IBW Books - Review & Giveaway

{This giveaway has now closed. Congratulations to #56 kngmckellar} IBW-Books recently sent us two of it's webscene interactive books to review. I love reading to my kids and since we read a lot of the same books over and over again, I was happy to mix-it-up a little.

We were sent 2 books. One was a KA Reader book - a web interactive story for beginning readers. Most of the words were one's that my son could read or sound out. The story rhymed and repeated words often, important for beginning readers.

The other book was from the Busy Preschoolers Celebration of Letters set. We had letters G & H. Inside there are short poems that emphasize a specific letter and corresponding web activities

built around those letters.

Our thoughts on the KA Reader book:

-This was the most useful and captivating for my children. They enjoyed the story and looked forward to the weblink at the end of the page. When we opened the web page, they were excited that they already knew the characters names and had a sense about what would happen on the screen.

-It was fun to integrate the computer scene into the story. I think it would be a much appreciated and very deserved reward for any beginning reader who was reading the book on their own.

-At first my kids were turned off by the book based on looks (plain type, no pictures.) I think they could tell it was a "lesson" book, but the web links were so fun and interactive. They looked forward to each web link.

Our thoughts on the Busy Preschoolers book:

-My kids were a little bored with the book, but they've also been exposed to phonics in multiple forms over the last few years.

- They did LOVE the activities associated with each letter poem. The books contain craft ideas, games, and interactive webpages.

- My recommendation: use this type of book along with your preschool curriculum. A good free preschool curriculum to look into is, Letter of the week. These books would complement the lessons in this curriculum well and would give you a lot of great ideas for learning activities. We personally used the Letter of the Week and my kids did great with it. I would have liked the interactive books for them at that time. It would have aligned better with them when they were first starting out.

Some cool attributes of the IBW-books system:

- All the webpages are bright, enticing, and very user friendly

- The books (and weblinks) are bilingual - English and Spanish

- The weblinks pop up common words during the story to reinforce word recognition

The downsides:

-You need to be prepared (aren't all moms anyway) so you can smoothly transition from book to web and back again.

-The books are a little asthetically boring (but the weblinks are bright and cheery). The books scream "lesson book," and while that's okay, it may not initially set the right tone for your child...unless you are one of the lucky ones that have homework loving kids. :)

IBW-books is giving away one prize package to a Suburban Jungle reader. You have the choice of one of these two prizes (words taken from IBW-books' descriptions):

The Busy Preschooler's Guide to Learning - fun activities built around the 26 letters of the alphabet, with step-by-step help to guide parents in how to use everyday situations to teach 105 skills their kids need before they walk in the kindergarten door.

OR

THREE (3) KA Readers - beginning readers that use a new kind of storytelling where kids see an animation unfold at the close of every chapter! Dr. Seuss-like rhyming hooks kids on the fun of words. Online activities help parents assess a child's reading and comprehension.

To Enter this giveaway:

Leave a comment telling me which prize package you would like to receive

Extra Entries:

-Tweet this giveaway for 2 extra entries. Be sure to include a link to this post and @suburbanjung in your tweet. Then come back and leave 2 comments.

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This giveaway will end on November 30, 2009 at 9:00 PM, EST. The winner will be selected by random.org and notified by email.

*No compensation was given for this review, but I did receive 2 books for review. This did not bias my opinion and all opinions are my own. *

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