Kumon Cutting Skills and Mazes

by Debora
(San Diego, CA)

Product: Kumon Cutting and Mazes workbooks
Subject: Preschool
Levels Used: PK & 5-7 year olds
Dates Used: 2009


We are currently using Kumon workbooks for supplements for our 4,6,& 8 year olds. I use the cutting skills for my 4 year old and he loves them. We use one per day. I am using the mazes ("Things That Go" and "Around the World") for my 6 & 8 year old boys who love mazes. They are allowed to do one maze/day when they are done with the rest of their schoolwork. It is motivating and fun for them, and the mazes get more difficult as you work through the book.

The cutting skills book starts with straight lines, and progresses gradually to diagonal lines and eventually gets to cutting things out and even has some pasting or taping projects to make things. My 4 year old has been doing one per day, and his favorite thing so far was to make a very long train by cutting along the lines and then taping his strips together (we used clear packing tape so his whole train is laminated). The pages are colorful and made from thick paper that is easy to cut.

The one thing I don't like about these books is that the pages are not perforated. The adult is supposed to cut the pages out of the book before giving them to the child, but the line to cut on was covered by the binding. I ended up tearing off the entire cover of the cutting book so that the entire top of each page is showing as I get to it. Then I can tear the page off and cut off the part that was bound together with the others.

Overall, these books are a great resource for skills that are often overlooked.