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Kumon Folding Books

paper flowers from a Kumon Let's Fold workbook

I’ve tried and liked a few Kumon workbooks, so when I was looking for quiet activity for Johnny (five years old) and Lily (three years old) I decided to give their Let’s Fold books a try. The kids love them, as you can tell from Johnny’s pleased expression with the bouquet of flowers (above) and Lily’s little video clip below!

The books are pretty small, which means you can easily put them in your purse for when you’re out. You do have to cut out each folding square, which means you also need a pair of scissors. I like the cutting as a way to extend the activity, but perforated edges would make this a more easily portable (and airplane-friendly) activity. A couple of the pages have white edging (you can see this on the flowers). The instructions don’t say to cut it off, but I think it looks better (and it keeps Johnny busy a little longer).

 

 

 

I highly recommend limited how many pages your child can do at a time – Johnny would have torn through one of these workbooks in an hour, if I had let him, but each page tells a little story that engages kids’ narrations skills and gets them thinking. This means that this workbook is actually not a great quiet time activity, but it does make for excellent one-on-one parent-child time.

Each of the folding books starts off very simply and gets increasingly complicated. Activities move from a single fold to multiple folds that even Johnny struggled to figure out on his own. I think I would prefer to have one of the books be easier, and a second that was harder – so I could give a simpler book to Lily and a more challenging one of Johnny.

These didn’t turn out to be the best choice for their intended quiet time use, but my kids really do enjoy them. I’m still on the hunt for good quiet time workbooks for my kids – do you have any recommendations?

As a member of Timberdoodle’s Blogger Review Team I received Reward Points in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.

MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

24 thoughts on “Kumon Folding Books”

    1. I think they would enjoy Origami – I actually picked these books up because I thought they would make a good precursor to origami. :)

  1. I love the Kumon books! We have the folding one as well, but haven’t used it yet. I can’t get my son to sit still for very long lately, so that one’s on hold.

      1. He seems to really enjoy the Coloring Book and I was surprised at how well he understands the big book of beginner’s mazes (forget what it’s called exactly but something basic with “maze” in the title).

        1. I’m so glad he likes that maze book – I got it to give my three-year-old on the plane ride home (I’ll be flying alone with all four kids!)

    1. I think your girls would really enjoy these folding ones – especially if you ration out the pages and have them make the most of each one.

  2. We love these, too, and several other Kumon books. Regarding the white strip surrounding the picture, if you look carefully, the instructions say to cut {the grey line}. It’s just the key symbol of grey line, rather than the words. At first I thought, too, that it just meant the top line to separate it from the top, but then I noticed the same grey line is that border around, so really I think they do intend for that white strip to go. Several of the pictures we’ve done only match up with the strips gone. I do wish their other books had perforated pages like the cut and paste books. The pages are intended to come out, but are difficult since the bindings are so good! :) the pieces to cut are close to the binding. It’s hard to get scissors on that line once you’ve done a few pages and there’s the previous pages’ edges in the way. Tearing them out an be just as challenging due to the strong binding and trying not to tear the pieces near the binding. I’ve actually gotten to the point of simply pulling the covers off and having a stack of loose pages.

  3. Have you looked at the School Sparks materials? You can print free on-line, but the book is more economical. I laminate the work sheets and my kids do them with dry erase markers/pencils. http://www.schoolsparks.com/. It’s a big collection, so there might be something that suits your purpose.

    I’m going to check out the Kumon work books too. They sound like something my son and daughter, ages 4 and 3 would enjoy.

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