Product Review: Thinking Kids’ Math, PreK‏ by Carson Dellosa (PreK)

Activities Guide Students from the Concrete, to the Representational, to the Abstract!

In my opinion (and, really, this is only my opinion) a lot of the reasons why school in the US can be so ineffective is because we rely on fact memorization for tests instead of building on basic fundamentals and concepts. It’s the younger grades that need more attention because they are they stepping stones to larger concepts in every subject. There was a reason I taught my daughter the ABCs out of order. I didn’t want her to depend on a song to learn her alphabet. I wanted her to look at each letter and understand what they looked and sounded like with a nice visual. I loved to use wipe off boards and talk about the difference of upper and lower case letters and I ended up doing the same things with numbers since it was so effective. The Thinking Kids’ Math program for PreK uses the same technique of teaching points of questions covering the five National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTC) process strands: Problem Solving, Reasoning and Proof, Communication, Connections and Representation. I love this about the Kit and believe it is a great introduction to math concepts. This helps and guides children from abstract to solid concepts to give them a good foundation for future math learning. After all, math is not just memorization of facts to pass a test, it is a way to enable children to reach their highest level of learning to achieve a quality through vision, leadership, professional development and research. These foundations start now!

The Thinking Kids’ Math, PreK Kit Comes with the following items: