Homeschool Review Crew - Panda Parents

I was thrilled to get a chance to review the MESSYLEARNING FOR PRESCHOOLERS AND KINDERGARTNERS from PandaParents.

What is the MESSYLEARNING FOR PRESCHOOLERS AND KINDERGARTNERS?

M.E.S.S.Y. stands for:

(M)ixed subjects and activities for integrated learning
(E)ngaging questions that challenge young childrens' brains
(S)imple 1,2,3 steps - Read, Learn, Create
(S)mart designs for creative learning
(Y)eah! A new way to promote early brain growth

Each part of the program includes:

• a digital pdf book
• online videos
• a digital pdf workbook 

The program is intended to be used 2-3 days a week for 20-30 minutes. Your little one learns reading, math, science, and art while completing activities all in one course. Read together anywhere and anytime, engage your child in stories, questions and quizzes by playing games, answering questions and solving problems and doing art projects together. The books are real stories portrayed in read-to-me videos.

I received downloads in PDF and video form for three-months' worth of lessons. The lessons I received came in a pdf storybook, pdf workbook and on-screen video format. The idea of the 3-part program is to have parent and child:

Read the story
Watch/Learn the story
Create the story

While the stories are currently in a digital format, they are not mindless computer games or cartoons. They are intended to be used with a parent and child interacting and engaging in learning activities together.

Each of the stories are a 40-page PDF PowerPoint style download e-book with accompanying 40-51 page workbooks that can be printed for use. For each story, I also received access to view Vimeo videos. Each of the videos ranged in watching time from 5 minutes (Mommy's Baby) to 10 minutes (A Jollly Jingling journey) to 30 minutes (Scotty Skunk Hears a Scary Sound) in length:

The stories we got to explore included:

Scotty Skunk Hears a Scary Sound - The story starts with a child who is not wanting to go to sleep, so the mom reminds him of how scary sounds once scared a skunk who sprayed him. This memory prompts the child to ask for a bedtime story about a skunk, so the mom tells of a skunk who explores many adventures throughout the seasons and finally finds his way home. It cleverly walks you through all four seasons using S sounds of words as much as possible and every so often inserting an activity for the child to interact with onscreen (just like the pages of an actual book. It is not an online game). At the end of the story, there are a few questions to ask your child to see if the story sunk in, and these accompany the child interacting in a hands-on way such as finding a tractor in the story, or how many trains you count in the story.

Mommy's Baby - This adorable sweet story is about the love of a mama for her baby. The mommy in the story is a Panda and compares her baby to a series of fun and silly things, such as asking, "Are you my little muffin?" To which, the baby says, "Yes, I'm your blueberry  muffin." It goes on making many comparisons with the mommy and the baby interacting with questions and loving answers. Some of the comparisons are teddy bear, pillows, peaches, kangaroo, tiger, rectangle, diamond, pumpkin, starfish, penguins, and monkeys. Finally, mommy says it's time for bed and asks if Amanda (baby) is mommy's little Panda. The story is followed by interactive questions such as how many hearts did you see, how many orange things did Amanda pretend to be, and, "Is Amanda getting ready for school?" (Hint, no. She's getting ready for bed).

A Jolly Jingling Journey -  This PDF actually contains two stories. The first one is Book 1 A Jubilant Surprise - a Journey where a 6-year-old boy named Davy who falls asleep and dreams of flying and meets Santa as they fly through an adventurous journey to the North Pole and discover the J is the same shape as a candy cane. The story emphasizes the letter J and its sound. Interspersed in the story pages is an activity page where the child is asked to find hidden objects and a page filled with questions about the story about halfway through.

The Book 2 is an Epic Journey that tells the story of Davy, Dahu, and Magnus traveling across the frozen lakes to help Santa find his missing reindeer. The end has questions that make the child think.

How Did We Use It?

Since the program is currently completely in digital format, anything I wanted to use with pen to paper would need to be printed. Feel free to have the workbooks printed if you really want the complete workbook in your hands as I'm sure this would be quite lovely and enriching, but I really wanted to save on paper and printer ink, so I found an easy way to use what I needed to use on-screen without excessive printing.

Some of the activities absolutely called for printing, such as assembling a small booklet or designing this panda. So, I was happy to save my printer toner for these:

I was able to access the videos and the storybooks online and did not feel the need to print any of those, though I do love paper, hand-held books, the online e-book has its place and certainly saves much needed book space. I was able to download it to my phone as well, so it didn't even cut back on the mama to child cuddle time that bedtime stories seem to call for.

I thought I might need to print the workbook pages to fully enjoy them, but I found a way to use it on-screen for the most part, and it doesn't take a lot of technological know-how to use it in this way. While there are so much colorful illustrations and graphics throughout that I absolutely loved, when I printed the workbook pages for use, I chose to print them in black and white to save toner. My daughter loves to color anyway, so I thought it could be a bonus to have her add color if she felt like the black and white needed a boost.

I was able to use most of the workbook pages online in the Edge browser on my touch-screen laptop that allowed for some of the activities to be done on-screen using the pen editing tools, so this saved on printing as well. The touch-screen really adds to the ease of use here, but I suppose the Edge browser could still be used with the mouse or keyboard functions instead if you don't have a touchscreen.

Even the stickers, I was able to copy and paste from and onto the pdf that I downloaded and saved to my Adobe PDF reader, which will most likely require some adult help if you have a small child using this. But, it worked and saved printing.

  

I used my clipping tool to cut out and save each sticker and then opening the saved image and copy and pasting it into the pdf. I also tried it just by using the tools within Adobe. The main difference is that the Adobe one left a black background but was easier to maneuver within the document.

What Did We Think?

Scotty Skunk Hears A Scary Sound really sneaks in clever science lessons as well.

Mommy's Baby was so fun, and it reminded me of how I have many little cute nicknames for my daughter, many of which I have no idea where they even came from, such as my little pickle.

A Jolly Jingling Journey would be perfect for a Christmas Eve bedtime story.

I think this program is well thought out offering a complete multi-sensory learning experience. I love the graphics and illustrations as well. My first reaction when I downloaded the first story was, "Oh, this is adorable!" I love it!

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Read what other members of the Homeschool Review Crew thought by clicking on the picture below: