Fun and Games Books

Diane Connell's "Brain-Based Strategies To Reach Every Learner" is a great resource for teachers AND parents!
As a primary school teacher for 20 years, and now currently working as a consultant in schools with parents,students and teachers on how to switch students on to learn in a way that makes sense to them, I can highly recommend this book. Crammed full of really useful information - and presented in a style that makes sense - you don't have to be a teacher to understand the message that we all learn in different ways... and that learning can be fun!
For teachers there are so many great tips and ideas which can be easily implemented in the classroom and for parents who want to find out what makes their child 'tick', this book is a real revelation. A top read - well done Diane!

"Brain Based Strategies to Reach Every Learner" by Diane Connell, Ed.D. is a worthwhile resource for teachers who want an overview of the principles of some important psychological theories and how they apply to lesson plans in the classroom. For example, the book offers strategies for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners and the importance of using lesson plans that reach each type of student. Other ideas include memory strategies. Often children may be asked to simply memorize information (e.g. the 50 states), but may have difficulty simply memorizing or may forget the information after a short time. The book offers some excellent ideas (based on memory research) to help a child to put information into long-term memory from working memory. Other topics include Gardner's nine factor theory of intelligence. Once again, it describes Gardner's theory (which is an excellent one by the way), and offers suggestions in the classroom to reach kids with various strengths (e.g. musical intelligence) which are not consistently measured in traditional school curriculums on a consistent basis. The book begins with basic brain anatomy and discussion of left and right brained learners. The reader will probably find some new ideas to apply to lesson plans and in using these ideas may be able to reach more nontraditional learners.

This is a good spelling program that requires students to look at the vocabulary as well as the spelling.

I have used this for several years and have found the word lists to be appropriate and on level. I don't solely use the activities in this book because I feel the kids get bored with the same general format. Other than that, they are quality activities.

A coworker of mine recently let me borrow this book and I immediately bought my own copy! In an educational world filled with state and national testing, it feels good to spend some time 'getting back to the basics' of spelling and grammar. These simple exercises make it possible without taking too much time away from your original lesson plans. I give the exercises as a daily warm up activity for my 7th graders (with a 5-10 minute limit). I highly recommend this item for middle school English/Language Arts teachers.

If you are looking for a good way to tackle the "oh-so-fun" grammar aspect of your standards, this is it. I took 10min in the begining of each class to go over each day as bellwork. It is digestible for kids and very relevant to the skills they are suppposed to be learning. It includes, idioms and metaphors ect. My only problem is that, at least at my school, the material is a little advanced, so i used the 5th grade for 6th grade and so on.

I usually teach in Title I schools, so that might be part of it, but this series is really challenging. I've used the third and fifth grade ones, and the kids I teach usually can't start on this book until halfway through the year. Also, all the problems are pretty complex, so they don't focus on one particular skill. For example, if the problem is testing averages, it may be in a pictograph format with extra information thrown in to distract the student. I guess it's good that the problems are so chock full of teachable moments, but bad that it can take way too much time out doing just one problem a day if the problems are too hard.

I love the format of this book! There is a word problem for each day of the week -- Monday through Thursday are half-sheets, and Friday is a whole sheet. I use this book for my morning work/opening -- I have each day's problem waiting for the students on their desks, and it's the first thing they do in the morning. It's a fantastic review and use of basic skills, especially since our math curriculum has strayed away from using ANY of the basics this year. I find it to be a great supplement!

P.S. I also have Daily Paragraph Editing, and it serves a similar function to our writing curriculum! *Ü*

Children: this is a good working manual for an elementary teacher, it has vocabulary, and things to do, but I bought it to round out an order ($$$ free shipping) thinking I might find some stufff to use but so far I have not. No reflection on the authors, for what it is it is good. I teach in Brazil. adults. and this is pretty useless for me, but for kids I would say it is fine. Big print, simple vocabulary words. Diagrams, pictures, good stuff. Not past age 12 I would say.

I just used the first lesson from this book. The reproducibles were fun and easy for my 3 refugee ESL teenagers to work with. I like it when the worksheets make my job easy.

My kids and I have kicked this book around so much is starting to look a little ragged. There's at least one lifetime of fun here. The instructions are excellent as are the illustrations. As the title suggests these are family or multi-player games - not much here for the solitaire type player. Really a nice and useful book.

This book covers the rules for many classic games, from Chess and Checkers to more exotic games like Halma, Go and Mancala. The section on card games is extensive. All in all, a great start to a game lovers library.

As the author, I thank each individual for purchasing this book. Although the book encompasses the twentieth century and covers many items that had either broad appeal or negative repercussions, the book is about individual Americans. This book traces Americans of all walks of life attempting to pursue the equality and freedoms in leisure and their own free time in the same manner that the ideals of democracy and the Declaration of Independence made a promise for the future for all Americans to pursue their own individual leisure pursuit without being hindered by the restrictions of the government, religion, or economics. The book also presents a nostalgia that I am sure you will enjoy reliving some of your childhood memories and also open up discussion with your children or relatives on the numerous historical events and fun and games within our own lifetime. Thank you - Ralph G. Giordano

I have just purchased this book recently and I must say that it was a very fun read. So much has happened in the course of the twentieth century dealing with people and their leisure time. I mean this book really documents everything having to deal with leisure in the twentieth century. It mentions everything from Coney Island to baseball cards. A great read that I highly recommend.

not as practical as I expected--more for the hiker or camper. I was hoping for ideas to use while walking in the neighborhood, sitting in an urban backyard, or visiting a city park. Some neat ideas for those on their way to the real outdoors, though!

Fun Family Outdoor Ideas is a delightful quick read. As parent trying hard to raise thoughtful and appreciative kids in today's video-game addictive world, this book gave me a ton of fun and really easy to apply ideas. I'm glad to discover that my kids really do have vivid imaginations. The book's style reminds me of "Don't Sweat The Small Things"...short essays with easy to apply concepts. If you've ever struggled to come up with a little Saturday afternoon adventure the whole family can enjoy, pick up Fun Family Outdoor Ideas

There are some terrific ideas in this book for how to make family time a priority and how to make memories for your children. The best thing about the book, however, is that it inspires you to brainstorm your own ideas, or tailor ideas from the book for your family.

I found that this book gives lots of great ideas but i would have preferred to have them arranged in some type of age ranges. The book claims it intentionally arranged it without age ranges since each child is different. As a first time mom of an 11 mo. old. , many of the activities are for older kids. We can obviously do them later... but would like to be able to easily find those activities appropriate for his age.

I love this. It was a great help in decorating a child's room.

The stencils are nice, "bubble" type letters.

There are some inconsistencies in size, for example, tav is considerably taller than shin. Most letters are between 1 and 2 inches tall and 1.5 and 2 inches wide.

Five letters are missing, but you may not need the final forms of haf, mem, nun, fay, or tzadee. It would have been nice if a couple of vowels had been included, say a segol and a qamatz; you could create the other vowels using those two.

The letters come 3 or 4 to a page in a 4"x6" booklet. The pages are made of sturdy paper, but if children will be using them, the stencils will probably only survive two or three uses.

This stencil set doesn't suit my needs and I will return it, but frankly, it's not a bad product.