Write & Wipe & Let’s Play Along
By Laura Pretto

As we all are aware, teaching children takes time and often an infinite amount of patience. Silver Dolphin Books, publisher of the My First Write-and-Wipe Book series, the Let’s Start Play Alongs series offers some suggestions to help teach your children while providing them with fun activities.

The Write-and-Wipe series consists of four books that focus on alphabet, animals and numbers, while the Play & Learn edition deals with object identification. Most of the activities appearing in the books, which are aimed at three-to-five year old children, require children to make use of dry-erase markers (included with the books).

One of the best features about the Write-and-Wipe books is that they use the age old tradition of following the dotted line to teach children how to make letters and numbers. I learned this way, my parents learned this way, my grandparents, and so on; it is effective and simple.

The Let’s Start Play Along series is very good, provided that an adult will help the child read and follow directions. The premise these books are working with is actually fairly clever; each book has a story about an animal character’s day, and correlating activities. When Clara goes on vacation, your child can help make postcards; Timothy, the new mailman, needs help on his route.

Supplies are not all included, but each book comes with the basics: glitter, glue, markers or pencils, stickers, depending on the book. The other necessary equipment is generally found in the common household (i.e. cardboard, paintbrushes, old boxes, etc.).

The My First Write-and-Wipe Book series and the Let’s Start Play Alongs series are good, but they seem more appropriate for five-to-seven-year-olds.