that, but I really was not good at art and knew it.  Now my daughter who is 8 loves art and wants to be an artist when she grows up.  What was I supposed to do?  There was nothing I could teach her at art, my best art was stick people!

Gryphon House to the rescue!  Gryphon House graciously let our family and other families of Crew Members review their Global Art book.  On the cover it is described as "Activities, Projects, and Inventions from around the world."

I loved that the book is divided up into chapters by continent.  Chapter 1 has all kinds of arts and crafts for the continent of Africa.  Within that chapter they are then broken up by country within the continent.  Each chapter is like this.  With each of the crafts there is a did you know section that tells you about the country and why that craft represents them. I loved this!  It's not just art but it's history and social studies all rolled into one!  Learning more than one thing while being fun is a homeschool mommy's dream!

From pinatas, to mobiles, to books, to masks, this book helps your child tour the continent and participate in parts of their culture while there.  My kids were in love and wanted to do more than one project per day.  Of course, I was a not nice mommy and only let them do one per day.  Like I said, I am not a craftsy artsy type person and needed time to recoup!

 

Global Art is written by two talented ladies.  MaryAnn F. Kohl, owner of Bright Ring Publishing, lives in Bellingham, WA.  Our other author is Jean Potter who is a full time writer living in Charleston, West Virginia.  The two of them also worked together to write Cooking Art and Science Arts.  Cooking Art was published by Gryphon House while Science Arts was through MaryAnn's publishing company.

We received a physical copy of the book.  Perfect way to have this book as you're going to want to mark it up!  The book sells for $16.95 in the USA.  It is designed for children in grades Kindergarten through 5th grade.  I was using this with kids ages 2-8 so preschool through 2nd grade.  While the older kids of course grasped the concepts better, the younger kids still had a fun time doing the crafts.  I think if you were buying this to use for a specific age I would say definitely wait until at least kindergarten.  It is a lot more teacher hands on if you're using with younger children and still a lot of helping with kindergarten age in my opinion from what happened in our house.

I do have to say that as a non artsy type person I loved that each of the crafts had step by step instructions so even I could understand them and help my children work through them.  Nothing was too detailed or intense that we couldn't figure them out.

If you'd like to see how other families used the Global Art book or the other review item please check into our Main Crew Blog Post to see how everyone else rates them.

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