Review - HighReach Learning

Twenty-five years of planning curriculum for young children can become very repetitive. I'm constantly looking for new and fresh ideas to use in my preschool curriculum. Traditionally I'm very choosy in the materials I select for teaching. I want things to be fun so that the children are drawn in to learn without realizing they are learning. I want them to love to learn. HighReach Learning recently delivered some fabulous materials to me that the children love. Meet Max.

Max is my new baker puppet. He was part of the wonderful box of learning materials that captivated my preschoolers. I named him Max. Mostly because the book that came in the box was "Mix It! Fix It! Make It Move!" and Max sounds very similar to mix, especially when we played with the letter cards. We had fun discovering how to spell Max, then learning that mix is just one letter change from Max, then fix is just one letter change from mix. The children range in age from 1-5 years and all of them responded to the puppet, as though Max were a real entity separate from me. It's always amazing to me how wonderful puppets are in a teaching environment. Max helped us read the book and discuss what we learned.

The HighReach materials also included extra take-home books for the kids, all kinds of curriculum ideas and supplements, and some matching cards. We used the matching cards as part of our mix it, fix it day, stirring up the cards in a big bowl (to mix them) then matching the cards (to fix them). We talked about the different pictures of real items on the matching cards and how we use them in our lives.

Then we used baggies to mix and fix a snack of three different items (cereal-o's, sunflower seeds, and oyster crackers). We talked about the shape of the cereal (circles), sunflower seeds (teardrops), and oyster crackers (hexagons). We used measuring cups and measuring spoons and used one-to-one correspondence to make sure we had one spoon for each serving bowl. We added up the total number of cups and spoons. I've only used a tiny portion of all the wonderful materials in this box. All the materials fit into the included plastic velcro-closure folder for easy storage. Impressive!

There are beautiful full color posters to use with the curriculum, huge booklets of ideas that meet every learning need for preschoolers, even in mixed age groups, and conversation cards to use day by day as the lesson plan grows and extends the concepts. I'm not very good at following a curriculum word for word, because I adapt to my children and their interests and needs, but these materials are very flexible. Find HighReach on Facebook and Twitter too.

I am truly impressed with the quality of the educational curriculum from HighReach. I really like the take home information that is included with these materials so the parents can continue to build on the knowledge at home. I can see this program being successful in centers, in home daycares, and in homeschools. My kids want Max to join us every day at circle time now. I love when the kids love to learn! Thank you HighReach Learning!
Disclosure: I received HighReach Learning materials at no charge for this review. Opinions are mine.