Fun and Games Books

I really enjoyed the help in decorating ideas! The games and ideas of different types of parties was also very helpful!

The ideas that were provided were elementary. Nothing was exciting. Useful if you have no idea what you are doing, but boring if you are already creative. Alot of "create it yourself" invitations out of construction paper. Okay to purchase just as a reference for quick ideas.

This book had a lot of neat ideas and and game suggestions for different holidays and gatherings. A must have if you are out of holiday ideas!

Our son (6.75 years) loves the daily word problems. He is redoing them this summer before 2nd grade because he requested that I get copies from his teacher. Despite his enthusiasm for doing these problems, he can only do half of them independently. To solve these problems, he needs frequent teacher/parent direction and uses an aid from Using Visual Grids for Solving Math Word Problems.

Because he loves these problems and they are challenging for him, I give the book 4 stars.

Because this workbook cannot be done independently by most first graders, I subtracted a star. It can still be done in a classroom. Our son was an emerging reader until April and jumped to third grade level in June. His teacher spent one-on-one time helping him do these problems all year. He loved it, but his teacher felt that it took too much of her time. I thought that since he is now a fluent reader and has had a lot more practice in mathematics that these problems would be easier. Some are easy for him, but many like the following are too challenging for him to set up by himself.

"A llama eats one bale of hay each week. How much hay will five llamas need for a three-week supply?"

"The baby squirrel needs to eat every two hours. How many times will it eat in 12 hours?"

"This chimp is four feet tall. When it puts its arms out to the sides, its reach is 1 and 1/2 times as long as it is tall. How wide is the chimp's arm span?"

This is more than just a grade level book. It goes beyond simple word problems introducing children to more complex thinking. There are plenty of repetitions of similar problems, so by the end of the book a child will master and sharpen his or her math skills. My son is 6 and I give him a page a day instead of only one problem a day. He is doing really well. And I'll buy more books from the series because I see how well it stimulates his brain.

I LOVE the Evan Moor Daily Language Review for first grade so I thought that this would help my students in math. More specifically, word problems. Unfortunately, this book was a bit too hard to use. I was taking so much time explaining the questions and answers that I was teaching mini-lessons everyday for more than 20 minutes. One problem asked that if one animal was 1 1/2 feet tall, how tall was two? In my state, we go over simple fractions but don't really touch on how to add fractions until second grade. Other questions had them converting inches into feet. While these are good skills to know, I feel they asked them questions that were too hard to understand, too early.

Not as good as his beginners' book, but this is still worthwhile. Seems like Lampert needed to write an intermediate book between this one and the beginners' guide. Enough gems in it to make it a good purchase.

For beginners looking to improve their Bridge skills, there are much better books out there (see bellow). This book is just a hodge-podge of childish cartoons and rules to memorize. It does not teach you to think and it will not help you be a better player over the long run. Once you can play bridge it is much better to start getting specific books on the areas you want to improve.

For basic play and defense, nothing beats Kanter's Introduction books. For more advanced card play Mollo and Watson are the classics. Bill Root has a great set of Problem books and Kanter and Dorothy Truscott have great books on defense and play of the hand respectively. If you are pressed for cash, you can probably get buy with just Kanter's two volume set from Masterpoint Press (Modern Bridge Defense and Advanced Bridge Defense) and Dorothy Trustcott's Winning Declarer Play. But if you have the money you really should start with the Kanter's two "Introduction" books and follow up with Mollo; doing so will teach you to think at the table and will make tackling the more advanced books by Kanter and Truscott much easier.

If you need a book to help improve your bidding skills you should try the Dorothy Truscott's classic -- Bid Better Play Better. That book will teach you how experienced players think about bidding and will really take you game up a notch.

Valuable tips on counting, refining your bidding, and advanced declarer play. It is hard to imagine a better and more entertaining way of improving your game.

I have a lot of mad libs and I'm an adult! These are so much fun! Especially when you have just the adults around and get crazy with the words you give.

The shipping and Handling was outragous. I love buying from you and now, I feel, I'll have to watch ALL my shipping costs from now on

I always liked mad libs but this is one of the best of the best mad libs ever!Buy it now!

This book was not quite what we were hoping for. Pictures are okay but we wanted more direction in how to do the rhymes.

What a wonderful blast from the page! I so enjoyed reacquainting myself with many of the childhood rhymes from my double dutching days. This will be a great gift for me to share with my nieces as they too will be introduced to such famous childhood rhymes. Even the illustrations made the rhymes stand out fully engaging one to try them out on the playground.

Nice book. Has lots of rhymes ... some I knew, some I didn't ... some had more lines than I remember... This book just has the words to the rhymes, so if you are looking for the rhythms or the hand clapping sequence (as I was) this isn't the book for you.

I really like this book and the red covered one. They are the best ones for beginners. They are difficult but not impossibly so like a lot of the other sudoku books out there. Mostly with those you are just GUESSING. Highly recommend!

I started doing Sudoku five days ago when I picked up this book from Borders, and already I have learned to do the puzzles in this book easily and quickly - even the so-called advanced ones. I enjoyed it immensely for learning, and the book contains a lot of puzzles, but I am ready for whatever the next step is in Sudoku, and hopefully reviews of other Sudoku books will help me sort that out.

I have three kids, however, who are working on a kid's Sudoku book. I am saving this book for them, as it would be a very good next step after they master the puzzles in their kid's book.

The main problem is that the difficulty range is very small and the assigned difficulties don't seem to have much to do with how hard the puzzles are. One error that I found - Beginner #52 has multiple solutions. But there are about 207 puzzles, which is a lot - and the size is decent - not tiny newspaper images.

I used 2 of the rubrics, one for writing, and one for spelling, they are great to use with primary grades, and the students did feel empowered assessing their own writing.

I dont know if I could use it all year, its good for seasonal assessment, i.e. beginning of the year, mid-year, and year-end.

Its the first rubrics book Ive used and purchased so its a great beginner, very easy to use. I wouldve liked to see more in the way of using them regularly.

The content is fine. The reproducible material, however, it not readily accessible. The pages could or should be perforated giving the option for removal. Also, the reproducible pages are mixed in with text such that it serves the organization of the book but not ease of access. These are minor but key if a classroom practitioner is conducting multiple informal assessments. Lastly, the content really serves elementary aged readers. Middle and upper grades may/will find the reproducibles' font size and graphics childishly condescending. This is unfortunate as there are pupils who would benefit from the content.

My daughter, aged 5, thought these mazes were too easy. Keep in mind the size of the books- 4"x5" or so. Kinda small. Maybe they will be good for traveling.

These maze books are wonderful ways to entertain children on roadtrips etc.. They are terrific for children just beginning to do mazes as they are rather short and not too difficult. Our 4 going on 5 year old son loves them. Another nice feature is that each little book has many pages so children do not use up the mazes too quickly.

If you are looking for one ultimate trivia book, this isn't it. I think it's the author's project, not meant to be a reference book.

This truly is the most entertaining trivia book I have come across. Queen of Trivia is the best trivia author of our time. The "Fun Facts" are unique, and the illustrations are worth a thousand words. This trivia book covers a variety of subjects, and it is great reading for all ages. I highly recommend this trivia book for anyone with a desire to have fun while broadening their horizons.

I haven't read the book, but I was in Bob Dieden's gym class for several years, and his games certainly kept me moving! From Mat-ball to Backboard Bombardment to Mat-ball again, Mr. Dieden's games kept us kids healthy and happy. Except for Tristan, who really wasn't into athletics.

"Eh... Michael McMillan... off the mats!"

There are many great game ideas in here that allow many students to be involved, however I found that many modifications to the suggested rules needed to be made for safety. I've found that pushing and pulling between students as part of the rules of the game is not only not necessary in many sports, but can be dangerous. Unfortunately this book used this "pushing & pulling" strategy a bit too much. Teaching students to work as a team can be done without encouraging overly aggressive behaviors. Many of this books ideas are worthwhile, but teachers need to think ahead and modify the rules so that safety is addressed.