Book Review
This book was compiled from Totline newsletters that were published
before schools and daycares went "peanut free" so keep
this in mind while you are reading, however, there are lots of good
activities that shouldn't be overlooked because of this. Something
else to be aware of is that all of the activities need to be considered
safe for your child before engaging in them (i.e. Hammering on the
second page of the No Lose Party Games section). Parents know
their own children and what they are capable of safely. Teachers
also need to be concerned about safety so some of these activities
are not appropriate for group settings. It all comes down
to how much supervision is necessary while engaging in certain types
of activities and if one-on-one attention is available for those
activities that require it.
I really appreciate that the recipes are all healthy and sugarless;
in this way the writer is ahead of her time because this book was
published before obesity really became a problem with some of today's
children. It is a bit inconvenient that no complete index
or page numbers are available when looking for specific activities;
there is only the index at the front of the book that divides the
activities by months and under each month, the subcategories (i.e.
Fall Science Activities) they fall under. I don't like that some
of the activities are to be started by an adult and finished off
by the children. The Mystery Pictures activity is one of my
favorite activities but when using it with children I would modify
it to have them create the entire activity. The age of the
children would determine how close they came to recreating the images
they have listed in this book for the adult to draw but the children
will enjoy the activity more. The children will also understand
the entire process and get more out of the activity because they've
done it themselves. Not all the activities are written up
like this but it is something that should be kept in mind because
the children can be proud of what they have accomplished on their
own. |
