Get the Play and Grow Kumon Book InsteadFirst off, Kumon should have just combined the “Are You Ready series” cutting and pasting skills into one book. I bought the Pasting Skills and Scissors Skills workbooks in a two pack from Costco. While the scissor skills book is pretty good because many of the activities can be done by the child alone, the Pasting Skills missed the mark because half of the project must be completed by the parent (unless your kid is really good with scissors, that is). Unlike the other cutting skills book, the lines that are around the shapes are very, very thin. Unless your kid is very proficient at using scissors, many will not be able to cut out these shapes easily. Kumon really wants the kids to focus on one thing…pasting and ONLY pasting.My 4 year old son, whom has no problems cutting out shapes from the other Kumon series books, had a much harder time trying to cut out these pencil thin lines. This is not a bad thing to give something more challenging to your child, but for my daughter who is not as proficient with scissors, it was downright frustrating for her. She hated having to wait for me to cut everything out, and got upset when she tried to cut these thin lines and ended up butchering the tiny shapes. A better pasting book is the Play and Grow: Cutting and Pasting Paper (Play & Grow Workbook) . With that workbook, you get things for your child to cut out, then paste into the book. There is also a story included with each project. One thing my kids did like about this book was that there were puzzles to glue together. Again, you will have to cut it out, otherwise the puzzle will not look that great.The paper stock for this workbook is thin and shiny, which makes it okay to paste, but definitely something you will need to cut out. All in all, there are better activity books available from Kumon…I would pass on this until your child is older and highly proficient with scissors.
