Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Workbook Fun for Toddlers with I Can Paste Toddler Big Skills for Little Hands {A Review}

I had the wonderful opportunity to review the workbook I Can Paste Toddler Big Skills for Little Hands from Timberdoodle. When I was offered this opportunity I knew it would be a great way to have some one-on-one time with Hannah. Unfortunately, it took me a little longer than I anticipated to find the time to work with her with this workbook. Every time I tried to give the older girls something different to work on so that Hannah and I could use the book Hannah wanted to do what the older girls were doing. Go figure!

Thankfully, when I did get her to sit down at the table long enough to get interested, she really got into this book (and then didn't want to stop). I already knew she loved to glue. This is something we do often, and one of the activities I have allowed the younger girl to join in on while working with the older girl(s).

I have been coming up with gluing activities for the girls since Tabitha was not quite 2 years old. But it was so nice to have a professional book to use. The quality of this workbook is great and all the activities are in full color.


As the parent I needed to cut out the pictures that Hannah was to glue onto the bigger picture. We start out with some simple activities where she was to glue the clouds, fish and stars wherever she wanted to on the designated page.






I sat beside her, cutting out the pictures and counting as she glued them on.




As we work our way through the book the activities get harder in that she has to start gluing the cut outs to specific parts of the page. 


Usually I have Hannah place the glue on the back of the cut outs with a glue stick. But for this apple tree I decided to use white glue and place it directly on the tree so we could count easier. I have always tried to have some gluing activities where we practice counting, and I feel it works better and is more concrete if I place the glue down for the specific number.


I not sure if you can tell, but in the first few pages she was allowed to put her cut outs anywhere on the page. In these pictures she has to put them on the specific part of the page (the tree and the plate). 




And in this next couple of pictures she is putting a simple 2 piece puzzle together. She is pretty good at placing puzzle pieces into tray puzzles to match the pictures or the shapes. She wasn't quite sure how to match up two sides of a picture to make one picture. That will be something we will work on more.



(Yes I helped her with the placement a bit.)

As the book progresses further she will have to put the cut outs on even more specific spots on the page (for example she will need to put a ball on a seals nose). I think this is a great way to have children practice gluing. They are creating lovely pictures, working on counting and are improving fine motor skills.

I also think it was a fantastic idea for the creators of this book to use perforated pages. We have used them while they were still attached to the book, but if you prefer you can take one page out at a time and work on it. They are only one sided, which was perfect for what I wanted to do with it. I am taking the pages out (after she finishes each page) and gluing them to a piece of construction paper. When we are done we will have a new book that I plan on stapling together. 

One thing I wanted to mention was that you might want to make sure to cut out the pieces before sitting down with your child. There is a lot of little detail to cut out on some of these, plus quite a few of the pictures have multiple cut outs. Once Hannah had glued one on, she had to wait for me to finish cutting.

This is a great workbook for toddlers to learn to improve their gluing/pasting skills. The recommended age is 18 months to 3 years old, which I think is completely appropriate.

There are quite a few workbooks in this Big Skills for Little Hands Series. Right now you could buy a set of 4 (including I Can Paste, I Can Color, I Can Cut and I Can Trace) for only $17.75, a savings of $10!

Disclosure: I was sent an I Can Paste Toddler workbook for free in exchange for my honest review. This did not in any way influence my review. I only recommend products I use personally and feel will be good for my readers.

11 comments:

  1. Thank you for the thorough review. Your little one is so cute! I love this product and will put this on my list for ideas to get my niece for the upcoming holidays.

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  2. That's a super cute idea....might have to look into this for my Sunday School kids. julieann r

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  3. This is a great learning tool for beginners. Having the small motor skills to do these things is so important later on.

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  4. What a great home activity for your youngsters. Did they use scissors or did you do all the cutting?

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    1. Kim, the cutting is a bit too advanced for my daughter, so I did the cutting. they do have a I Can cut book I believe. I would love to look into that one myself so she can practice cutting.

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  5. Oh how great! My daughter is almost 2 and I know she'd love to try something like this!

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  6. I love using workbooks to help the children I nanny and I have been using them since my kids were young, but I have never seen one for pasting. This is a brilliant idea.

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  7. Very cute and educational workbook!

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  8. Great workbook! thanks for sharing. Looks like she had a blast.

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  9. Thanks for this great review. This would be perfect for the little ones in my daycare. I am off to check it and see if it has a group pricing.

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