Lighten and Brighten Series #2 – Usborne First Sticker Book

This series is dedicated to the mama who may have discovered that she has either planned too much/too little or has not included enough variety/engaging activities in her homeschool lesson plans. Follow along as I show you ways that you can lighten your load without compromising learning while adding in some truly awesome extras!

Now, I hear you. If your load is heavy, why am I suggesting that you ADD something?! Well, I am actually going to offer suggestions for both replacing time-consuming (or otherwise challenging) things and including resources if you are currently left lacking at the end of your homeschool days. Hopefully, you’ll find something helpful in this series that will bless you and your family.

If you’d rather watch a video version of
this review, head to YouTube!

In this post, I am highlighting a wonderfully simple way to lighten your load for Preschool/Pre-K/Kindergarten. I do love to keep things simple for those early years. I love reading, doing crafts, singing songs and playing games with my little learner. It can be somewhat of a challenge, however, to fit in all the things you want to do with the littles when you’ve also got older students you are teaching. A bright book with a hands-on activity built in is a perfect fit for us! Enter the First Sticker Book – Jobs from Timberdoodle to lighten this mama’s load! I am delighted with what we found!

We used this book as something “to count as school work” so that my little miss felt included in homeschool time. She is 4 and doesn’t want to be left out of anything! I was so happy with the quality of the book – both the pages and the stickers. Oftentimes, stickers rip easily, causing tears and misery (lol!) that mama can’t seem to soothe. Thankfully, we did not experience any tears while using this book.

The first and last page layouts have placement guides (yellow shadows), but the majority of the book allows for free play and creativity. We started each page by reading a brief, yet valuable introduction at the top. I was really surprised that those little snippets started so many conversations about how to get a job, why we need money, the skills needed for certain jobs and whether or not she would like a certain profession. After discussing the “scene” of the page, my daughter decided where she should put the stickers based on the illustration. Here is a completed layout of the shopping mall page:

I found this book beneficial beyond the mere busyness effect. It really provided an opportunity to introduce the ideas of economy, the value of money, the way communities work and the importance of hard work. She now better understands why Daddy leaves each day because she “learned about it in her school book.”

So here’s my idea to lighten your load for all you homeschoolers of Kindergartners. Although this is in the Timberdoodle Pre-K package, I think you could easily use this in Kindergarten to bring basic social studies topics to mind without adding much time to your day. It is a really simple way to add value without piling on too much. If you wanted to take it further you could take two weeks (one day each week) to cover each profession highlighted in the sticker book. One week, do the sticker activity. During the second week, find a video – or better yet, take a field trip – to observe the job in action! It’s easy peasy social studies for the littles that sure to brighten your day.

Find the next post in this series here. If you’d like to go back to the beginning of the series, click here.