The Great New Zealand Swimming Puzzle Book product reviews

The Great Kiwi Swimming Puzzle Book is such a fantastic resource to have for a teacher! Instantly I was impressed by the activities inside and how they are designed to keep children engaged and interested and allows the children to add colour via coloured felt tips, crayons or coloured pencils, which is a perfect option for younger children. The graphics within the Great Kiwi Swimming Puzzle Book are based upon kids having safe fun around water, whether at the beach or at a swimming pool.

The Great Kiwi Swimming Puzzle Book offers advice for teachers or parents to help educate children of all ages about water safety and I especially like the 'Look What I Can Do!' check list pages, these pages would look great photocopied onto coloured card or laminated for each child in the class (as the book gives permission to copy the pages for classroom use) and displayed around the school pool area and ticked off or a sticker added when the child achieves the task. Young children especially love sticker reward charts as this a great motivational way for children to learn.

From a teaching perspective the activities within the Great Kiwi Swimming Puzzle Book cover all age groups, there are simple enough activities for under 5's to complete and more complicated activities like the 'Code Breakers' and pages where letters within the words are missing which are more aimed at children aged over 10 years maybe; and there is even something for adults to do, as the book always contains crosswords and word finds if you are that way inclined to have a turn and do the activities in the book.

Having the answers on hand at the back of the book allows the children to check or 'cheat' if they find the activities too hard or want to check to see if they have completed the activity correctly, or for the teacher or parent to check on the answers as well to credit the children with the right answers.

The Great Kiwi Swimming Puzzle Book is a great book to have and learn from as New Zealand is surrounded by water and we have beautiful beaches and growing up as KIWI we live at the beaches and around our swimming pool each and every summer so being water smart is essential, and what better way for children to learn about something important be doing something fun! And for $10 buying this book is a necessary purchase to keep our children safe, plus it isn't going to break the bank, which is always a bonus!

I was lucky enough to take the Great Kiwi Swimming Puzzle Book away with me to the beach, to help entertain my 5 year old. My daughter enjoys activity books, but often thinks outside of the box in ways that don't work with activity books. I was interested to see a couple of things - firstly if the book would capture her attention and imagination, and secondly how educational it is.

She is almost 6 (just a few more months til her birthday). She found a number of these activities very challenging and for the activities involving writing or guessing the missing letters she skipped over them immediately. I asked and she said it was school work! So yes, the book has some educational value and if your child likes school work then they'll enjoy some of the activities in this book. Most of them are mathematics (counting, matching,sequencing, money) or handwriting/reading as well. My daughter avoided the pages where it was obviously educational to her. But almost every one she attempted was teaching or helping her practice something.

As far as capturing her imagination, it certainly did that. At one point there is an activity with money. She finished the activity and then got some spare paper out and started drawing the coins again and again. Then she cut them out and started playing shop with them. Okay, it took her away from the book. But it did encourage some freeplay which I consider an interesting win. She would also finish an activity and start drawing insects on the non-matched items, and at one point made her own activity sheet with matching native animals. Overall, we were really pleased with the book, and at 10 bucks it was great value for the hours we got out of it.

The Great Kiwi Swimming Puzzle Book has come on camping holiday with us and has been a bit of a hit with Miss Six. This is a brilliant activity book with absolutely loads of different activities to do all related to summer and water safety.

Because we are at the beach it has been great for me to be able to use this book to support discussion around water safety at the beach and to use as an educational tool to keep little minds active whilst schools out. I really like the variety of activities in this book. There are lots to get you thinking, a lot of numeracy, matching, and literary skills. At the back are five pages of information about water safety around pools, the beach, boating and rivers etc.

Miss Six has needed me to sit with her to use this book so it is probably aimed at a slightly older age to do independently, and some activities have been a little above her ability, but for the most part we have both enjoyed this book and I am really pleased that we have it. I would definitely recommend this for an activity book in general but also as a brilliant educational tool. This has definitely got the thumbs up from Miss Six and at $10 definitely good value for money.