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A Homeschool Curriculum for Pre-School and Kindergarten |
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Lillian Jones |
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These are lots of things a parent can do to help a child develop a love of learning and searching—things that will carry through as a foundation for a life of joyful and successful learning. Most of these are things a parent does at one time or other anyway. A bonus is that your child will be getting a good foundation for later studies, even picking up some elements of reading, writing, and math. |
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Homeschooling for Preschool |
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This website is a great resource for anyone interested in learning more about homeschooling for preschool. You'll find information about unpreschooling (unschooling a preschooler), resources for two-year-olds, skills lists, curricula suggestions, and more. |
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Homeschooling Preschoolers |
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Teri Ann Berg Olsen |
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Learning at home begins at birth for children. The preschool years can be the most enjoyable time of year to homeschool—children are self-motivated, eager to learn, naturally inquisitive and curious about everything. In this article Teri Ann Berg Olsen gives some great ideas for creating a learning environment in your home, how to incorporate learning into play, and lists several games that can help your child learn while playing. |
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Pre-K Smarties |
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Pre-K Smarties is a preschool education resource for parents teaching preschoolers with tips for early reading using phonics, parenting articles, family freebies, and deals on the best educational toys. |
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Readiness |
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Vicky Williams |
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This article takes a look at one mother's coming to terms with her daughter's readiness, or lack thereof, to learn to read. |
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The Wonderful, Wacky World of "Unpreschooling" |
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Celeste Land |
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Society expects parents to send their two- to five-year-olds to preschool. But more and more parents are coming to understand how learning at home is important and meaningful. "Unpreschooling" is the concept of applying an unschooling philosophy to those years of early learning. Celeste Land details the challenges and joys of this type of education for young children, including the socialization issue, burnout, and life after unpreschooling. |
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Aquarium of the Bay |
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The Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco features two 300 feet crystal clear tunnels, 700,000 gallons of filtered Bay water and more than 23,000 aquatic animals. Also includes touch pools.
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Aquarium of the Pacific |
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Experience the world’s largest and most diverse body of water at the Aquarium of the Pacific, the fifth largest U.S. aquarium and home to over 12,000 ocean animals representing over 550 species. Located in the beautiful Rainbow Harbor in Long Beach, Calif., the Aquarium of the Pacific takes visitors on a journey through three regions of the Pacific Ocean, exploring the waters of Southern California/Baja, Northern Pacific and the Tropical Pacific through 18 major habitats and 31 focus exhibits. |
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Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institute of Oceanography |
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Set against a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean, the Birch Aquarium at Scripps is home to more than 350 species of marine life found in waters from the cold Pacific Northwest to the warm tropical reefs of the South Pacific. Forty-six tanks range in size from a 70,000-gallon re-created kelp forest to small nursery tanks. The aquarium also features a man-made tide pool that stimulates an awareness in visitors of the fragility of San Diego's intertidal environments. |
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Cabrillo Marine Aquarium |
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Located in San Pedro between Point Fermin and the Port of Los Angeles, the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium features a touch tank, marine animal exhibits, and special events. |
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Chaffee Zoological Gardens of Fresno |
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Chaffee Zoological Gardens is home to the world's first computerized Reptile House, a South American Tropical Rain Forest Exhibit, and numerous animals. |
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Charles Paddock Zoo |
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At the Charles Paddock Zoo in Atascarero you will discover over 100 animals in five park-like acres. You will be able to view the animals up close in naturalistic habitats. |
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Children's Museum/Museo de los Niños |
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The San Diego Children's Museum focuses on the arts as education. Through performances, installations, and exhibits, the Museum, visitors are able to interact with the exhibits. |
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Coyote Point Museum |
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The Coyote Point Museum for Environmental Education in San Mateo offers a 4,000 square foot walk-through Aviary, a honeybee exhibit, river otters, and much more. |
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Gibbon Conservation Center |
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Located in Santa Clarita, the Gibbon Conservation Center is the only facility in the world devoted exclusively to gibbons, an increasingly rare ape. GCC houses nearly 40 gibbons, among them 5 of the 13 living species. Offers educational tours. |
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Happy Hollow Zoo |
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Located in Kelley Park, Happy Hollow Park & Zoo is a peaceful, creative and safe place for children of all ages, with the main focus on "little ones" between the ages of 2-10. There are creative play areas, children's rides, hand puppet and marionette shows, special events, and birthday areas. It also gives hands on experience with many animals and the education that is needed to secure the future of endangered species. The petting zoo features llamas, goats, guinea pigs and miniature horses.
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Living Desert |
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This 1,200 acre facility specializes in plants and animals found throughout the deserts of the world. Many exotic and endangered species can be seen in natural surroundings such as bighorn sheep, oryx, wolves, striped hyenas, thick-billed parrots, leopards and golden eagles. The ten ecosystems of the North American deserts are represented in the immersion gardens. A state-of-the-art wildlife hospital allows visitors to interact with the staff while procedures are being performed on animals. A desert children's play park, live animal shows, Discovery Room and many other features can be found in this unique zoo which sits in the middle of the Coachella Valley, just 15 miles east of Palm Springs.
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Los Angeles Zoo |
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The Los Angeles Zoo houses a collection of 1,200 animals from around the world.
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Micke Grove Zoo |
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Located in Lodi in San Joaquin County, Micke Grove Zoo features native animals and exotic species from all over the world, including several endangered species, such as the Chinese Alligator, the Snow Leopard and the Cotton Top Tamarin. Exhibits include the Tropical Forest Canopy with its Rodrigues Fruit Bats, Paseo Pantera – Path of the Mountain Lion and the Island Lost In Time featuring lemurs, parrots and radiated tortoises from Madagascar.
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Monterey Bay Aquarium |
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The Monterey Bay Aquarium features over 550 different species of marine life and numerous special exhibits, including the Splash Zone family exhibit. The Aquarium's website offers facts and information about sea life, including several life webcams of specific exhibits in the facility. |
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Oakland Zoo |
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The Oakland Zoo is nestled in the rolling hills of 525-acre Knowland Park. Each year thousands of families and school groups from around the Bay Area come to visit 440 native and exotic animals that live in naturalistic habitats at the Zoo. |
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Sacramento Zoo |
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Learn about animals and their habitats at the Sacramento Zoo, featuring animals exhibits, educational programs, and special events. |
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Safari West |
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Nestled on 400 acres in the heart of California's wine country 65 miles north of San Francisco, Safari West is home for over 400 exotic mammals and birds. Not a zoo, not a drive-through park, it's a wildlife preserve where the whole family can experience some of nature's most beautiful animals in a natural habitat.
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San Diego Wild Animal Park |
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The San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park is an expansive wildlife sanctuary operated by the Zoological Society of San Diego. Many of the earth's most rare creatures roam in herds and flocks in vast enclosures resembling their native homelands. It's home to more than 3,500 animals representing 429 species, including the largest crash of rhinos in any zoological facility, and one of the only California condor exhibits in the world. More than half of the acreage of the Wild Animal Park has been set aside as native species habitat. In addition, the Park maintains a native plant seed bank and extensive gardens.
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San Diego Zoo |
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The San Diego Zoo is home to more than 4,000 rare and endangered animals representing more than 800 species and subspecies. Newest exhibits include: Absolutely Apes, the Giant Panda Research Station, and Gorilla Tropics. |
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San Francisco Zoological Gardens |
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The San Francisco Zoo is home to over 250 species of exotic and domestic mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. |
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Santa Ana Zoo |
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The Santa Ana Zoo occupies 20 acres featuring at least fifty monkeys at all times, a rain forest, endangered species, an aviary, a steam train and children's zoo right in the middle of the Orange County urban jungle. The Zoo also offers educational programs. |
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Santa Barbara Zoological Gardens |
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The Santa Barbara Zoological Gardens is located on over 30 acres overlooking East beach. In addition to over 600 animals, the Zoo offers the Gift Store, a Dentzel family enclosed carousel and two C.P. Huntington trains to complete your visit.
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SeaWorld San Diego |
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Located on 189.5 acres, SeaWorld San Diego offers marine animal attractions, educational performances, specialty tours, rides, and more. |
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Sequoia Park Zoo |
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The Sequoia Park Zoo is located in Eureka and is situated on approximately 5 acres of level terrain northeast of the redwood ravines of Sequoia Park. The forest provides an impressive backdrop to the animal enclosures and blends directly into the hoofed animal paddocks. The Zoo is home for nearly one hundred animals. Admission is free. |
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Six Flags Marine World |
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Located in Vallejo, this commercial theme park also offers marine animal attractions and educational performances, along with rides and other attractions. |
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Steinhart Aquarium |
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At the Steinhart Aquarium, located in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, you can view poison dart frogs, box turtles, sea horses, and clown fish in jewel tanks. Get an up-close look at sturgeon, giant sea bass, alligator snapping turtles, gars, and moray eels. Touch sea stars, bat rays, hermit crabs, at the touch tide pool. Don’t miss penguin feedings which happen every day Interact with aquatic biologists as they study, feed, and care for the animals.
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CharlotteMasonKindergarten |
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A group for Charlotte Mason Mom's using the curriculum outline suggested in Karen Andreola's summer of 93 Parent's Review titled, "A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six", and also trying to complete the Kindergarten Skills list as described in Catherine Levison's book, A Literary Education. |
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CM4primaryyears |
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To discuss the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling elementary age children, and to share the joys and concerns of everyday life. |
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Stack the durable, brightly colored wooden beads on 5 hardwood dowels in sequence to match the design on one of the pattern cards. Builds complex reasoning skills as well as sorting and coordination. Includes over 45 brilliantly colored beads, 5 dowels, and 10 patterns that increase in difficulty. |
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Bob Books are organized into sets that progress in level as your child learns. They have cute stories and darling illustrations. These books are perfect for children ages 4 to 8.
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Explode The Code provides a sequential, systematic approach to phonics in which students blend sounds to build vocabulary and read words, phrases, sentences, and stories. Frequent review of previously learned concepts helps increase retention. Each workbook in this series contains exercises that incorporate reading, writing, matching and copying. The consistent format of the books helps facilitate independent work. This series includes primers—Get Ready for The Code, Get Set for The Code, and Go for The Code—which introduce initial consonant sounds. In addition, Beyond The Code provides a comprehension component introducing basic comprehension skills with phonetically controlled stories. You'll find product information here.
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Five in a Row provides a step-by-step, instructional guide using outstanding children's literature for children ages 4-8. Unit studies are built around each chosen book. There is a series for preschoolers called "Before Five in a Row," along with other volumes for older children. |
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If you've wondered how to help your preschooler get a head start on learning, Nancy Chupp has the answer. With practical, easy-to-implement activities, you can teach your child a solid base of skills necessary to enter the educational system with confidence. This book carefully weaves the basic tenets of learning theory into a playful, stimulating daily experience for preschool children. Give your preschooler a head start ... read this book! |
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Happy Phonics uses games to teach early reading skills. Simple yet entertaining and educational, these phonics games are printed on colorful, sturdy cardstock ready to cut out. Included is a mother-friendly guidebook which contains details on how to teach phonics and reading, how to pronounce and teach the phonics sounds, how to make your own simple beginning readers, and step-by-step teaching information for each phonics sound. Happy Phonics covers beginning to advanced phonics. |
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JumpStart Toddlers Introduces a World of Learning and Discovery! JumpStart Advanced Toddler has more fun and enriching learning activities than ever in its new 3-CD set designed especially for your Toddlers early learning and developmental needs. |
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Ready to read and rarin' to go? Hopsalot the rabbit has a whole basket of carrot-shaped stickers for preschoolers and kindergartners who complete this 32-page, full-color workbook featuring the animal characters from the bestselling JumpStart children's software program. The activities in this book focus on beginning and ending sounds, short and long vowel sounds, and rhyming words. Each activity is different, so an adult will need to explain the directions. "Hints from Hopsalot" appears at the top of many pages, with helpful ideas on reading skills for adults to share with young readers. A sheet of reward stickers picturing all the JumpStart characters is included, along with a certificate to fill in and color after completing the workbook. (Ages 3 to 6) --Marcie Bovetz |
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Learning means fun with the curriculum-linked, classroom-proven workbook series from Scholastic and JumpStart, creators of the popular educational software for children. Playful animal characters guide prekindergarten-age kids through the exciting new world of letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and sizes. The 320-page workbook contains an entire year's worth of exercises, with three different skill levels for "jumping" ahead. Every page has a new, sequenced challenge for the young learner, from tracing and writing uppercase letters to completing nursery rhymes to matching shapes and colors. Full-color art and lively games and activities make education an adventure, while reward stickers and Certificates of Completion reinforce children's sense of accomplishment as they complete each section. Helpful Eleanor the elephant is on hand to provide learning tips and offer support (and stickers!) to students. What could be more important than giving kids a jump-start in learning? The book includes answer keys and 120 full-color reward stickers. (Ages 3 to 5) --Emilie Coulter |
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Preschoolers who are learning their letters can follow Eleanor the elephant and her friends in this 32-page workbook with brightly colored illustrations, a sheet of reward stickers, and a certificate of completion on the back cover. The worksheets provide a preschooler with practice in tracing uppercase letters and writing them independently, drawing curved and straight lines, recognizing beginning sounds, and grouping sequences of letters. "Tips from Eleanor" (for an adult to read to the child) is included on many pages, along with a complete answer sheet on the last page. The Scholastic JumpStart workbooks feature the same characters as JumpStart, a leading educational software package for young children. (Ages 3 to 5) --Marcie Bovetz |
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A child who is just learning how to write numbers will be ready for this 32-page workbook offering a wide variety of full-color worksheets, a sheet of reward stickers, and a certificate for a job well done. The beginning pages cover identifying and writing numbers from 1 to 10, and the remaining pages concentrate on the correlation between numerals and groups of objects. The activities include beginning math concepts such as counting, grouping, estimating, and determining more or less. An adult will need to work along with the child to explain the different directions for the worksheets. Eleanor the elephant and the other animal characters featured in this workbook are also the stars of JumpStart, a leading software program for children. (Ages 3 to 5) --Marcie Bovetz |
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JumpStart Advanced Preschool has more fun and enriching learning activities than ever in its new travel themed 3-CD set designed to prepare your child for Preschool and beyond. With premium features and extensive content JumpStart Advanced keeps kids engaged and learning for hours and that can bring out the best in your child. |
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This set of 10 simply designed colorful wooden blocks and pattern boards includes 100 blocks in six different shapes and colors. They help develop shape recognition and spatial relationship skills. The contents store neatly in a durable wooden case. This games was awarded the Scholastic Parent & Child's 2004 "Top 22 Toys that Make Kids Think" award.
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* Is your child halfway through first grade and still unable to read? * Is your preschooler bored with coloring and ready for reading? * Are you worried that your child will become lost in overcrowded classrooms? * Did you know that early readers hold an advantage over their peers throughout school? * Do you want to help your child read, but are afraid you'll do something wrong? SRAs DISTAR® is the most successful beginning reading program available to schools across the country. Research has proven that children taught by the DISTAR® method outperform their peers who receive instruction from other programs. Now for the first time, this program has been adapted for parent and child to use at home. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a complete, step-by-step program that shows patents simply and clearly how to teach their children to read. Twenty minutes a day is all you need, and within 100 teaching days your child will be reading on a solid second-grade reading level. It's a sensible, easy-to-follow, and enjoyable way to help your child gain the essential skills of reading. Everything you need is here -- no paste, no scissors, no flash cards, no complicated directions -- just you and your child learning together. One hundred lessons, fully illustrated and color-coded for clarity, give your child the basic and more advanced skills needed to become a good reader. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons will bring you and your child closer together, while giving your child the reading skills needed now, for a better chance at tomorrow. |
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The experts in child development now offer a way to help your child break free from an MTV attention span! |
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With its comprehensive curriculum providing a sound basis in the fundamentals of math, art, history, language arts, science, and technology, the phenomenally successful Core Knowledge series has become an esteemed tool for parents and teachers striving to better educate today's children. And since it is agreed that the first years of schooling are crucial to a child's lifetime educational achievements, it is no wonder that parents and teachers alike have been asking for a volume for kindergartners.
This primer for those just beginning their school careers was devised with the contributions of over 2,000 parents, educators and students, distilled into a user-friendly volume specifically designed for parents to use with their children. Eighty pages of four-color illustrations enliven the new, bold design of this latest title in a series adopted by hundreds of schools nationwide and appreciated by thousands of adults looking to instill in children a lifetime love of learning. |
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