Textbook Review, Kindergarten
Silver Burdett Ginn
Mathematics: Exploring Your World

Strengths

  1. Children can do all the written work in the textbook.
  2. The exploration of numbers is done in groups, for example, numbers 0-6 then numbers 0-12 and finally 0-31.
  3.  This book touches on every subject that a child will learn in his or her elementary career, and puts it in age level appropriate terms.
  4. The pictures and directions are definitely age appropriate.
  5. I like how at the end of each chapter there is a sheet children take home to tell mom and dad what is going on and to let the family practice their new knowledge with the child.
  6. The various methods this book uses for teaching a topic are good because the teacher can touch on almost all learning types/styles.

Weaknesses

  1. Children may get confused when it comes to learning about circles because the book uses the term ring, instead of circle, when it refers to marking answers.
  2. In the addition chapter, one exercise allows children to use calculators to solve addition problems; I think calculators should not be used until children have confidence in their addition skills.
  3. Some topics are covered too quickly and in not enough depth, I think it would be better if one chapter would be smaller in length but just touch on time not time and money.
  4. While this book has a wealth of information for kindergarteners to learn, I think maybe the order of the information could have been laid out differently, for example I think it is more important for  a kindergartener to be able to count that the add or subtract.
  5. Some of the directions, I feel could be unclear to a kindergartener, which may force the teacher to take more time than normal to explain.
  6. A kindergartener may not, yet, have all of the thinking skills needed to solve some of the more difficult problems.

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