Dot-to-Dot Stories

Anne Hutchings, a former elementary-school teacher-librarian with the
Durham Board of Education, is an educational consultant.

These six new combination colouring/activity workbooks in the popular
Kids Can Learn with Franklin series are sure to be equally popular with
children, parents, and teachers as the earlier titles (First Phonics,
Alphabet Mazes, Vocabulary Puzzles, Printing Practice, Numbers, Math
Stories: Addition, Math Stories: Subtraction, and Measurement).
Identical in format, the books include guidelines for parents, a
detailed outline of the concepts and skills developed, and suggestions
for additional activities. Each activity page lists the specific skills
and curriculum connections targeted.

In Ready for Printing (Pre-K), the focus is primarily on pencil control
and eye–hand coordination. Practice is encouraged through a variety of
interesting tasks. Building on the skills already developed, Printing
(K) shifts the focus to using the correct sequence of strokes, form, and
orientation to print actual letters. More Phonics (Grade 1) helps young
students recognize initial and final consonants, long and short vowels,
rhyming words, and “s” and “l” blends. More Numbers (K–Grade
1) involves counting to 100 by ones, twos, fives, and 10s, and
recognizing the order of numbers, groupings, and so forth.

Money (Grade 1) reinforces recognition of one-cent, five-cent/nickel,
and 10–cent/dime coins, and promotes counting and using different
combinations of coins (cutouts of coins are provided as an alternative
to real ones). Dot-to-Dot Stories (Grade 1) combines math (tasks
requiring counting and recognizing the order of numbers to 100) and
language (printing and creative-writing activities).

A centrefold of each book features four punch-out Franklin collector
cards, colour-coded according to subject (e.g., Turtle Toys,
Franklin’s Friends, Places in the Woodland, etc.). These may be used
for counting, sorting, categorizing, or as the basis for games, such as
“Go Fish.”

Each book includes a certificate of achievement to be presented to the
child on completion. All of the books in the series are reproducible for
classroom use. Recommended.