by Senior Reviewer Maytal Wichman
Hard to believe we’re at the end of April. Pretty soon summer will be here and in a few short months your kids will move up a grade. Are they ready to handle next year’s material? Now is a good time for kids to make sure they know everything they need to know to get them into the next grade and a fun way to do that is with Lakeshore Learning’s new game, “Are you Ready?”. I recently received a sample for review for my daughter who’s entering second grade next year.
Here’s what we thought:
“Are You Ready?” is a board game in the format of a game show. The games range from Kindergarten to 5th grade so we chose the “Are You Ready for 2nd Grade?” version. There are 6 games = 6 packs of cards. Each pack of cards has questions in language and math for $5, $10 and $20, plus three “challenge” $100 questions. The first 5 games range in easy-to-hard and the 6th is for material they’re supposed to learn in the next year. Setting up the game is easy and we started with the first pack of cards (everything is marked so you know which is which). The ones my daughter got wrong we put in a special tray and later I wrote down on the scoreboard. Once you go through the first 5 games you can put the wrong answers online and a programs tells you what your child’s weaknesses are, plus you can print free pages with activities for the specific skills your child needs to work on, and you also get product suggestions.
This is not a game for two people – it’s just for one child and the goal is to pinpoint her weaknesses so that you can work on them until the end of summer when school resumes. There is no competition against someone else, but the reward is pretend cash that you can give your child for every question she gets right (and which can be redeemed for a prize – such as a small gift from the dollar store).
My daughter had so much fun playing this. At first she was annoyed that some of the questions weren’t challenging, but the goal is not to challenge the kid, but rather to make sure she is where she should be in terms of class material. So even if some of the questions are easy, this gives you, the parent, an indication that your child knows what she should know.
This game is perfect for parents who want to asses their child’s knowledge and see where they stand. It is done in a fun way that really engages the child (especially since they know there’s a prize in the end). For us, this was perfect and as expected, the advanced cards in game 6 were more of a challenge for my daughter, but she had fun and it was nice to get an idea of what next year’s material will be. All in all, it’s a great tool that’s masked as a fun game and I highly recommend it.
You can purchase any of the “Are You Ready?” games here for $29.99.
To get $10 off any Are You Ready? Game Show®, enter code 9141 at checkout or click here for a store coupon! Expires 7/31/14.
I was not compensated for this post. I received a sample.
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Senior Reviewer Maytal Wichman is the owner of Mama’s Bites and has also written for The Huffington Post. She has been living in New York City for thirteen years and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature as well as a Law Degree, but blogging is her true passion. Maytal is a stay-at-home mom to three kids (ages 7, 5 and 1) and loves finding great products that make her family’s life easier.
