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Guiding my eldest daughter through to Primary 1 last year was an eye opener for me. I learnt to familiarize the topics that were actually used quite universal for every school going kid in First Grade except that the questions were set differently by various schools.

I had the opportunity to look at 2 books by Cedar Valley Publishing, meant for nursery and kindergarten kids. What perfect timing as books like these are in my current agenda since my youngest girl will be starting her Kindergarten in 6 months time. I have been searching high and low not to make the same mistakes and source out the right books that will allow my 4 year old to kick start her preparation towards Kindergarten and First Grade with ease.

Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten
The cover of this book was a welcome sight for me. It had an illustration of a teacher in front of the board with chalk in her hands and showed a classroom environment. I love the feel of this book actually. It had nice rounded corners that is child friendly, and it is printed in glossy hard card finish that allows you to doodle on it with White Board Markers for use and reuse. It was just brilliant. What was welcoming was that the book was filled with colourful pages of information that covered topics like the alphabets, phonetics, colours, shapes and looking at it, it did cover the very basic part of school like money, counting, time and even learning the days in a week and the calendar.

For a parent who would like to help their child in some of the topics covered, he or she will definitely feel more confident using this book as a teaching guide and then look for other sources of example. This book is definitely highly recommended to help a child breeze through her nursery years towards Kindergarten.

Let’s Get Ready For First Grade
This book is what every parent should get for a child to get ready for First Grade. When a child enters Kindergarten, he or she will be going through topics that are planned for a First Grader. First, is to get the child acquainted with the syllabus or topics and give him or her a taste of the First Grade subjects on a very basic level. A child will learn to understand simple terms like vowels, consonants, punctuation, simple maths, health education like food groups and even a little Science. This is very important as the subjects will help to cover meanings and terms that child will likely be exposed to most of the time in First Grade and this will give him or her more confident to start solving or do more intensive problem solving work. I was pleasantly surprised that these topics are already clearly covered in the same familiar glossy book that can be wiped clean with the white board marker. This brilliant method means I can let my daughter use the book again and again as kids learn most through repeat process effectively. I believe this book is very useful for all educators and parents to pick up interesting ideas for study and play in an alternative method. The illustrations and colours are vibrant and interesting. I see a lot of potential in this useful little book that can be entertaining for use in the car during long journeys too. A must buy!