Fun and Games Books

We love the upbeat original songs and my 2 1/2 year old requests this cd to be played when we're getting bored in the house. I came home one day to find the kids dancing with our nanny. Needless to say, whether for signing or pure enjoyment it is a great product everyone can enjoy together. Parents will find that the songs are easy enough to remember to sing along and practice signs when changing diaper, feeding time, bath time, etc... which are perfect routine activities to introduce signs to your baby and toddler. As an instructor who has seen participants enjoy the activity book and cd I highly recommend the item. www.sign4baby.com

I use this in my sign language classes I teach to babies, toddlers, children, adults, and special needs. It is a BIG hit, everyone loves it, everyone gets involved, and after class my clients want to purchase one. I have received e-mails after classes letting me know that they just love it and find it very helpful in learning the signs. Parents love the detailed information and illustrations in the book it is very easy to understand and shows what signs to use for babies. Well worth your investment.
www.signsforlife.biz

The pick me up cd is a central component of my early literacy sing and sign program that I offer to preschools and kindergartens in the central and seacoast regions of NH. Sign language combined with music gives students the opportunity to use mulitple processes to internalize vocabulary information. As I subcontract with schools, I have become the students' favorite specialist and have watched them blossom and grow in their signing vocabulary. Students learn by doing and when complimented with music they internalize the information with greater speed and efficiency. If you aren't having fun with this product you need to to rethink what you are doing because this is all about a large dose of fun with learning.

I use this product every week I teach my Baby Sign Language Classes in Houston, Texas and love it. The songs are a little silly, but the kids love them. Unfortunately, I find myself singing them all the time and get annoyed, but they are a great way to practice and get yourself comfortable with signing during daily activities. I highly recommend it!

I love the way the book is set up. A baby in the corner of a picture tells moms what to sign first when starting the songs with their young child. As the child starts to sign back, the basic signs for each song can be signed. They also have additional signs in the corner on the right. So when the child has mastered the basic signs and is ready for more, there is more to teach.
Signing helps children become better readers. This song book is a good start in the process. For more information on how signing helps children become better readers, check out the book Hands on LiteracyHands On Literacy

I have bought all of the picture puzzle books and love giving them for gifts. There is not an age group, gender, or personality type that has not enjoyed them. Great for traveling, waiting rooms, or coffee table. I bought the whole series for my friends 5th grade class room; she "lets the kids play with them as rewards". The kids beg to play! You or the intended receiver of gift will not be disappointed. 100% guarantee A+++++

It arrived totaly on time and was in very good form
the book is of high standards and am completely happy with the purchase.

Bought these for some children who are in the car traveling on a regular basis. Challenges the mind and helps the time pass. Good for all ages.

I love this PICTURE PUZZLE book. At one time there was a single puzzle in our daily newspaper and, at that time, I mentioned to my husband that there should be a book of these puzzles because they are sooooo much fun. Now I have this one and the previous one that was also published by LIFE. They are not only fun to complete but at my age, 74, they are very good for my brain activity.

"Life: The Original Picture Puzzle" is the second book to come from the feature in the currently defunct Life Magazine. The book has over ninety puzzles in which readers look at two pictures of the same thing and try to find the differences between the two pictures. A few of the puzzles have six pictures of the same thing and solvers have to find the one puzzle out of the six that has been changed. There are also some new puzzles called "Cut-Ups" in which the editors took a picture, cut it into 4, 6, 9, 12, or 16 pieces and scrambled them up and solvers have to figure out how to unscramble the pieces.

For the most part, "Life: The Original Picture Puzzle" is a fun, challenging book. There are five puzzle levels: Novice, Master, Expert, Genius, and Classic (which features old pictures that once appeared in Life Magazine). The editors do a good job of sorting the puzzles into the appropriate difficulty level. Each puzzle has a suggested amount of time to solve it and a change in this book from the first is a keep score section where you can put a check mark after you've found a change. The answer section should be checked for a couple of reasons even if you find all the changes - for one thing many of the explanations of the changes are humorous. Also, ten of the puzzles have an extra bonus change and the answer section lets you know which puzzles have the additional change. However, in order to find that extra change, you need to go on Life's website to find the answer but I could not find it on the website.

While I enjoyed most of the puzzle book, I did not like the new "Cut-Up" puzzles. The puzzles with four pieces were easy enough, but the more pieces, the harder it was to solve the puzzle just by looking at it. I don't want to ruin the book by cutting up the pictures and copying the pictures isn't all that effective since the pictures are in color.

Outside of the "Cut-Up" puzzles, "Life: The Original Picture Puzzle" is well done.

This is a great book for boosting morale on any campus at any level. The ideas are fresh and enlightening for building relationships and team building. This book would be a great way to boost staff development, and active participation from all staff members.

This is a wonderful resource for Staff Development. If you are tired of having teachers yawn through your important presentations, this is a book full of ideas to help add fun to your work. The activities keep the audience involved, listening and learning throughout your presentation.

This book gives the administrator and anyone who supports the teachers in a school some great things to think about and ways to help the teachers on a day to day basis.

thanks for a wonderful job, the book and the service is excellent. well done

I had the honor to see Ms. Connors speak at a teacher conference this past week. I was feeling a bit jaded over the profession of teaching after completing my second year of teaching and after completing a research study proposal on the sad state of teacher retention due to low administrative support. I was at an oh-too-typical low point...

Ms. Connors' words (both in spoken and written form--I flew through her book after listening to her speech) really hit home. This is a book that every teacher and every administrator should read. It gives simple solutions that could and would make a big impact upon the current state of education today. I encourage every person involved in teaching students to read this book and think about the roles they currently play and the role they could play. THANK-YOU MS. CONNORS for humorously yet seriously pointing out both the problem and the necessary solutions.

THIS BOOK HELPED ME ALOT TO LEARN HOW TO HELP MY CHILD AFTER WE KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON. GREAT REFERENCE TO HAVE AROUND.

This is an excellent book for teachers and parents! It provides useful and very important information to work and deal with kids with sensory integration disorder

I highly recommend the book "The Highly Sensitive Child" by Elaine Aron to get a different perspective (more positive) on the out of sync child.

As a teacher I found that this book had many fun and functional activities. I do wish this book had more activities for older (teenage) students with moderate to severe disabilities; but, a great book overall.

I *LOVED* this book. It was such a quick read that I got through it in two days, *with* two kids underfoot, but there certainly was no lack in valuable content to read. This has transformed the way that I understand and work with my daughter, and she has had a diagnosis for sensory integration disorder for years! I reccommend this to *any* parent, even those without sensory kids....

As a first grade teacher I used this book as an intervention tool with my ELL students last year. It helped with voacbulary as well as phonics. The activities are hands on and we were able to create several games using the lessons as well. I recommend this book to anyone in the primary grades. It is great as an intervention tool, large group activity or as a center.

This book is great! There are many word activities to choose from, which I find very helpful and a time saver!

This concept keeps kids interested. They want to figure out the little words and the big words created by the letters, so it's an excellent one for phonics. If you already use Open Court, it would be a good supplement. There is some prep time involved in writing and cutting the letters, unless you're smarter than me and use die-cut letters from a bulletin board!!

This book is wonderful for primary grades as well as ESL classes. It's interactive and the kids love it. We use it every morning when we enter the "Wonderful World of Words." There is also a Making Big Words for intermediate grades! I definitely recommend it!

This is the best spelling book I have seen. I am a homeschooling mom of 2 boys (9 & 8) and this is the easiest method and they enjoy it too!

Informative, interesting. Helpful information in dealing with sensory perception disorders. Have used a few ideas from the book. It was well worth the purchase.

I've had this book for a couple of years and I love it. I've purchased at least twenty books on autism and this is one of the two I have kept. The ideas are practical, involve materials you can buy inexpensively (or you probably already have around the house) and it's fun for ALL kids. My nt daughter enjoys these activities just as much as my ASD son!

being a mother of a special needs child, i wanted some new ideas for activites my child could do in and outside, this is the perfect book.

This is a wodnerful book for parents of children with special needs. Weather it be autism, ADHD,Asperger's, anything!!! Wonderful activities! It is also a great book for teacher's of ALL types of kids! I keep this book handy all the time when I'm looking for ideas of things to do with my kids.

While this book is especially helpful for families with children with sensory processing disorder (SPD), all children will enjoy these creative ideas. The summary of different types of SPD at the beginning is useful to show other family members and friends who want to understand your child better.

Gave this to my 7-year-old for Christmas and her signing ability has simply taken off. Easy to read. Great pictures demonstrating the signs. Nicely organized so that kids can practice groups of related signs.

I wish I had this book 5 years ago with my oldest child. Signing is so easy to learn from this book. The colors are vibrant, the pictures of the kids signing are large enough to actually see, and the categories are relevant to kids(school, home, feelings, favorite foods, animals, etc).!! I would recommend this book to anyone, young or old, who is learning to sign.

I am mom to a toddler, aunt to a 12 yr old girl and 8 yr old boy, and reading tutor to three kids ages 6, 11, and 15. We all love learning from this book. Heller's Baby Fingers Teaching Your Baby to Sign board books for babies and toddlers have also been great for my toddler.

I love this book. It is a great begining sign language book. I bought it so my 19 month old daughter and I could learn together. The combination of the photos and the descriptions of how to make the signs helps even a beginner pick it up.

The photographs in this book are much easier to follow that the drawings that I've seen in other books. This one also has more signs than other kids books because it's about sign language, not deafness. Best of all, it has a grammer section for ASL that is better than I've seen in ANY signing book, children's or adult's. An excellent choice!

The Cranium Big Book of Outrageous Fun is great because it has all sorts of different things. Anything from planning birthdays, to making maps, drawing & even creating your own castle. It has a fun mini-conga game, and so many activities that my kids keep going back and reading and playing with this. A great buy that you really get your money's worth out of!

Our famiuly loves the entire line of cranium games. It is a fun time to spend with our children.

This book is great! I bought it for my 6 year old. She loves all the cranium games and books. We have the original cranium, but when I saw this I thought it would be perfect for her. She can do some of the activities on her own and there is also a game to play. It is fun and easy.

Spent a whole day with 5 granddaughters ranging in age from 5 thru 12. The book was appropriate for ALL of them!!!
I highly recommend it

I'm a pretty big fan of Cranium's games, and since this was touted as a write-it, draw-it, sculpt-it, act-it game for ages 7 and up, I was looking forward to using all my talents. The first thing I noticed is that this probably isn't a book/game for anyone over 15, and my guess is even early teens won't get much use out of it. Once I got over my disappointment that it was truly geared for a much younger audience (than me, anyway), that's when I let go of my preconceived notions and started to play around with the game.

I particularly enjoyed the "Data Head" section as they had lots of fun "science" activities for kids, including a mold experiment that calls for the study of mold in various stages. Your kids can then rank the mold on various sub categories, including a "Stink Factor." Parents may be none too thrilled with this activity, but it should make for an interesting couple of days.

The book also contains a game (get it game in a book in a game) the "Conga Mini Guessing Game." The game is also somewhat simplistic so adults probably only want to invest them time if they're joining their younger family members, but in all this is a nice, self-contained package that has a lot of fun activities and room for creative expression. This is a must-have for your child's bookshelf/playspace, and it also does carries well on the dreaded road trips.

I love this book especially for the younger age groups. It really helped me to see how you should set up games and what is important to include in all lessons. Great job Mr. Weiss!!!!

Excellent book for ANY grade level. The games can be adapted to suit the needs of your children. Howie Weiss has put this book together nicely. All of the games are easy to follow and can be adapted to suit the needs of your children, space and equipment.

It is great when you are creating a lesson plan because all of the games and activities are based on the NASPE's National Standards. I teach High School and my kids at that age STILL love all of the activities that I have done so far.

This book is definitely a must have!

If you are in need of the physical educator's Bible ,then this book is a must not only for younger teachers , but also for (us) veterans who need to be re-tooled.Howie's book hits the mark of excellence. It is apparent from the very beginning that his book has the ability to change the way physical education is preceived.
Howie's wealth of experience is noticeable on each page. He leaves so many variations and alternatives that can be used in all areas of education. This is not only a " How to Book ", it is a why, and a I wish I had this twenty years ago.I call this book a page turner because I couldn't wait to see what Howie would come up with next . He didn't dissapoint , in fact , this book gave me the energy to continue my quest to become even more active beyond retirement . Howie, thanks again for giving us a different view of the way to teach and to reach out to make a difference. Great job ! and will there be a sequel?
Gerry Cernicky

Mr. Weiss' book is a must have for every Physical Educator who is looking for new games to utilize in their physical education classes. The games and activities in the book can be easily implemented, and most require little or no equipment. In addition, these activities all can lead to meeting NASPE and state standards for Physical Education. If you are committed to providing a quality phyiscal education program for your students, this book is a must have for your library of resources!

Score one for day camps! This is an indispensable guide of exciting age based games sure to be a source of fun, as well as, build self esteem. A true find for both novice and experienced athletic directors.
This will be a great addition to my summer program
Susan Wortman
summer camp director

My daughter has been enjoying this book. She gets me involved and also had a great time sharing it with her BFF when they had a sleepover! They learn alot about themselves and it's fun!

bought this for my 13 year old daughter for Christmas and she loved it. tends to prefer the high tech toys (e.g. ipod, DVDs) but this was good old-fashioned fun. Plus it was interactive.

If my granddaughter's (age 13) face of joy and her attachment to the book are measurement of the rating for this book, then the book rates 5 stars. The first day she had the book, she worked about 1/3 of the exercises asking everybody in sight to answer the questions. And, we enjoyed participating in the exercises. Great book for young girls.

This is, like, the best book I ever quizzed in. I this Klutz did the best job on this book! I'm so glad I have the book! I got it at my school book fair and fell in love with it (even though it's just a book) at first sight.

I gave this to my 11 year old niece for Christmas and she absolutely loved it!! She went around asking everyone in the family the quizzes. It's colorful, bright and interesting art designs really grabs their attention. I would definitely buy this again for girls aged 10-13.