Education is very important to me, what I didn’t realize was how much more important it was going to become when I decided to have kids. The more I thought about what type of education I wanted for my kids, the more I thought about how I could supplement the public school system at home. When my daughter was very young I started browsing through the learning books at the dollar store and at Costco. These books were very helpful when teaches her to write her letters, learn her shapes and her colors. We have gone through many, many, many different learning books over the years. These books worked great for my daughter, but were only ok for my oldest son. He seems to learn better if he can interact while learning instead of just sitting around tracing and writing the same letters over and over again.
I had a very rare opportunity this past week to sit down with my almost 5 year old (seriously wasn’t he just born??? that’s another issue 
) and use some fantastic learning materials I received for review from Carolina Pad. We received the Fundanoodle MagnaStix: I Can Build Lower Case Letters Activity Kit, the I Can Write Lower Case! Writing Tablet, and the Muscle Movers: Lower Case Motor Cards.
We focused on using the MagnaStix Activity set and did he ever have fun! I’ve noticed with both my school age children that lower case letters seem to be the hardest to get so having an educational “toy” to facilitate learning is very helpful. The kit comes with a set of 17 magnastix, a magnetic dry-erase board, a dry-erase pen, 6 muscle movers cards (for gross motor skills), 1 die, the lower case writing tablet and an instruction booklet. We dug right in to the magnastix and started creating letters using the How to Build Each Letter key found on the inside lid of the box and the instruction booklet.
The magnets are really strong, my son had a very difficult time getting them off the board himself. I was very impressed with the quality. After using the magnets for a while we moved on to give the writing tablet a try and I can tell you the method used to help them learn is very progressive. Each page has a little monkey named Max on the top giving instructions for how to write each letter using simple words that kids can understand like, Zip, Zoom, Buzz, Hop, Bump and Dot. For example when writing the letter “i” the instructions are 1. Zip down, 2. Hop up and 3. Dot the top. Each page has 3 different ways for your child to practice writing each letter, a simple box, a box with the dotted line and then your standard writing lines with the dotted line in the centre. My son found it was a lot of writing of one letter to complete the entire page in one go, so I would suggest maybe breaking it up and doing the letters in sets like the book is laid out. The letters in the tablet are placed in order according to a child’s development of visual and motor skills. So for example, practice the letters l, i and t together since they are similar because there are no bumps in the letters, just straight lines. Once you complete a page there is a corresponding reward sticker in the back of the tablet. My son was very excited to find the right sticker and place it on his completed “l” page.
After this we moved on to giving the Muscle Mover cards a try these were fantastic! And a great way to help your child burn off some energy while learning . There were some animals that we weren’t sure how to reproduce the sound or movement but I can tell you that it didn’t really matter because he had fun anyway! I tried to snap some pics of him doing some of the movements but he is very fast and by the time my camera snapped the shot he was out of the frame lol
The Fundanoodle line of products are great in my opinion. They focus on the skills that your child needs to develop, while throwing in just enough fun and excitement to keep them interested, especially for my very energetic and occasionally inattentive son! To learn more about The Fundanoodle learning program head on over to their website and while your there don’t forget to subscribe to their blog where they have lots of fun tips. Also on the blog, starting February 27th and each Monday until the end of the year they are celebrating Muscle Mover Monday where they will be sharing a new Muscle Mover card you can you with your child(ren). In the meantime here is a great summary listing of the key benefits and features as taken from the site:
• Promotes correct top to bottom formation of strokes.• Uses fun action terms such as “zip across” and “hop to the top” to teach children proper lower and upper
case letter formation.• Encourages touch and visual exploration.
• Promotes problem solving, discovery, and self-esteem.• Encourages self expression and creativity.• Challenges and rewards kids with a sticker-based reward system, keeping kids eager to keep learning.• Gives parents tips for helping kids develop proper posture, paper stabilization, and pencil grasp
techniques.• Helps with fine and gross motor coordination.
• Improves strength, control, and endurance with writing tools.
Buy It!
You can purchase the Fundanoodle line of products directly from the Carolina Pad store, the products range in price from $5.99 to $29.99. They currently only ship the US but are hoping to ship to Canada soon.
Win It!
One of our very lucky readers is going to win some Fundanoodle products to try with your own kids!
*Special note: you can’t have won any type of Carolina Pad prize, contest, etc in the past 90 days. (including Facebook and Twitter)*
REQUIRED COMMENT: You have to go to their website and come back here and tell me a product that you liked or something you learned about the Fundanoodle learning system.
BONUS #1:
Follow @momof3boys3702 and @fundanoodle on Twitter and RT this contest. The easiest way to retweet is to simply click the green ReTweet on the top right of this post. YOU MAY TWEET ONCE DAILY!
BONUS #2:
Like 3 Boys and a Dog and Fundanoodle on Facebook, then share this post by clicking the Facebook share button at the bottom of this post. (You really want to follow them on Facebook, because they let you know when there are sales!)
Other bonus entries:
#1. Spread the word about this review by: email, forums, blogging, Digg, or putting the link in a meme. (one entry per thing done)
#2. Follow my blog.
#3. Subscribe to my RSS feed.
#4. Put my button on your blog.
#5. Leave a comment on any other post (excluding giveaways!) Be sure to leave a comment here saying which post.
#6 – Vote for me at Picket Fence by clicking the button on my sidebar. Be sure to leave a comment saying you did! YOU MAY VOTE ONCE DAILY!
CONTEST ENDS: at Midnight CST on March 15th, 2012
OPEN TO: US
*DISCLAIMER: I was sent products from Carolina Pad to help facilitate my review. Any opinions stated are strictly my own.*
