What Your Preschooler Needs to Know: Get Ready for Kindergarten (The Core Knowledge Series)

I bought this book for myself, to help in preparing my young child for her educational future. She is currently 16 months old, and not going to be ready for kindergarten any time soon, of course. But I was hoping it would give me some "material" to use as a supplement for daycare.As it turns out, she is fascinated by this book. She knows where it has been stashed, will point for it, and will sit for an hour in my lap to read it. (No joke.) I like the nursery rhymes and finger play songs because they remind me of my own childhood. (Do most kids even know nursery rhymes these days?)She has her favorites, and will point at them to do them repeatedly. She aslo knows several of the movement songs.Shes not interested in the history, art or story parts of the book. She will look at the animals in the nature section.I'm not sure that this book will be as interesting to most toddlers her age, but it is great for parents to look ahead and start working some of this material into their repertoire so that it comes naturally and isn't forced.I liked the history section, because I might not have known what type of history was important for a preschooler. I don't recall knowing much history before about 4th grade. (I did grow up during the cold war, and distinctly remember several historical events, but not actually leaving about US history, MLK, etc like are in this book.)I expect we'll buy the next book in this series, as she has recently started preschool, and seems to have no end to her desire to read and learn.

I got this for my eldest son during covid, as in-person schools weren't happening. We used this over one year. Then for his kindergarten year we used "What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know," "180 Days of Spelling" kindergarten book, and a kindergarten grammar workbook. We also used the first two sets of Bob books. At the end of kindergarten he tested in the 99th percentile for reading and is reading at a fifth grade level.Being as this book constituted basically all of his curriculum for his pre-school year, I think it laid a terrific foundation.I had my then fourth-grader listen along, as some of the content she didn't know, despite having attended a private school for preschool.I even learned a couple new things from this book, and I graduated summa cum laude with a bachelors of applied science. I didn't know turtles hibernate, until I read this to my son. (My degree is in computer science.)Because the schools we're interested are all using COVID as justification as child abuse, we continue to use the Core Knowledge books to homeschool and could not be more pleased.

I didn’t know we’d like this and use it so much. When I need a quick song or poem or story we read from it. Also when we notice things in the world I check to seee if there is something I can connect to the book. Like my preschooler learned about the body at school so we read the science pages for the body. Great supplement.

I went back and forth a lot before buying this - there were some mixed reviews. Overall, I'm happy with the purchase. I am familiar with almost all of the selections here from my own childhood. Several reviews mentioned they thought the book was worthless because you can just google all of this on your own...well that may be, but if you have a preschool aged child (or in my case, TWO and a baby) who has time to do that? It's so nice just having all of these selections right there and ready to go.The pictures are great, both of my kids love looking through the book and picking out what they want to hear that day (or just making up their own stories and poems to go with the pictures). There a few selections that we will probably skip over, but for the most part I'm happy with everything I see. One small disappointment is the back of the book where it is said that a home is not a school and it is implied that homeschooling is in some way inferior or inadequate. I was really surprised (and offended) to read this in a book that was recommended by a homeschool curriculum site. Regardless of this statement, I still like the book and plan on using it regularly with my two preschoolers.It would be nice if they had included the music for some of the songs - there were a few I was unfamiliar with and I have had to look up youtube videos to know how to sing them.

The Core Knowledge series is an awesome set of resources. I have had students who were so excited by topics in this series that they would do research after we were finished on the topic in class. So, when my grandchild was ready for preschool I chose to get the Preschool book. I was not disappointed. The wide range of topics is wonderful. Very user friendly.

This is a great book! This is a part of the Core Knowledge curriculum which is a fantastic knowledge based k-8 curriculum and this, and the other books, are an amazing resource for parents who home school or who’s children go to a regular elementary with a hit or miss curriculum. It’s based on the well studied educational theory that children need background knowledge to become good readers, the curriculum exposes them to a wide range of the most drawn upon knowledge that American school children will need.Another great thing is that the vocabulary and topics are age appropriate and will use words that your child doesn’t know so you have a chance to teach them about new words.Now, with all this good curricular background, somehow I was expecting a newsprint booklet with lots of worksheets to copy. Not so! It’s a high quality book, with thick, glossy pages and vibrant images. It’s full of poems and stories, it’s FUN! My daughter immediately wanted me to to read the whole thing (not possible in one evening!).In summery, I love this book. It’s easy to add into our reading circulation and it makes me feel confident that I am exposing my daughter to a range of topics that will benefit her education. I’m now looking for Core Knowledge schools to send her to when the time comes.