What’s Hiding within this Extreme Dot to Dot?

Whether you’re looking for visual processing exercises in disguise or quick, take-along math work for a busy day out, look no further than Extreme Dot to Dot. Need some incognito handwriting help? Quiet-time math worksheets? Place value practice? Extreme Dot to Dot helps with that too! I received the Woodland edition of the Extreme Dot to Dot from Timberdoodle in exchange for our honest review.

Wondering what we think? Read on my friend.

Honestly, the concept of dot to dot is pretty straight forward, so to speak.

I’d be surprised to hear if someone hadn’t done at least one dot to dot worksheet somewhere along the way. Then what makes this version extreme you ask? What makes it interesting even to my tween kids?

Yes I have tween kids now. Somehow they keep growing up every year.

I will tell you what makes Extreme Dot to Dot unique: there are thousands of dots.

T H O U S A N D S.

Maybe you’re thinking, well that sounds tedious, as I was. But in fact my upper elementary kids find the work both equal parts challenging and fun. They love the woodland animals they end up with. They love the mega fold out sheets they get to show off at the end. It feels like a big work, when in fact it’s pretty simple.

The repetition is dare I say, even relaxing. I find my kids focused, engaged and concentrating — hard at work.

(Always signs of correct educational procedure, yes?!).

What I love the most though, is that it makes for a wonderful self-correcting visual processing work. I have two big kids with dyslexia. Both girls struggle and cope differently with their reading challenges. My oldest, who is officially diagnosed with a visual processing disorder, struggles most with flipping letters and numbers. She cannot process 12 from 21 unless the place value is color-coded a la traditional Montessori math.

While this makes a lot of stuff frustrating, Extreme Dot to Dot is a fun challenge that she will sit with in 10-15 min intervals and work on. No fighting and no struggles there. It’s a dot to dot with animal pictures after all. What’s threatening about making animal pictures in short step by step increments?

She can strengthen her eyes and practice connecting the visual components to the mental processes. She has to hold the numbers in her mind and that helps with visual memory. While she draws the lines she’s using visual sequencing and motor integration skills. Extreme Dot to Dot work is deceptively place value as well as visual processing work.

But that’s not all — it’s handwriting work in disguise. Have a kid who struggles with dysgraphia? Or just messy, messy, godawful handwriting? (I will raise my hand here).

Guess what — if you don’t make the neat, exacting lines that connect the dot to the actual dot (again visual processing skills), then you will not get an animal picture.

Or at least not an animal that commonly occurs in nature. Yay for self-correcting work.

So to sum up, dot to dots aren’t just fun. They’re for handwriting, visual processing, thinking about place value, developing concentration, and even an easy, peezy grab and go material you can bring to a doctor’s office or place on your math shelf as an alternative to more traditional work. We’re busy people. We use these books. We love them. We’re so glad Timberdoodle gave us the hook up because otherwise I don’t think I would have believed the value hiding within these thousands of dots. I’d recommend it for any elementary-aged kid and up.

If you’d like to pick up a copy, visit this link: Extreme Dot to Dot World of Dots: Woodland.

Also Michael would like me to tell you he can pogo stick with no hands.
Do what you will with this knowledge.