| Recommended Age: | 5+ |
| Cost: | $24.99 each set |
| Company Site: | www.educationalinsights.com |
| Our Recommended Age: | 4+ (Parental supervision and assistance probably needed) |
| Note: | Pen requires 2 AAA batteries (not included) Compatible with any Hot Dots or Hot Dots Jr. card sets or activity sets |
| Contents: | 2 spiral-bound interactive card sets with 200+ activities, a Hot Dots® Jr. Pete the Cat®–Your Groovin’ Schoolin’ Friend pen, an award certificate, and reward stickers |
| Skills: | Promotes hip, interactive learning and offers ample practice time Develops early learning skills necessary for school success Provides confidence-building feedback Encourages independent, self-paced learning |
Educational Insights makes a LOT of fun educational things but one in particular is now part of our homeschool curriculum for my Diva. Hot Dots® Jr. Pete the Cat® I Love Kindergarten! and Hot Dots® Jr. Pete the Cat® Kindergarten Rocks! Set are perfect for learning Kindergarten skills like math, reading, science, and so much more!
We decided to homeschool the Diva instead of sending her to PreK. She was pretty much learning Kindergarten skills as it was so we started there. I was looking into Hot Dots when we were given the opportunity to review their two Kindergarten sets….perfect timing!
Each set comes with two booklets and one Pete “pen” or pointer? They are the same Pete so we keep one as a backup but only use one which works for both sets. He is made out of that hard plastic but is very detailed.
You can feel the ridges on his shoe laces! The paint doesn’t chip off or rub off either which is awesome…I always hated ending up with a shape of a thing but without the paint you can’t tell what it really was.
He has exactly one button for volume adjustment, an area for the 2 AA batteries required in his back, and of course the feels like rubber button on the bottom of the “pen” for all of the answering in the booklets. Did I mention his eyes light up? They sure do and it makes my Diva giggle.
His eyes turn Green and plays a little tune when you got the answer right but makes a boing type noise but not the low pitch kind, the higher springier sounding kind and his eyes turn Red when you are wrong. I like it because it isn’t exactly a negative noise. It lets her know the answer is wrong but in a way that isn’t…super negative hehe…like a buzzer or something.
It also doesn’t focus too much on the praise. Just a little tune and green eyes which is also good…I think I might read too many articles on parenting. No one knows for sure but that is a different post! I like letting them know they are right or wrong but without too much focus on either and this does just that. Perfect amounts of both.
It is also very well made. The booklets are spiral bound and that plastic dry erase marker material but the inside parts are just a special paper so don’t actually use dry erase markers. It DOES work on the cover though…we found that out the hard way…but it came off easily. Luckily she didn’t try it on the inside part of the book.
The books have questions and puzzles of sorts for kids to work through but unless they can read you will want to help them through it. My husband works with the Diva on this when he is home from work. it is their homeschool time she says hehe.
He asks the questions or reads what she needs to do and then she will answer on her own using Pete. They skip around in the different books but the first time they went in order. It is hard to know what areas she needs more work on but honestly if she answers correctly and knows it then its just reinforcing it anyway.
Bouncing around to random ones helps her to actually learn things instead of memorizing the right answer. When you select your answer you put the pen over the black circle on the page that represents the answer and push down. You don’t have to push down hard at all and Pete will respond with Green or Red eyes.
If she gets it wrong she keeps guessing but my husband also likes to go over them to make sure she knows why it was wrong or why the right answer is right. The questions vary and are too many to go into detail but a few of them are:
What letters is missing?, Which pictures matches, What number comes next, Which are SHAPE, Which are alive, Matching a number to the right amount, Correct time and so many more and all are perfect for reinforcing or teaching skills for Kindergarten or even Preschool.
There is no particular order to the questions or problems which is also nice. Your child can work on a lot of different skills at the same time instead of just focusing on missing letters or matching numbers. We do this method in our homeschool work so it was a perfect fit.
If you are looking for fun ways to teach or supplement your Prek or Kindergartner Hot Dots Jr are perfect! They even grow with your child using the older sets!
Show us how your kids Rock with Pete the Cat and Hot Dots Jr! @MyGeeklings @ed_insights
