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My almost 5 year old loves doing independent practice activities during school work time. I bought a few “morning work” kindergarten language arts and math packets from teachers pay teachers that have been perfect for her. I really liked the quick review and practice of grade level concepts that she gets on these pages and I wondered if I could find something comparable for my other elementary aged children. I came across Evan-Moor’s Daily Fundamentals series for grades 1-6 and decided to give it a try. This review includes my experiences using this book series with my 1st, 3rd, and 5th graders.
Overview
Daily Fundamentals provides a quick 1-page practice of grade level language, math, and reading skills. The content covered gradually increases in difficulty throughout the week and year. The book also includes an answer key, a student record form, and a skills scope and sequence chart.
Benefits of Daily Fundamentals
Try Before You Buy
I love when I can get a good preview of curriculum so I have an idea of if it will be a good fit for my children. I love it more when I can try out a curriculum before I buy it. Evan-Moor has free samples of many of the popular products so you can try before you buy. CLICK HERE for your free sample of Daily Fundamentals.
Review Promotes Retention and Mastery
If you learn a skill and then never use it, it is easy to forget the concept. Reviewing mastered content in a spiral fashion is a great way to promote retention and maintain mastery of skills. Daily Fundamentals provides that spiral review in both math and language arts skills to ensure the child is maintaining mastery of grade level concepts.
Quick Assessment Tool to Check for Mastery and Missing Skills
Since we started using this fundamentals book series mid-year, I expected my children would know the content covered during the first weeks. So far we have come across two different issues with mastery and missing skills as follows:
Mastery Not Maintained
As one of my children worked through his Daily Fundamentals pages, he had forgotten about exponents in math. We have covered those extensively in his math curriculum this year, but he had forgotten how to do them. We reviewed how to complete the problems and then he was able to do them. Without Daily Fundamentals, I would not have realized that we may need to review some math concepts more frequently.
Missing Skills
I realized that my 5th grader had not yet covered comparative and superlative adjectives when this came up in his Daily Fundamentals work. I ended up getting and starting him on Evan-Moor’s Language Fundamentals for 5th grade to ensure we don’t have any more gaps in his language arts skills. CLICK HERE to read my review of Language Fundamentals.
Conclusion on Daily Fundamentals
I love how Daily Fundamentals provides a quick review and practice of skills. I also like how it serves as a quick assessment tool of grade level concepts. If we haven’t covered a concept, I know we need to go back and address it. If my children have forgotten a concept or struggle with one of the skills that come up, I can go back and review it. I highly recommend using Daily Fundamentals. This is one I will keep using every year. CLICK HERE to go to Evan-Moor’s website for more information and to see sample pages of Daily Fundamentals.
Daily Fundamentals is on sale for 20% off through 12/31/19. CLICK HERE for details and coupon code.