"Did you know that kids could lose up to 2.5 months of learning throughout the summer? This can make for a rough start to the school year for kids, parents and teachers but it is fully preventable with just a little learning each day.

According to a study by Johns Hopkins University, by ninth grade, then lack of summer learning can be blamed for roughly two-thirds of the achievement gap."

About Summer Bridge:
The Summer Bridge Activities workbook and fact cards are designed to review skills that children have learned in the previous school year as well as preview new skills to be learned in the upcoming school year. This helps to prevent losses in learning that frequently occur during the summer months.

"The three sections in the workbook correspond to the three months of traditional summer vacation. Each section begins with a goal-setting activity, a word list, and information for parents about the fitness and character development activities located throughout the section. Bonus extension activities that encourage outdoor learning, science experiments, and social studies exercises are located at the end of each section. Stickers, flash cards, and a colorful award certificate are also included.

The Summer Bridge Activities Fact Cards are a great companion to the award-winning workbook series, providing hours of fun for everyone. This boxed set includes two decks of 79 full-color cards, which are held together with a corner grommet to keep the cards from getting lost and to make it easy for children of all ages to hold and flip through the cards no matter where they are. The set includes 158 cards featuring hundreds of preschool to kindergarten activities such as jokes, math, fun facts, language arts, word play, picture puzzles and mind-bogglers. All of the activities are self-checking, the answers provided on the back of each card."

My Take:
I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to take a look at the pre-K to Kindergarten Summer Bridge learning pack, and I love it! The activities in the workbook are perfect for kids ages 4-5. Each day has its own page to complete, so it won't take the child very long. Also, each activity promotes learning while still being fun for a child - coloring, counting, tracing, matching, etc. This particular workbook focuses on phonics, handwriting, counting, science, fitness and other early learning skills. I feel as though if a child were to complete the entire workbook over the summer that he would be far ahead of the curve beginning the next school year. There's also an online learning companion with games and other learning activities for children.

I also love the fact cards! The fact that all of the cards are held together is a huge plus. In this house, separated, those cards would be missing as soon as they came out of the box! This way I never have to worry about losing even one. The jokes, facts, and puzzles are all age-appropriate and would encourage learning through fun by finding hidden shapes, answering riddles, and learning new jokes. I even had fun trying to find all of the circles in one picture - it was not easy! These cards would keep my kids occupied for hours.

Also included in my package were two adorable sun-shaped notepads, a set of sea life mini incentive charts with stickers and two packages of sea life themed name tags, which I would use to encourage my kids to do their daily activity.

Cost:
The Summer Bridge Activities Workbook is $14.95 + shipping, and Summer Bridge Activities Activity Cards are $8.95 per package + shipping.

Giveaway:
How would you like to win a Summer Bridge Activities gift pack? a Rafflecopter giveaway We were sent a Summer Bridge Activities gift pack free of charge for the sole purpose of this review; no other compensation was received. All opinions expressed are my own.