Well, this month Mishutka turned four, which means adulthood has come :))
Along with this, the time has come when you can slowly start doing something more than just playing and drawing. In fact, I have never been strongly attached to age, to all these “a child should be able to know in a year: and a sickly list”. I always watched my son, his hobbies more, in order to catch and evaluate certain new opportunities and skills in time. Because if you introduce some kind of developmental material into the process of games in time, then it will go easily and will only be a pleasure, which means that the result will be higher. So I decided that now it seems like it’s already possible to introduce prescriptions and other “pre-school” developmental games for training hands and fingers, preparing them for writing in the not-too-distant future :)

You shuddered and thought that it was too early for your child to make life so difficult? Do not be afraid! :) Now I will tell you in detail about Kumon workbooks, which are sheer joys and interesting things for a child. You still won’t be able to tear him away from such “lessons”;) Oh, if everywhere children’s education began with these notebooks, then there wouldn’t be so many haters of the school! Millions of children around the world are proof of this, and my Mishutka is one of them :)

So, let's take a closer look at what kind of notebooks these are. Well, firstly, these are not exactly notebooks in our usual sense. These are pretty plump paperback books that hide amazing and interesting tasks for little smarties =)

Secondly, despite the fact that the Kumon notebooks are educational in themselves, the assignments are designed and submitted in such a format that neither a child nor even an adult will feel pressure. As a result, the child will also get a toy, for example, such a snake from a notebook "Learning to Cut". Her child himself will cut in a spiral. This task is already from the middle of the book, on the very first pages there are very simple tasks so as not to repel the child with complexity.

Or, for example, on the first pages of the notebook "Simple Lines" the child needs to draw straight horizontal and vertical lines. But it is designed in the form of paths for animals or a pool with divided lanes. Great writing practice I can tell you!

Through the page, the task becomes more complicated and the lines are already longer.

And so on the rise. Does all this look like the most boring recipes? But in fact, in fact, this is what they are;) The further deep into the notebook, the more tricky the lines) The child fills his hand so imperceptibly for himself, which later will help him better move on to the real letter.

The same approach in other notebooks. I'll show you a couple of tasks "Learning to glue". First, here are such simple tasks as sticking parts of the muzzle of a piglet. Or arrange food on a plate.

But on each page, the tasks are already more and more difficult, which means that the training is stronger.

Who came up with all this

The author of this technique was the Japanese teacher Toru Kumon, who, 50 years ago, for doing mathematics with his son, came up with different short tasks, each of which was a little more difficult than the previous one. So Takeshi, the son of Toru Kumon, learned to perform the most complex calculations in his mind in just a year. Subsequently, Kumon developed a whole program on this principle, which includes a variety of aspects of teaching children.

Today Kumon is one of the largest international centers for additional education for children. Children study in them using the same notebooks, which, thanks to the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house, have also appeared on the Russian market. Kumon Workbooks are self-guided workbooks specially designed for preschoolers ages 2-6. Kumon programs develop children's attention and perseverance, nurture self-discipline, build self-confidence, help them acquire basic skills in writing, counting, as well as working with glue and scissors.

Kumon does not use a class work model. There is no need for teacher supervision. The program is focused on self-acquisition of skills. And it really works! Because we have Kumon notebooks in an accessible place, and every day Mishutka himself takes the desired allowance and goes to complete new tasks. I don’t put pressure on him at all, I don’t ask, he’s interested or he just wants to take his time, so he takes it and cuts it out, or goes through the labyrinths, or draws, or draws in copybooks.

The task of parents is only to be a mentor, to point the direction, to support and praise their child, so that he gains more and more confidence in his abilities. And this, I tell you, is one of the main conditions for learning for pleasure in the future, when the child understands that learning is not boring and hard labor, but interesting and not so hard, if only to make some effort. I am sure that it is necessary to develop such an attitude to learning in a child, and self-learning in particular, after the age of three, when he already has an awareness of this process, unlike babies in the methods early development, and when the intellectual attitude begins to form. It will be much more difficult to instill such an attitude towards education later, and even more so it will be almost impossible to do this with the school curriculum.

Age gradation of benefits

At our age, I bought Mishutka the following publications: Learning to Glue, Learning to Cut, Simple Lines, Fascinating Mazes and My First Crafts. Considering that each notebook is designed for a month, we are provided with almost half a year of daily “lessons” :) Mishutka is happy to create and complete tasks in these notebooks!

In the Kumon series, there are quite a few manuals for learning letters and counting, but in my opinion, this is for older children. preschool age. I am not a fan of running ahead of the engine when it comes to teaching a child. Nevertheless, we already have notebooks for the initial level of mathematics and I can evaluate them. Here is the content of the addition notebook, from which you can roughly understand what awaits the child and parents inside:

Basically, a mathematical notebook consists of examples for addition or subtraction, depending on the subject of the notebook. The complexity is on the rise, i.e. easy at first, and then more and more difficult, many tasks for monotonous tasks to bring the solution of examples to automatism. But there are also elements of a certain variety of tasks, such as these, for example:

In contrast to such school notebooks, Kumon allowances are also provided for more younger age. Just recently, Kumon's "Let's Draw" mini-notebooks, which study colors and shapes, and "Let's Glue" with stickers, appeared. The tasks in them are such that they are suitable even for kids from 1.5 years old! I also want to dwell on these notebooks in more detail. I myself, probably, would not have bought them for Misha, because. they would have suited him much earlier, but they were given to us, so we are happy to draw and glue them. It is a pity that in the Mishutkins for a year and a half these notebooks have not yet been published in Russia. But you are lucky if your children are 1-3 years old, you can already use the publications from the Kumon series for kids. The quality of the notebooks is the same, but the size is smaller.

The only thing I didn’t really like was this: in the large notebook “Learning to glue” there are tasks with gluing certain shapes onto the picture. To make it easier for children and not to get upset, patches are provided in a size larger than the “hole”, so the child easily closes the white space without residue. But in the “Let's glue” notebook, which is for kids, the patches are exactly the size of the hole, which is why Mishutka could not stick them so evenly as to cover all the white space. Because of this, he was visibly upset. Here on the left is a notebook for toddlers, and on the right is for older children with similar tasks.

As you can see, the square is slightly shifted and white stripes have already appeared. In fact, the triangle is also not glued perfectly evenly, but there are no white stripes, because. initially, the triangle was slightly noticeably larger than the "hole".

Therefore, it’s a little strange to me that for adult children there is an opportunity to make a mistake without “loss of quality”, but not for little ones, although it will definitely be more difficult for kids to evenly fit the patch to the size of the hole, if it’s not easy for my four-year-old Mishutka to do this with all his diligence . In general, this is such a nuance that caught my eye, but I still like the notebook itself and the tasks in it;)

Pros of Kumon Workbooks

Thus, from our experience, I have identified the following positive aspects of the initial education of a child using Kumon notebooks:
1. It takes only 10-15 minutes a day. The program is designed in such a way that only one task needs to be done daily. Therefore, no tension and fatigue for the child! This means that there is no disgust from constant tedious tasks.
2. Moreover, the tasks are not boring at all :) At each spread, the young “student” is asked to do something interesting and exciting, and the result is either some kind of complete story, or even a whole toy!
3. All tasks in Kumon's notebooks are arranged from simple to complex. Having learned one or another simple action, the child is ready to complicate the task. He does not have the frustration that something does not work out. At the very initial stages, a beginner can easily cope, and in subsequent tasks from previous trainings, a hand is already full.
4. The number of tasks in each notebook is calculated for about a month of work, i.e. The result is a consistent course of study. Therefore, one Kumon workbook is enough for a long time, and if you take several, then this is half a year of daily simple and entertaining activities!

There is one more thing I would like to add to the last point. Mishutka sometimes sits with me with pleasure for half an hour, or even more, and does one task after another from one notebook. So, of course, it ends faster. But there are several ways to "extend the life" of a workbook, although this, of course, applies to publications with labyrinths or copybooks. So, in order for the child to be able to go through the tasks already completed earlier, you can:
a) go through the tracks in the notebook with a simple pencil, and then erase with an eraser, so that the labyrinth will be like new, at least after the first passage exactly. Children, as a rule, do not yet press hard on the pencil, the trace from it remains weak, therefore it is easily erased. Only use a high-quality eraser, and not those that smear dirt on the page;
b) you can cut the notebook into separate pages, and before giving the child a maze, put it in a transparent file folder. In this case, the child goes through the maze with a marker, which is then easily erased. Use those markers that are designed for whiteboards;
c) you can copy the pages and give the child for each task only copies of the mazes, and not the notebook itself, so it also turns out that one notebook is enough for long use. But it is important to understand that the copies of the pages no longer look so attractive, which means that the child’s interest may decrease.

“Why all these tricks are needed?” - you ask. And then, that the price of one Kumon notebook is on average 350 rubles, so not everyone can afford to buy a lot of them at once. But I want to note that discount promotions are constantly happening in the same Labyrinth, and, for example, I got these notebooks at a price of 220 rubles! Noticeable difference, right? If you also consider that I took five of them at once.

Where to buy Kumon notebooks

You can buy Kumon workbooks in the shops of the city, or in online bookstores. You can see prices and detailed reviews for each benefit, for example, on the Labyrinth using the links below.

Download Kumon notebooks

Honestly, before buying these expensive workbooks, I downloaded scanned American versions (these notebooks were published in many countries of the world). But in the end I realized that it was more profitable to buy, because. found the following cons:
- the cost of printing these notebooks on a home printer may be almost equivalent to a purchased edition, especially when printed on a color printer;
- the quality of “handicraft production” is still lower, which is why the interest of the child is much less, because it doesn’t tritely attract, especially if the print is black and white, believe me, you have experienced it;
- most of the creative tasks from the manuals are simply not feasible, because many crafts require double-sided printing in a special order;
- notebooks for kids with stickers cannot be repeated in any way, because there are no stickers themselves, unlike purchased publications, in which many beautiful stickers are attached in the application;
- all scanned Kumon notebooks on English language , for someone it may be important, because. parents will not understand the tasks well and they will not be able to explain to the children what exactly needs to be done;
- the study of letters and writing in electronic notebooks is also English, i.e. it is not the Russian alphabet that is being studied, but English, although in my opinion, for a start, a Russian-speaking child still needs to learn Russian, which you will find only in our publications that are sold in stores;
- well, it should be noted that there are already much more manuals published in Russia than scanned on the net, that is, using only downloaded versions, you will introduce your child to only part of the workbooks. In this case, one must understand that publications in electronic form are just disparate elements of one single large program that will not be able to fulfill their role in full.

Below are links to websites and my personal discount coupons that we use to save on hotels and apartment rentals in Austria and other countries:
. RoomGuru helps you find best price per night at the hotel, comparing the cost in all booking systems at once. The difference sometimes reaches several thousand rubles.
. for renting an apartment in cities around the world. Applied automatically for bookings over $69.

Publisher: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber

Year of publication: 2016

Russian language

Age: from 2 years old

Series: First steps

1. "Let's cut!" - This is a collection of exercises, performing which the child will learn how to work with scissors and carefully cut out pictures from paper. The tasks in the notebook are built on the principle of "from simple to complex". First, the kid will cut in straight lines, then in curved ones: arcs, waves, zigzags, spirals and lines of a more complex shape. You can play with cut out figures! Completing tasks will contribute to the development of fine motor skills, spatial thinking and imagination in the child. The notebook is intended for classes with children from two years old.

1. "Let's draw!" - This is a collection of exercises, performing which the child will learn to color pictures. The tasks in the notebook are built on the principle from simple to complex. First, the kid will paint over the white areas of a simple shape, then a more complex one. The exercises in this notebook will help your child develop fine motor skills and a sense of color, they will teach to distinguish figures. For classes with children from two years.

3. “Learning to cut. KUMON Workbook" - This is a collection of tasks that will teach the child to work with scissors and carefully cut out of paper. The book has selected exercises that gradually develop the child's fine motor skills and his spatial thinking: first he will cut the paper along straight and curved lines, then cut out circles and, finally, cut along complex lines, which are a combination of straight and curved lines. The notebook is intended for classes with children from 3 to 5 years.

DOWNLOAD “Learning to cut. Workbook KUMON» «Learning to cut. KUMON Workbook»

4. “Let's glue. KUMON Workbook - This workbook will help your child learn how to stick pictures different sizes. By completing tasks, the child will move from simple to complex. First, he will stick ready-made stickers as he wants, then he will learn how to stick them on areas of a certain shape, and after that he will move on to working with glue. The exercises in this notebook will help your child develop fine motor skills, a sense of color, spatial thinking and creativity. For classes with children from 2 years.

5. “Learning to glue. KUMON Workbook - This workbook will help your child learn how to use scissors and glue. It contains tasks that will introduce him to different forms, develop spatial and creative thinking. By completing tasks, the child will move from simple to complex. First, he will cut out one detail and paste it on the page so that the picture takes on a finished look. At the next stage, the child will learn to cut, assemble and glue several different parts at once according to the model. Finally, in the last tasks, he will have to decide on his own where to glue the cut out parts. The notebook is intended for classes with children from 4 to 6 years old.

The method of teaching a child from a very young age, proposed by the Japanese educational center "Kumon", is now recognized all over the world. And not only recognized, but also actively implemented for easy and exciting assimilation of new knowledge almost from infancy.

Learning is fun and easy!

The attractiveness of the KUMON system is in understanding the interests of the child. Workbook lessons:

• built on gaming motivation. No violence against the child's psyche, only what is interesting to the baby and causes positive emotions in him - drawing, coloring, cutting;
• adapted to certain age groups . All workbooks are produced with the expectation of a particular age, with a gradual complication. To master new skills, it is quite enough to practice 5 days a week for 5-20 minutes, depending on age.
• help prepare the child for school. Classes in notebooks "Kumon" develop perseverance, discipline, attention and perseverance.

With such aids, even the most mobile child can be easily and unobtrusively accustomed to systematic study and quiet activities.

Many people ask what is so interesting and unusual about Kumon notebooks... Yes, at first glance, they are almost the same as many other manuals on the market. Numbers, counting, addition, subtraction, mazes... BUT!! if you look at it, you can find out that this is a whole system of education, competently compiled, selected and having a very wide coverage. And the merit of this one person Tohru Kumona- Japanese mathematician.
It all started with the fact that in 1954 son Toru came home from school, his mother found a crumpled piece of paper in his pocket - the results of a math test. And the results were, alas, depressing. It's a shame: dad's son has a double-dealer in mathematics! Kumon began to teach his eldest son and found that he did poorly in lower grades. Because of these gaps in knowledge, Toru Kumon decided, his son had problems in mathematics. He began to prepare a page of examples every evening for his son, the solution of these examples took his son about 30 minutes, and corresponded to his abilities. With the consolidation of the addition skill, Toru complicated the material, but only as much as his son could handle it. So he developed his own approach to teaching mathematics - one of the most difficult school subjects. And he called his method - CUMON.

The essence of Kumon's mathematical approach is to regularly solve examples for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, basic arithmetic operations. Decide until you click them like nuts. After the foundation is built, you can move on. Kumon defined skill as the ability to meet the time allotted to solve several examples. Kumon emphasized that two components are important: speed and accuracy. In 1956, other parents became interested in the Kumon method. Toru opened his own center in Osaka. In 1958, he founded the Institute of Education, develops a unified system of standards and this becomes the beginning of "Kumon" - an epidemic. Similar schools are opening all over the world. Today Kumon - centers already exist in 44 countries of the world. Unfortunately, there is no branch of Kumon in Russia yet.

The basis of the Kumon method is self-study, self-study at home, when an adult's help is to check homework.
Kumon believed that if a child does not want to learn, he should not be blamed for this. The fact is that the materials we usually use to teach children in school are boring, and the instructions given are not clear enough. Repetition is the mother of learning, according to Kumon, and regular exercises in arithmetic give the necessary fluency in solving mathematical examples.

And on my own behalf, I also want to add that it is absolutely not necessary to deal with the entire methodology and clearly follow everything, you can just have fun and spend time with the child, using the materials as a basis))

Under the cut, I collected everything that I managed to find in these notebooks can be downloaded for review.

To DOWNLOAD click on the book!

Well, you can buy them in OZONE:
KUMON workbooks!