Summer Brain Quest: Between Grades 1 & 2 Paperback – Sticker Book, April 18, 2017

These Brain Quest books came highly recommended by a fellow homeschooling mom and I decided to try them out for myself.Honestly, I can’t say enough good things about them. I bought one for my daughter to work on over the summer. She will be going into the second grade this fall, and this book is the perfect difficulty level for her. The pages are vibrant and full of engaging pictures, the book is thick and durable, and one of the things my daughter loves most is that she gets to add a sticker to her progress map each time she completes a page. She begs me to let her work on her brain quest book EVERY DAY. Once we get started, she keeps asking, “Can we do just ONE more page?”I am pleased to report this book exceeded my expectations and has been such an enjoyable way to keep my daughter’s mind engaged and motivated to learn during our summer break.I will be using these every summer from now on!

Great summer resource for kids! Turns it into a game with a game board. Kids loved it.

I purchased this Summer Brain Quest book for grades 1-2, and it’s fantastic! It’s full of fun activities that keep kids engaged while reinforcing what they’ve learned.The colorful illustrations and varied subjects make learning exciting. Perfect for preventing the summer slide! Highly recommend it!

I'll be honest, I was skeptical. Despite the great reviews I was still expecting to have to "gently force" (re: coerce, threaten, bribe) my daughter to work on this book during the summer. But I felt strongly that, after a crazy year of virtual school, she could really use some practice before starting 2nd grade. She side-eyed the book when I first pulled it out, but as soon as I opened it up and showed her the map and the stickers and the fun game-like assignments, she was completely won over. She sat down and plowed through the entire first level in one sitting! If anything, I'm finding myself having to pace her by reminding her to take breaks. It does take a little oversight from me at times, when she has trouble understanding the directions and when she needs me to check her work. And there have been 1 or 2 lessons so far that involved things she says she didn't learn this past year (it's possible that she just forgot). But to be fair, my daughter often asks for help even when I know she can figure it out on her own, so some of that is just specific to her. I think the level of difficulty is appropriate, at least so far (she's on level 3 right now). Some lessons are pretty easy for her, but others are harder/require more thought. And I can see that she's practicing a lot of things she was doing this past year. A good mix of skill levels. She likes that every page is different - rotates through math, science, social studies, reading/writing - so she's not stuck doing one specific thing for a long time. The ONLY negative I can come up with is that I can already tell this isn't going to last her all summer. I'm really wishing they'd made an entire series! I went ahead and ordered the Brain Quest 1st grade book (I think it's intended to be used as supplemental work during the year, but I'll be using it as summer practice) AND I already ordered the summer book for next year (2nd to 3rd grade). I looked at reviews for a LOT of summer practice workbooks before choosing this one, and I'm glad I spent the extra time to find this one. The fact that Brain Quest manages to make the learning fun makes all the difference. Kudos to them!

I bought this one because I liked the one for between K and 1. This between 1 & 2 workbook is ... funky in places. Some of the pages are good topics to talk about. But more than one page has been... confusing. For example, page 11 "Where Jack lives" is confusing. Maybe I was overthinking it, but they show Jack in long sleeves and pants. Then they ask for things in a picture list that Jack will need. One of the options is either a bike or skis. We'll, bikes didn't exist at the time period Jack lived, but apparently a bike is the answer. Despite his long sleeves, the skis are apparently not needed for where Jack lives. Maybe I was overthinking it, but if a kids book is going to ask questions promoting learning, the answers should be cohesive, helpful, and intuitive. It felt like useful answers weren't quite all there in some of the worksheets. So, is this workbook okay? Yes. Most of the pages talking about plants and math and maps were good topics. But some of the pages weren't quite all there, thus me rating it only 4 stars rather than 5. The stickers and map tracking are a fun idea and the length of the learning sections is good for the age range to keep kids motivated enough to keep going and finish their section.

Always satisfied with my Brain Quest products and our family loves these! As a homeschool educator who also has two of my four kiddos in public school, I recommend these as supplements to your child’s learning every school year and for the summer to bridge any possible gaps (or to get ahead). All of my kiddos stay ahead of the pack each year, and now my oldest is a Senior headed to the university! My youngest just completed Kindergarten and I just purchased material to prepare him for 1st grade, his brother for 2nd grade, and our daughter for the 7th grade. We love these so much that they sit and do the work for hours at a time—and the enjoy it! We enjoy the workbooks and the separate flash card games too.I wish they’d bring back the 7th and 8th grade workbooks though. Still, I recommend all of the Brain Quest products for all ages to enjoy last they learn new material or even to review material from previous years.

The media could not be loaded. We use these Brain Quest summer slide books every summer to keep my son’s brain going before entering the next school year. Highly recommend!