You Zoo Book Review

I ordered a book a couple weeks ago called The You Zoo.  It is a wonderful tool written by Jami Kirkbride and Kathryn Robbins.  This book is a wonderful personality assessment tool to allow you to get to know your children better.  Not only that, but it assesses the parent and gives wonderful examples of how parent and child can work together.  

Let me give you some detail.

The book is a story format.  You read about four monkeys in the zoo.  These monkeys make their way through 12 scenarios.  You read how each monkey handles the situation and the child chooses which monkey they are most like.  It was so simply laid out for my kids to complete.  I have an 8yr old and 6 yr old and they did wonderfully.  I could tell they felt like one answer might be "right".  As the books instructions direct the parent, there is no wrong answer.  If I really felt they were choosing an answer way out of their norm, we would just discuss it.  If you need to break it into multiple settings, to the authors let you know that it doesn't have to be completed all at once.  You can come back and see if the child answers the same way if you feel like confirming an answer.  I hope that doesn't make it sound like it was hard, or work- It was fun and easy.  My girls breezed through it and asked if we could do it again the next day.  They loved the time reading it with me and felt valued knowing I wanted to hear their answers.  

I thought it evaluated them quite precisely.  It placed them right where they should be.  We now know better what their strengths and weaknesses are.

After doing the parent evaluation (which also pegged me right on)  there is a section that helps you know your child better.

 

(trying to take photos that don't give away the great content :)

Then there is a section of parenting tips that match parents personality and how to work with each type of child personality.

The book ends with a FAQ section and information on how to contact the authors for additional info.  I have contacted one of them, Jami, and she was so sweet in responding and even signed my copy before sending the book.  Her note in the front of my book "God bless your zoo!"  How'd she know?  LOL!!

I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to know their child or student better.  This is a great classroom resource and was even piloted at a school.  The teachers had great things to say about this assessment.

For something that seems like fun to the children it is truly a blessed way to get to know them more. I have found myself checking the parenting tips several times since the books arrival to see the suggestions and how they can help my "zoo".

You can find it on Amazon or at YouZooKids.com