Book Club: My Very First Body Book Review

I received a FREE copy of this book from Timberdoodle in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way. This post contains affiliate links. For more information, please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

Our younger children and I were given the opportunity to read and review the Usborne My Very First Body Book by Matthew Oldham and Tony Neal, courtesy of Timberdoodle. This 30-page hardcover book is full of bright, colorful illustrations that takes a look at the different systems of the body as well as other key features related to learning about one's body. My Very First Body Book is available through Timberdoodle as part of their PreK Curriculum kit. This book was designed by Alice Reese and received medical advice from Dr. Kristina Routh.

Our daughter was very excited when our hardcover copy arrived in the mail. As she is just learning to read books beyond basic sentences, she was happy to challenge herself with the text and facts in this book.

The characters inside the book are colorful people illustrated without any clothes - much like a simple cloth doll. They are mostly gender-less - although I would hope the older person illustrated is a grandfather and not a grandmother as he has bushy white eyebrows.

I like how the book addresses the parts of the body—like labeling the bones of the skeleton to an extent that children can understand the names. The same two pages discussing strong bones also point out that certain foods help bones grow and wearing appropriate sports gear protects one's bones when being active. So the book also contains reasonable advice for children to take care of their bodies.

Some of the other ways My Very First Body Book talks about caring of one's body includes:

• Exercising, both body and mind 
• Staying clean 
• Getting enough sleep

My daughter's favorite part of the book is looking at the all of the characters and what they are doing on each page. For example, she likes making up stories about the characters on the first two pages who are in a park. There are children playing basketball with bystanders cheering them on saying, "Good shot," and there are people going down a slide and going around a merry-go-round. She also enjoys examining the pages about "Sensing the world" and seeing what everyone is doing to explore the world around them with their five senses. For example, there is a parent holding a child with a dirty diaper saying, "Eww! What a stink." She finds this quite funny.

The only reservations I have about the book is in regard to the pages on breathing. The image illustrating the person breathing is sitting in a yoga position with hands positioned in a particular way. Personally, I would rather the person was just sitting or standing with their hands at the side or in their lap rather than in a yoga position.

Some parents may not appreciate the page illustrating how waste is formed and passes through the small and large intestines. (Our daughter did not really like this page either but disposing of waste is necessary for a healthy body.) 

I think the book looks quite lovely on our bookshelves. It has a bright orange spine which helps it stand out and makes it easy to find. This is always useful when children want to find specific books quickly. If you are looking for a nice, hardcover book to add to your homeschooling preschool and kindergarten lessons about anatomy and the body, I can recommend My Very First Body Book.

Read more Timberdoodle Reviews: 

Dice, Decks, and Boards: Zig Zag Puzzler Review

Creativity in Your Homeschool: A Review of Mixed by Me Glow Thinking Putty® Kit

Homeschooling A Preschooler: A Review of One Year of the Best Pre K Homeschool Hands-On Activities

Disclaimer: I received this eBook for free from the author in return for my honest opinion. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. For more information please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

Homeschooling a preschooler can feel a bit overwhelming. How will you create educational and fun activities for them over the course of one year? There are so many great ideas available and finding them when you need them does not need to be challenging. Using One Year of the Best Pre K Homeschool Hands-On Activities from Homeschool Mastery Academy will help you plan each day, week, month, and even your entire preschool year for your homeschool. Reviewing the activities from Homeschool Mastery Academy with our daughter has been so much fun!

There are monthly themes, book suggestions for each month, a calendar with activities for each day of the week, and two printables per month. There are 53 pages of educational things to do with your preschooler that ranges from arts and crafts to development of fine motor skills and pre-writing. You could use this in your homeschool for a relaxed approach to preschool or to supplement another curriculum.

Monthly Themes 

January – Arctic Animals
February – Snow
March – Spring Animals
April – Rainbows
May – Flowers
June – Time for a Picnic
July – Under the Sea
August – Summer Fun
September – Woodland Creatures
October – Fall Leaves
November – Windy Weather
December – Winter Fun

How We Used One Year of the Best Pre K Homeschool Hands-On Activities 

As I was reviewing this product, I started with the month we currently were in (April) and also picked out some projects, worksheets, and book suggestions from other months. We completed about eight projects during the review period. As they are not just all print and go worksheets, we needed time to gather materials and set up the crafts and experiments. (Personally I like that it is not just an eBook full of worksheets to color or cut. This helps develop more than just pre-writing skills with our daughter. She was able to put on her thinking cap during several projects as well as use some of her favorite craft supplies.)

Preparing for the month!

Please note: One Year of the Best Pre K Homeschool Hands-On Activities is in full-color but I needed to print out the worksheets in black & white.

An Overview of One Year of the Best Pre K Homeschool Hands-On Activities 

In January, you and your child can study about arctic animals together by reading Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and create a glow-in-the-dark mobile. During the month of February, as the snow falls, you can read The Mitten by Jan Brett and retell the story of the animals squeezing into the mitten.

With spring arriving, March, April, and May lessons focus more upon the changing of seasons, insects, and new growth. We spent the majority of the review period completing activities as suggested in April. The theme for April was Rainbows and our daughter was very excited to try to create her own rainbow in a jar. I gathered together all the materials necessary and my husband and I worked on the experiment with her.

Measuring the water

Adding the sugar

While we were not able to achieve the desired results of the experiments (our colors kept mixing – I think we may have needed to have added more sugar to the water), our daughter was very excited to mix the colors. She probably would have spent hours just mixing the colors. I love finding activities that provide her with entertainment and education at the same time.

Knowing that she loves using dot paints, I printed out one of the rainbow pictures from the link provided in the April calendar. We lined up the colors in the correct order for the rainbow and she happily 'painted' away.

We also used the two printables provided for April – Rainbow mini-booklet and R is for Rainbow capital vs. lowercase letter R sort worksheet. The cutting and sorting worksheet was a big hit with her. When I asked her why she liked doing the cut and sort worksheet, she said: "Cause it is cool. I had much fun."

With flowers starting to bloom in our own yard, we completed one of the activities from May so we could talk about how seeds grow. We read The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle and completed the Life Cycle of a Plant Booklet. Our daughter was also very happy to pick out daffodils for the house so we could compare them to the flower in the booklet.

Another activity from May is that of the Play Doh flower mat. I printed out the mat for our daughter and let her use another favorite supply - Play Doh. Unfortunately, she did not make petals for the flower but that is to be expected with a preschooler. Plans will need to be changed and adjusted (and that is another reason why One Year of the Best Pre K Homeschool Hands-On Activities is good: because there are so many options available to pick from for your preschool).

We also completed two projects from September (although I modified the Fall Yarn Wrapping from the calendar). Our daughter really likes learning about numbers so printing out the Cut, Count, and Sort printable was obvious for me. We also worked on yarn wrapping but instead of a fall object (like a leaf or pumpkin), she used a bunny that I cut out of cardboard. She had fun wrapping and unwrapping the bunny over and over. I asked her what she liked about the yarn wrapping project and she said: "the wrapping of it (while mimicking the actions)."

Final Thoughts 

This is a solid, well-planned eBook with lots of fun activities for you and your preschooler. Our kindergartner also had fun joining in on some of the projects so if you don't get to finish them all in one year, you can complete it the next year. As our daughter gets a little older, I will ask her for some guidance on which activities she would like to work on during each month. I look forward to the summer months to explore picnicking and under sea activities!

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Reviewing MESSYLEARNING FOR PRESCHOOLERS AND KINDERGARTNERS from PandaParents

Our family is reviewing MESSYLEARNING FOR PRESCHOOLERS AND KINDERGARTNERS from PandaParents. We decided to primarily use the program with our daughter who turned three in mid-April. There is one course per month where children will read, watch, and create as they "discover the world with M.E.S.S.Y. Learning." We are reviewing an electronic version of their program so we have printed the necessary materials.

Each course has the same components

• Read the story
• Watch the story 
• Activity-time – using the workbook to create and learn

The activities included are meant to "build complex brain functions and fine motor skills" through the following: 

1. Story recall and thinking activities 
2. Reading, writing, and tracing 
3. Sequence and matching games
4. Counting, math, and writing numbers
5. Completing patterns, sorting colors, and shapes 

How We Are Using MESSYLEARNING FOR PRESCHOOLERS AND KINDERGARTNERS

Our daughter has been eagerly asking each day to work on her 'school work' for her "bear program" as she calls it, like her older brother. We started out using the Christmas-themed book, videos, and workbook. This set focused upon the letter "J" - A Jolly Jingling Journey.

The book, which we read on our tablet, A Jolly Jingling Journey actually contains two stories: A Jubilant Surprise and An Epic Journey both featuring Davy, his pets, and Santa. In the first story, A Jubilant Surprise, Davy dreams of going to the North Pole and following signs to reach Santa's cabin. On the journey, children are introduced to a variety of words that start with the letter J such as jingle, jolly, Jet, jubilant, joyfully, and jump. In An Epic Journey, Davy and Santa travel to find the missing reindeer.

You can see a preview of the book here:

After reading the story, we watched the two videos that accompanied this lesson. In the first video, children are introduced to a Juggler who juggles candy canes that look like the letter "J." The second video is a retelling of the book – A Jolly Jingling Journey – and includes some of the activities that children will complete in the workbook such as the counting the reindeer.

Between reading the book and watching the videos, our daughter and I worked on the pages in the workbook. We did not work through it in order. Instead, I skipped around to try to do activities I felt she could do more easily at first and then we tried completing some of the worksheets that would be more difficult for a young three-year-old.







In the accompanying video, I flip through some of her completed worksheets for A Jolly Jingling Journey workbook.

We have also started working our way through a second month's lessons that focus upon Scotty the Skunk and the letter "S." In this story, our daughter followed the journey of Scotty as he searches for a quiet home during the four seasons.

Some of the "S" words in addition to skunk that are used include scare, snow, smile, spring, splendid, and storm. The story enabled us to have a conversation about summer storms and lightning as poor Scotty is sleeping under a tree when it is struck by lightning and thunder wakes him with a loud boom.

Included in the Scotty Hears a Sound a Scary Sound workbook are similar activities to those in the A Jolly Jingling Journey workbook such as pages that address recall of the story and practicing tracing the letter. Another focus is the idea of home or habitat as Scotty spends the story looking for a safe place to live.

Another fun activity included in the Scotty Hears a Sound a Scary Sound workbook is a sailboat craft. Our daughter had a lot of fun using the various materials I gathered for her to build her own sailboat out of 2 triangles and a trapezoid.

In this video, I flip through some of the pages our three-year-old and four-year-old completed in the Scotty Hears a Sound a Scary Sound workbook.

What We Like 

Our daughter enjoys the videos immensely. In fact, as I was downloading and playing them for the first time, she came running over to see what was on my laptop. The sound really caught her attention. She loves talking about the different characters in them.

She also loves completing the worksheets from the workbook that accompany the book and video. We are using the two pages in the front of the book (the stickers) for some of the worksheets. She loves cutting and pasting the pictures and numbers. I think this is actually a bonus over the fact that we do not have the printed workbooks.

Everyday she asks me when she can work on her "bear program" or PandaParents. (She calls it both names interchangeably.) She loves that she can use our tablet to watch the videos and read the books.

We all like the:

• Colorful videos 
• Variety of activities through the workbook 
• Theme for each month's lesson 
• Inclusion of a variety of subjects - math, reading, writing, art, and science
• The flexibility that allows me to continue the lesson ideas beyond the worksheets provided 

Continuing a lesson on patterns from A Jolly Jingling Journey

Our Reservations  

The downside to not have the printed workbooks or storybooks is that we need to print everything or read it on the computer or tablet. The workbook and storybook are very colorful so if we were to print them in full color, we would use a lot of ink.

One of the pages from A Jolly Jingling Journey workbook

Even though the art style is not something I would gravitate to myself, our three-year-old daughter and four-year-old son are enjoying the videos, storybooks, and workbooks. I have to remind myself that my children and I will like different things and that is okay. So that is one lesson as a parent that I am taking away from reviewing PandaParents for myself.

• Need to print items ourselves – we lack a color printer so everything is black and white 
• Artwork is not necessarily my preferred style 
• Our daughter seemed to complete the workbook very quickly 
• No explicit directions to the parents – and I am someone who loves directions! 
• Portrayal of snakes as sneaky and scary – we love all reptiles in our house and I do not like perpetuating the myth that snakes are bad animals 

Our daughter is looking forward to completing Scotty Skunk Hears a Scary Sound and starting on Mommy's Baby lessons.

You can read more reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew!