Educational Insights Hot Dots Getting Ready For School! Set, Interactive Toddler Workbooks, 4+

The Hot Dots Jr. "Getting Ready for School" set was perfect for my daughter (age 5) and for my students entering Kindergarten. The talking pen allows the child to select his/her answer to the question and hear a sound or phrase to indicate whether their response was correct or incorrect. The cards cover a variety of topics like alphabet, colors, and more! This is also a great toy to have in the car.

This is a fun and interactive way for kids to learn. My 3 yo son went to daycare but because of Covid is now at home. It's a perfect tool for at home learning. He loves the dog pen, it provides instant feedback for him when the pen lights up and speaks. There is also a nice range of content. My 2 yo also dabs into the easier pages. Highly recommend this for preschoolers!

This is a fun and interactive way for kids to learn. My 3 yo son went to daycare but because of Covid is now at home. It's a perfect tool for at home learning. He loves the dog pen, it provides instant feedback for him when the pen lights up and speaks. There is also a nice range of content. My 2 yo also dabs into the easier pages. Highly recommend this for preschoolers!

We love this product. It works as a refresher for my eldest who is in Kindergarten and my youngest who is just beginning to become interested in learning. The only thing that I wish that came with it was something to hold all the cards and maybe another reader other than Ace. We have about ten of him with every Hot Dots package we get.

We homeschool and lately the 3 year old (3-1/2 really) has been wanting to do school, but with the busyness of Christmas, his "school" has kind of fallen off the radar. Instead of just reading to him, we've been doing these a few mornings and week and he has been loving it. He absorbs a lot just interacting with his sisters. These have been a perfect way to do some focused learning, just with him, without having to coordinate things or spend a bunch of time planning. This kit has 5 sets of cards. The Colors and patterns set has activities like, what is the same, what should it be, identifying word names (worthless IMO--I don't agree with sight word stuff) and what colors are in the picture. The Shapes set has activities like which shapes are the same, which matches the first, which are in the picture, and which is next in the pattern. Learning the alphabet includes matching letters to the first item (both upper and lower) and then picking all items that match the Ul combo at the beginning of the row. Let's Learn Numbers has you identifying the numeral through a series of which are the same and then counting exercises. The uppercase/lowercase set has things like giving you the upper and selecting the lower from a choice of two. As it gets more advanced, you pick from a larger list or find the box with the correctly paired set. These are perfect for us right now. He has great success with many things he already knows and there are several things for us to work on together. I like the succession of information (for the most part). The only thing I DON'T like is that the cards are sequential in content, but they are all loose cards. A book or a bound set of cards would be much easier (and frankly, make less of a mess!). All in all, though, I really like these and would recommend them.

My daughter received this three months ago for Christmas. As an educator and a parent, I was happy to see a product that encourages readiness skills while playing. She has used it a few times and the pen only works intermittently. It signals a wrong answer when the answer is correct. She becomes frustrated and I am disappointed.

I love the idea of this and was really excited to try it with my children. My son gets very frustrated with the pen because it isn't always right. I watch my son pick the right answers and the pen says he's wrong all the time. The whole point of this is to be a fun way to learn and by not working correctly, it kind of defeats the purpose of it. I still use the cards to teach without the pen, so there's that, I guess.

My son received this as a gift and was very excited about it. Unfortunately, ACE is wrong most of the time. We have tried helping him and use the pen ourselves but most of the time he says answers are wrong when they are not. It is very confusing for our son, so I am going to keep the cards but am throwing out ACE. Very disappointed!

4 yr was gifted for the holidays what I thought was a cute educational set, yet the Ace pen keeps saying sorry, nope , incorrect. changed the batteries just in case but still getting only red eyes.

If the Pup pen actually worked it would be a fun toy. Great concept, bright colors fun pup light up pen, but when it says Sorry, Incorrect and try again when they do it right that is not good, I sat with them to make sure they were doing it right it started out missing 1 in 5 now it doesn't do anything right put new batteries several times hoping that would fit it. and left them out thinking it could re boot it somehow, but nothing worked. I still have 4 year olds that would love to play this Cute idea but needs work on the pup pen