Mathematical Reasoning Level B Review by My Life on a Taffy Pull

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Critical Thinking Press~Review

As part of the Timberdoodle Blog Review Team I had the honor of reviewing 3 books by Critical Thinking Press.

First on the list is Mathematical Reasoning Level B.

I can’t even tell you how long I’ve been eye-balling this book, so you can imagine my excitement when I was asked if I would like to review it! What a blessing! Bubble Gum Taffy, who is 5 and in Kindergarten has been working her way through this book designated more for 1st grade/6 year olds. I don’t consider Bubble Gum Taffy to be exceptionally bright, but this book sure is! It’s so gentle, so non-assuming, but completely able to teach concepts that she was having difficulty with prior.

The first few pages are written to the parent, giving you suggestions on how to use the book and assuring you that you can take the liberty to use the book however you deem best. I especially liked that they mentioned adding my own manipulatives to help teach a concept, had they not said that, I might not have…I’m a little dense like that sometimes. Smile

Here she is choosing which of the items doesn’t belong in the set.

And this was a fun page teaching her how to add using a numbered line segment. I’ve used this sort of concept before but with a number chart. She really enjoyed this.

This is probably her favorite activity. It’s a page of addition problems that she gets to solve. You can see she’s using a number chart to help her add. On the next page she completes a dot-to-dot using the answers as clues to which dot to go to, feels more like a game than an assignment.

Topics/activities include: action, addition, bar graph, calendar, capacity, count, fractions, language, length, likelihood, manipulative, match, money, number line, odd/even, order, pattern, probability, real world problems, shapes, subtraction, symmetry, temperature, time, weight, and whole numbers. Answer guide included in the back of the book.

My only complaint about the book is it’s binding, she had a little trouble writing on the page that didn’t open all the way. This could easily fixed with a quick book-chop at the local print shop though!

I wasn’t sure about the price of this book and if this book alone would be enough for a math curriculum, but I can see that I was wrong on both accounts, well worth the money and plenty enough for a years worth of learning!

Overall, this book has surpassed my expectations. It’s no secret that Critical Thinking Company is on the higher end of the price scale for subjects that don’t seem core, but I believe teaching our children how to think and solve problems is foundational for all their other studies and well worth the investment.

A big thanks to Timberdoodle for letting me review such nice products. Timberdoodle would love to send you free catalog too, click the link and sign up today!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

Legal Disclosure: As a member of Timberdoodle’s Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of these books in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.