Penpals At Home (Review)

Maybe it’s the teacher in me that made me jump at the chance to review Cambridge University Press’s Penpals At Home books. Or maybe it’s that I’m just a mum who is fully aware that my little man will be starting pre-school in a couple of months and the more I can do to help his progress the better.

We’ve really encouraged his counting and he can quite confidently write his name (if you don’t mind that the letters are all different sizes and all over the page) but I loved the idea of being able to help him start to write more, especially as he loves having a pen in his hand.

As my little man is almost three we started with the Getting Ready For Handwriting book. I loved the bright colours and simple instructions on each page. It’s also great that (as long as you use a wipe-clean pen) the pages can be re-used over and over again.

O loved the first couple of pages and managed pretty well with the dots.

He did start to struggle with the later pages. One thing I learnt about my son through working with him on this is that he rushes his work. When it came to the pages where there were more lines to be drawn he would speed through it and the results weren’t great.

But when encouraged to take his time and concentrate he was much, much better.

I did worry that perhaps O was a little bit young to be starting to think about writing but he really enjoyed writing in the book and was so pleased when he managed to keep on the lines. We’ll definitely be using it on a regular basis to improve his writing skills and progressing to the Forming Letters book when he’s ready.

At the moment that may be a while off!

Disclosure: We were sent two of the Penpals at Home range books for review purposes but all thoughts and opinions are my own. The Penpals At Home books can be ordered through Amazon or direct from Cambridge University Press for £4.99 each.