This is a different kind of book review. If a product helps me with raising kids, I like to share it. I’m on my second book in a series of age-appropriate Brain Quest academic workbooks.
These workbooks are well designed. I’m not promising that your kids will not see it as a chore, but I think these books make practicing math and writing about as fun as it can be.
We found Brain Quest in a bookstore while we were looking for things to do in my son’s summer after kindergarten. The K-to- 1 summer workbook was fun and helped maintain what he had learned in kindergarten. He loved adding a new sticker to the adventure path after finishing each activity. You can finish it in one summer by doing about 5 pages per day, which only takes about 10 minutes.
The First Grade school-year book is huge (320 pages). There aren’t as many stickers as the K-to-1, but they still have a way of marking off accomplishments that my son finds satisfying. It’s a kind of gamification, but it’s not more screen time.
These pages can be done after school on weekdays. What I like best is that it gives us some structure to leaning on weekends and holidays. It’s cheap considering that it has every subject. The cost is nothing when you consider the price of outside tutoring.
Amazon link to K-to-1 summer workbook (160 pages)
Amazon link to First Grade book (320 pages)
The series goes up to Sixth Grade.
I don’t see this a substitute for reading together. If you only have time for one thing, I’d recommend reading a fun story out loud over assigning workbook pages. If money is no object, then paying a tutor is better because you won’t have to spend time supervising.
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