Activity book reviews

Jolly is continuing to enjoy his activity book bender, and I want to record our activity book impressions, in part so that I can be more selective in purchasing activity books next time around. (Rip already has been saying "Tivy Buh!" with a familiar manic glee.) Also, I've had a couple of friends ask me for activity book recs, since my kid seems to churn through activity books meant to provide "a year of curriculum!" in a week or two. Lastly, we appear to be out, and we need more, so this is a reference list of what we've already done.

• Gakken series: Let's Create, Let's Learn Ready, Let's Learn - These were the first ones we got. They are also truly excellent and remain my favorites. For the most part, they have very sensible scaffolding where activities flow naturally in order from very basic building blocs - there were only a few instances where Jolly seemed not ready to tackle the task in order without a lot of setup, and that's impressive, because he did the latter installment in the series before he was at the beginning of the suggested age range. There is a little bit of tracing of letters in the last one, but the activities are varied and fun and have a good narrative structure built in -- e.g. you're not tracing lines, you are helping the bunnies hop. Jolly's least favorite parts were definitely the coloring bits, but he hates to color. These are good if you want to get one activity book that has a wide range of activities in it, so you can sort of motivate your child through the things they don't care for. The "good job" stickers are super-motivating.
• Kumon series - these are not quite as cute and visually appealing as the Gakken, and there is not as much narrative built in to each activity, which makes it less engaging for this age where imaginative play really takes off. The plus side to these books is that they're focused more on one activity, so you can get the particular books that are showcasing the things your child wants to do over and over again. The ones focusing on cutting and sticking/pasting have been most fun for Jolly: "my scissors are STILL HUNGRY!" led to "Let's Cut Paper!", "More Let's Cut Paper!", "Let's Sticker and Paste!", "More Let's Sticker and Paste!" and "The Big Book of Pasting" to be churned through on very short order. "Let's Fold" and its sequels are also very fun, though folding is not something Jolly likes to do as much. The coloring ones are dull and have been relegated for use by Rip, who loves the pages that feature vehicles. The tracing ones are a lot less fun and interactive than the the Gakken activity books are for the same skills. The "Big Book of Alphabet Games" looks really stultifying, too. We bought big multi-packs at Costco which means savings, but if I were doing it again I'd consider buying individual ones that were good, because they're very hit or miss. When you find one that works for your kid, I like that there are many consecutive pages that are similar, so you can give your kid instructions, do whatever prep you need to do on all those pages, and then go read little brother a book (or do a crossword or throw in laundry, whatever).
• School Zone BIG series: These are our favorite of the Western activity books, I think. The activities are simple and repetitive in a way that is great for your kid doing mostly on their own while you make dinner or read to a younger sibling, because they catch on to the different kinds of activities pretty quickly. The illustrations are somewhat appealing, and the activities in the preschool one fairly easy but mysteriously adored by Jolly. This is more of a meditative "we need you to calm down and stop throwing yourself from one side of the house to another in a lathered frenzy" activity book, rather than one that really teaches any new skills. The maze book we have is good, in the same vein, and Jolly can totally do the mazes it even though it's rated 6-8 years.
• Creative Teaching Press: Reading & Math - The good part is the structure: a short story with questions about the story on each page, and then a handful of activity pages. This format is fun and very interactive, and I really like the idea of a series of activities that relate to the stories. It's a very parent-guided activity book with lots of parent-child interaction and discussion. Jolly really loved the flipbooks to cut out relating to each story. At the same time, I think it suffers from some major conflict with some of the activities requiring much more reading than a child of this age group can realistically do, while the questions and other activities are really, really easy. Still, enjoyable and we tore through this one pretty quickly. We'll be doing more of these.
• Brainquest: Has reasonably entertaining sections broken down by subject matter (like Science, Vocabulary, Shapes), but among them is a long boring ABC section that is very tedious and just "let's trace the letters. Over and over and over." This leads to the entire activity book being done except for the boring section, which languishes (until it is given to a friend who loves this part in particular). Still, worthwhile.
• Homework helpers: wee little books on a variety of topics purchased in a multi-pack. Some of these have been hits, like the alphabet connect the dots and certain activities in the ready for school one (rhyming, coloring). Some of these have been really boring. Interspersed so it requires a bit of setup to explain each activity which then takes not very long for the child to complete.
• Start Smart: These are kind of awful. The activities are a mix of developmentally too hard stuff with a mix of developmentally way too easy stuff. And they're really cheesy looking, too, like mid 90s clip art. On the plus side, there are a lot of crafty sorts of things to make and paste, and if you have a toddler and a big kid and they want to do the SAME activity book, you can divide things up accordingly and it works rather well.

This is a lot of activity books, and I'm probably leaving some out! (We have two giant floor pads, for example.) I would love recommendations -- the only one we haven't done yet is a series that started at the Kindergarten level and we're just not there yet.