Summer Bridge Activities®, Grades 3 - 4

Summer Bridges is the best way to keep my children going thorough the summer and be ready for the next grade. It is exactly what it is titled Summer Bridges will give your child the self confidence they need and when homework starts up again they say " I did this in my Bridges Book! " . No need for my sons to cry and be over whelmed with not understanding the subject matter. These books cover everything and keep them interested. My kids have used these for years ! I have friends who have homeschooled and used these books to learn everything they need for assessment time. I used to worry and pull out my hair trying to teach my kids when they were In thier grades. Now I keep them one year ahead . So my son is in third grade and he is doing the 3-4 grade book on weekends while he does his class homework during the week. It may seem a bit much but just a page a day and it makes a world of difference! No more tears! I will be buying these books until my sons are ready for college or as far as they run. No need for a computer or laptop which is nice and yes they need these skills as well but this goes everywhere with us and they see how they are learning more everyday. These books are a moms secret weapon for keeping your child from loosing skills over summer. Sure they may not want to work but consistency is not an option and my sons know they must do their page before they go play. Trust me you will be happy you enforced it over the summer when home work comes and they have forgotten how to do basic math. They will be at the top of their class if you simply keep them working over the summer. Get prepared for what is coming as school today is not what it was when I was young. 3rd grade work is what I did in 5th grade! It's gotten crazy and there is no way out . If you are a parent who needs a tutor and and afford one this is the answer! I no longer worry about how they will get through the next year as they get exposed to it with the Bridges System. Thanks to Summer Bridges my sons are not behind anymore! They are one step ahead!

We have used the Summer Bridge series for all 3 kids for the past 4 years. The books do a great job providing some structured learning for the kids over the summer. Do not expect this to be a summer tutor or be something to advance their skills. What it does well is give your kids some refresher activities to do on a daily/weekly basis just to keep their brains from turning to mush. What we really like about the Summer Bridge series is that there are "extra credit" tasks that really do go beyond their regular lessons, plus there are physical activities for the kids to perform at the end of each week. There are enough lessons to do one every day all summer long - about 15-20 min per page. Or you can group them and have your kids do a couple of hours of work in a block each week. Do not expect this to be something to keep your kids occupied for a couple of hours each day nor should you expect this to teach your kids alot of new things. It is a review / refresher approach that just keeps kids in the habit of engaging their brains!

If my son was writing this review, I'm sure it wouldn't receive as many stars. My kids are not thrilled that they have to do homework over the summer, but I can see how these sheets will keep them better prepared for school in August. The sheets don't take long to do, and it's supposed to only be one sheet a day. The problem is we get busy and skip a day so sometimes they need to double up. The only reason I give this book 4 stars instead of 5 is that the math is all over the place. One day I had to teach my son how to multiply two 2 digits numbers, but the next day he was subtracting 14-8. I don't mind that he's learning new things, but it caused a big fight which is never fun.

Last year, we sold our house and it took forever for the sale to go through and then it took a long time to find a house we loved so we were in limbo pretty much the whole school year. So my kids didn't have the greatest report cards. My friend told me about these books and I had my kids 7 and 8 do the books. They fought me and even quoted me "Summers are for relaxing and having fun!" Well I have found that 20 minutes a day to do these pages have helped them immensely!!! Even though we are only into the 3rd week of school. My kids are doing so much better than last year. When it comes to learning new things, my daughter is grasping it much easier because she was doing the third grade review and the fourth grade level and she just went into fourth grade and things are coming to her so much better! Highly recommend!!!

Honestly, I am not sure how this book works by itself but I did use this in supplement to my daughter receiving tutoring from her future 4th grade teacher over the summer. My daughter liked the exercises in the book because they took relatively little time to complete, and they didn't drain her to the point where she hated to study or learn. She has ADHD and they actually were just right for her attention span. I felt the exercises were relatively self explanatory, at least for me, and she was able to complete the assignments successfully. I only give it 4 stars because as stated earlier I am not totally sure of its helpfulness by itself without supplemental instruction.

This workbook has a good mix of easy and more challenging material. The directions are easy to follow and they cover a wide range of topics. I also like that they have some fitness extras for them to do on some of the pages. This gets my active guy up between worksheets which is helpful. My biggest complaint is that there is only one double sided page per day. My kids go through that in about 10 minutes. I would like to see a couple of pages each day rather than one.

We have been using the Summer Bridge Activities workbooks every summer for the last 3-years. It is by far my favorite as the activities are challenging enough that the school work is relevant but broken down in a way that my kids are not fighting me to do the work. The pages rip out, which makes the book seem less daunting as the summer goes by, and makes it easy is I want to tear some out and bring to a park or alongside the pool to pass time. Amazons price point beat out going to our local book store and buying one by a good $5! Worth it!

I bought this for my daughter, as she is keen on Maths and needs to support her English. She normally loves doing the summer workbooks I buy for her in English, as she goes to school in a different language. I was very disappointed in the level of work provided. I am not sure what they teach in the US, but the level was at least a year below where it should have been. I used to teach the third grade in an inner-city school and it was below what I would have taught in September to disadvantaged children. It was so easy my daughter was offended by it, and refused to do any work. I was forced to buy another workbook from a European publisher which is a better level for her. A HUGE waste of money!