More Fun With School Zone Products

If you read Danielle's post yesterday, you would know all about School Zone publishing company and their Peek-a-Boo Puppy book.  I was lucky enough to receive some products from School Zone as well and I took them along babysitting last night for the kids to play with.  Here is a pic of Owen enjoying his peek-a-boo puppy book.  He basically tested it out by dumping all of the cards on the floor and then throwing them around the room.  He is a big fan of peek-a-boo, however being a boy he just wanted to be a little maniac instead of actually sit there and read.  Notice the photo of Eliza sitting nicely and reading with mommy & daddy from yesterday's post.  I guess this is the difference between boys and girls!  We give this product a good grade for sturdiness but do agree with Danielle that if it was an actual book instead of cards, it would probably be a lot easier to work with.  

While he was making a big mess, Layna & I were enjoying our School Zone flash cards.  I got 3 packs of cards for preschool aged kids to learn the alphabet, numbers, and shapes.  She is not even in preschool yet (starts in September) and knew almost all of the letters and numbers.  She knew all of the shapes including rectangle and oval which impressed me for some reason.  I would have thought she would say it was a square & a circle.  Is it just me or are kids today much smarter than we were when we were this age?  I totally remember learning letters in kindergarten and now every little kid I see already knows them at 3 years old.  I guess when you spend $1000 a month on a nanny & daycare they better be doing something constructive with you!!  One of the packs was especially cute...the cards showed either an uppercase letter with a drawing of an adult animal with a name starting with that letter or a lower case letter with the animal baby.  The adult instruction cards also showed the technical names of all the baby animals so they have even more things to learn.   She really enjoyed one of the packs of flash cards because they were hologram pictures.  When you hold it up a certain way it will have a number 4 and then if you move it around you will see a drawing of 4 things.  I thought it was a very cute idea.  She was having so much fun, she didn't realize it was educational.  

They also sent me 2 of their newest products which are the Math Readiness sticker book and the Big Alphabet workbook.  These 2 activity books mix fun filled content with learning skills and they are prefect for kids in preschool or kindergarten.  Since we had a lot of fun with the other products and Layna isn't even in school yet, I figured I would save these for her birthday or just another day in the future.  I am sure she will be a big fan of the stickers when she gets to play with them.  Here are some concepts that kids will learn while using the math workbook: number sequence, telling time, counting money, matching numbers, and of course addition & subtraction.  The alphabet workbook will teach them all about letter sounds and recognition, as well as writing upper case and lower case letters.

Getting back to what I was saying before, i think it is amazing that products like these can be aimed at such young kids.  They must be getting smarter these days - all I remember doing in preschool was playing with dolls and now these kids are doing sign language, yoga, & learning spanish.  If you have a chance to pick up any of the School Zone products, your child will certainly be on the right track for success in school.

School Zone Products!

Like all babies Eliza loves touching everything I don't want her to touch i.e. remotes, cell phone, and keys! I used to be able to hide the stuff behind a pillow and POOF! out of sight out of mind. Well, now Eliza knows where I have hidden these desirable objects. Darn that object permanence. Know that she knows things are gone for good she is really loving to play games like a Peek-A-Boo. She actually hides behind the couch and waits for me to scare her, It is actually pretty adorable. She also enjoys life the flap book more than she did a few months ago. So when I was given the opportunity to test out a Peek-A-Boo puppy game form School Zone I said of course! Since this object permanence is here to sat I might as well work with it and find a better place to hide my cell phone!

School Zone publishing recently sent me an adorable puppy Peek-a-boo game for Eliza. It is called Peek-a-Boo Puppy Surprise Party. However, I think E's favorite part is the Velcro! I like the concept but the magnet could definitely be a little stronger. It is a tad bit wimpy in my opinion. I was dissapointed that the cards tend to fall of easily. My 10 year old niece said she would like the game better in the form of a book. I think I agree with her. Sometimes I think kids have a better perspective on these things than adults. E does like to play with the cards and loves to lift the flaps. The puppy at the top is adorable and I love how you can cover and uncover his eyes. peek-a-Boo is a favorite game of E.

It comes with magnetic cards with flaps and a base card with a magnetic plush toy, and a parent guide. The cards are sturdy and have so far withstood Eliza's teething. She will play on the floor with the velcro cards for quite a while.
In addition to the puppy they also have a bear and a bunny. School Zone also has some other great baby products I would love to get for E like the Fuzzy animal cards. They also have many other products for kids of all ages. I actually used School Zone flashcards for centers in my Kindergarten classroom. The worked great in pocket charts.

Peek-A-BOO!

Am I the only one who is in shock that back to school is only right around the corner?