Sometimes it is enjoyable to surprise one's young learners by breaking away from the normal curriculum to do something fun. This reproducible book is a perfect resource to keep on hand to use as mini unit studies, to reinforce ideas from reading, or practice skills already learned. Beginning with a back-to-school theme, the text is broken down into seasonal categories beginning with September. Students will have opportunities to practice writing, to do some computation, check reading comprehension, develop vocabulary, work with rhymes, to do counting and sequencing, and to work with contractions and opposites. Activities include dot-to-dots, calendars, word searches, hidden pictures, crossword puzzles, drawing, unscrambling words, jigsaw puzzles, mazes and riddles.

The categories include: Calendars, School Days, Autumn, Columbus Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Winter Weather, Winter Holidays, Spring Weather, Spring Holidays, Easter, May Holidays, Mother's Day, Summer Weather, Summertime, Father's Day, and July. Each category could be handled as a small unit study; or the parent could pick and choose various activities to reinforce other learning. Each category offers several different learning tasks, most very fun, yet helping to reinforce language and math skills.

My children always appreciate when I pull out a dot-to-dot or a maze in the middle of our school day. How about doing a crossword puzzle to reinforce Christmas vocabulary or have them do basic addition to figure out a riddle? I have used this text a great deal and plan to continue doing so throughout the school year. We have already created a dot-to-dot Mayflower and put the pilgrim story in order. Next week, they will finish the second half of a turkey and discuss what pilgrim children would do from a list on a coloring page in the workbook. It's lots of fun and easy for the teacher.

Product Review by Tammy Walker, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, November, 2008