Beginning Reader Books with Science Themes
Posted: March 17, 2012 Filed under: Book Reviews | Tags: book talking, easy readers, preschool science, Rebus Leave a comment »Try these non-fiction book series for very beginning readers:
Benchmark Rebus book series 
Books in this series have a sentence or two on each page with a picture standing in for several of the most common nouns. For example, one sentence looks like this:
The cannot find the
.
There are over 20 titles of Benchmark Rebus books, all on popular topics like Sunny Days, Firefighters, Octopuses, Cake!, At the Fair, etc.
At the end of these books, there is a list of the few “Challenge Words” that were included in the text. In The Rabbit in the Grass, these were “chirp,” “creeping,” “croak” and “nibbles.” Thre is also a short bibliography of kid’s books, videos, and websites that students can use to learn more about the topic in the book.
Spot the Difference books by Daniel Nunn 
The Spot the Difference series (Eyes, Ears, Mouth, and Nose) are easy-to-read, have beautiful photograph illustrations on each page, and are packed with cool facts.
These books have two, short sentences on each page with large, easy-to-read font. An example of the text from Spot the Difference: Eyes is, “This is a zebra. It has eyes on the sides of its head.” This book includes a simple table of contents, picture glossary, and index.
This is a huge series of books that has many subsections like Scholastic News Non-Fiction: Space Science (which includes the titles, The Sun, The Moon,Comets,The Earth and more.)
The titles in this series tend to be a bit longer than the first two series mentioned above, with 2-5 sentences a page. Like the above titles, however, these have great photographs, large font, appropriate vocabulary and engaging facts.
Fungus discovered that breaks down plastics!
Posted: February 5, 2012 Filed under: Chemistry, In the News, Plants | Tags: fungus, landfills, plastics, polyurethane, recycling 1 Comment »
Scientists at Yale have discovered a fungus that eats polyurethane–the plastic that we use in grocery bags, toys, food containers and thousands of other products. Since polyurethane isn’t biodegradable, these plastics would normally sit in our landfills for hundreds of years without breaking down. This fungus, Pestalotiopsis microspora, uses an enzyme (that scientists might be able to replicate without the fungus) to break down the plastics.
Wonder why an Amazonian fungus has developed to break down a substance that we associate with modern, city living? Here’s a quote from the Yale Alumni Magazine article that helps explain:
“Many microbes can do cool tricks, like degrading pollutants,” says Russell, who is beginning a doctoral program in biology at Harvard. On his list for the trip were plants producing latexes and other resins; they can harbor fungi or bacteria that may make a living off the natural plastic-like materials.
This clever fungus has one more useful adaptation–is works in either an aerobic or an anaerobic environment. That means that it doesn’t need access to oxygen to work its magic! That’s important since a lot of the plastics that have ended up in landfills are buried really deep without air and light reaching them.
Want to read more about this? There’s a great article from Popular Science that was posted online on February 1st, 2012.
Animal Group Names
Posted: January 14, 2012 Filed under: Animals, Book Reviews | Tags: animal group names Leave a comment »
Kids read these terms in our books and hear them in school, but the names that we call groups of animals can be a fun classroom lesson of its own. Some of these names are familiar, some are unusual and some are outrageous! Have you heard of the following?
- flock of sheep
- herd of cows
- litter of puppies
- swarm of bees
- school of fish
- flutter of butterflies
- pride of peacocks
- troop of baboons
- cloud of grasshoppers
- business of ferrets
- gaggle of geese
- smack of jellyfish
- murder of crows!
A couple of new books focus on this very topic and would be great for kids ages 6-9 years-old. Both A Filth of Starlings: A Compilation of Animal Group Names and A Drove of Bullocks: A Compilation of Animal Group Names by PatrickGeorge are fantastic. Each double-page spread in these boldly illustrated books features a single animal type with a humorous tie-in to the group name. For example, the page for “a pod of dolphins” shows dolphins listening to i-Pods. Using this type of illustration really helps the reader remember and relate the animal to its group name. Another title worth checking out is Diane Swanson’s A Crash of Rhinos, a Party of Jays: The Wacky Ways We Name Animal Groups. Booklist gave this book a positive review, saying it made language and science lots of fun.”
Like this:
Spider Story Time–featuring Spider Silk Tapestry
Posted: November 22, 2011 Filed under: Animals, In the News, Rhymes and Songs, Technology | Tags: Golden Orb Spider, spider silk, spider tapestry Leave a comment »I heard about the spider web tapestry several months ago and think it is stunning. Hope you like it as much as I do! Some ideas for Spider Story Time are added below.
From the American Museum of Natural History Website. AMNHR. Mickens
Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley picked up the idea of a spider web fabric tapestry from a experiment done by a French missionary, Jacob Jaul Camboué in the late 1800s. Camboué had invented a machine that would extract the silk weaving strands from spiders without harming the spiders. The spiders, after being “silked” for a few minutes could be released into the wild.
This led Peers and Godley to develop a method of putting spiders into a harness and to silk them, twisting between 96 and 960 strands of spider webbing into a single thread. These threads were then used to weave the tapestry.
The spider that Peers and Godley chose for this was the Golden Orb Spider, and they set up their shop in Madagascar. The Golden Orb Spider naturally weaves large, strong webs out of a bright gold or saffron colored webbing.
Silk, although mainly thought of as coming from silk worms, has several definitions. One of those definitions, from Merriam-Webster.com is: a filament resembling silk; especially : one produced by a spider. Spiders can make several different types of silk lines for their webs, some sticky and some not sticky. The silk used for this project are lines that would normally frame the spider web–lines that are relatively strong, thick and not extremely sticky.
An article about this tapestry in Wired.com says that spider silk is “stronger than steel or kevlar, but far more flexible, stretching up to 40 percent of its normal length without breaking.” Indeed, scientists are working to find practical applications to using spider silk in medicine, armor and space exploration.
Photo from Wired.com.
For more information about the tapestry, try these links:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113223398
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/spider-silk/
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/spidersilk/
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Spider Story Time ideas:
- bring a color copy of this gorgeous tapestry and talk about how it was made
- clapping out the syllables of vocabulary words that you have written on the board: spider, web, weaving, tapestry, silky, Golden Orb, Madagascar, sticky
- Make an “S Box”
- rhyme: Itsy Bitsy Spider
- The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle, Miss Spider’s Tea Party by David Kirk (series)
- Here’s a fantastic craft for kids: making a spider web from makeandtakes.com.
Craft from makesandtakes.com
Toilet Paper Roll Marble Run
Posted: November 14, 2011 Filed under: Activities, Physics | Tags: activity Leave a comment »Great activity from Tinkerlab.com. Perfect for Seattle’s long, rainy winter days!
Transparent Animals–Science and Activities
Posted: November 14, 2011 Filed under: Animals, Felt Stories, In the News Leave a comment »I can’t wait to share this with my story time families! What a find!
I started looking into today’s subject, transparent animals, after seeing this article on MSNBC’s website:
Bam! Transparent octopus goes opaque in blink of an eye
It turns out that this species of octopus has two different defenses for two different types of predator. Seen from below, the octopus wants to appear transparent and hard to identify from the light shining down on the water. If the predator is above the octopus (or is a deep sea animal that can use bioluminescence to make a clear octopus shine), the octopus quickly turns opaque and tries to blend in with its surroundings. Wonderful! From there, I started looking into what animals are transparent and for what reasons.
- Scientists have bred some frogs and fish to be transparent. This makes it is easier for students to study the animals and for scientists to see how drugs affect an animal’s organs without killing and dissecting it.
- Most transparent creatures, however, have evolved this trait as a survival mechanism. Most transparent animals are trying to elude predators. The Clearwing or Glasswing Butterfly has partially transparent wings that make it harder to see when it flies.
- Some insects use transparency to confuse predators or make themselves look like different types of animals. With clear wings, a dragonfly may look like a stick or branch. Some insects featured on the site have clear wings and a yellow/brown striped body to look like a wasp. Not an attractive meal for a hungry bird!
- Some jellyfish, however, actually combine a transparent body with luminescent tentacles that look like little shrimp so that other animals are lured in to the jellyfish by what appears to be food. Then the jellyfish attacks the would-be predator.
- Finally, insects, fish, and crayfish that live in the darkness of caves have no need for sight or pigmentation in their skins. Many of these animals have developed into transparent animals as well.
- Make color copies of some of these amazing animals to bring to story time. Talk about what transparency is (something that we discussed in my flashlight activity.)
- Vocabulary for this will include: transparent/opaque, pigmentation, camouflage, predator/prey, crayfish, dragonfly, jellyfish, tentacles, habitat, survival
- Clap out the syllables of the vocabulary words. Usually I do this before the book that includes the vocabulary, but here I’ll do it after I have introduced the concepts and shown the animals.
- Show how a clear marble is harder to see in a glass of water than a colored marble. The marble-sized stones that go in the bottom of a fish tank would be easy to get and would work well for this.
- I will probably read this with a book on camouflage, like Chameleon’s Colors or the Mixed-Up Chameleon. These are easily made into felt board stories, and will reinforce some of the concepts and vocabulary. There are some wonderful non-fiction books on the topic as well, which I’d put on display and encourage families to take home.
http://webecoist.com/2010/05/25/clearly-beautiful-10-amazing-transparent-animals/
Baths and Bubbles Story Time!
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: Felt Stories, Health and Hygiene, Rhymes and Songs, Water and Other Liquids | Tags: Bath, body parts, funny, silly, taking a bath 1 Comment »
The Big Red Tub by Julia Jarman is a fun read for a bath-themed story time. In this book, Stan and Stella are joined in the bath by various animals—a dog, a duck, a turtle, a giraffe, etc—until the bath tub itself slips and slides out the door.
Reading the Big Red Tub, I ask the kids about their experiences with baths. Do they take baths? Why do people take baths? Does a giraffe take a bath in a bathtub?
After a bath I try, try, try
To rub myself dry, dry, dry.
Hands to dry, fingers and toes;
Two wet legs and a shiny nose.
Just think how much less time it would take
If I were a dog and could shake, shake, shake.
A very simple non-fiction bath book for toddlers is Animal Baths. Each page shows how different animals clean themselves. Again, the book leads to a lot of discussion with the group. The eel has its teeth cleaned by little shrimp. How do people clean their teeth? Do you ever brush your teeth?
In addition, I made a very simple felt board story of Mrs. Wishy-Washy, and it was a huge hit! The song is…
Mrs. Wishy-washy, she was looking to scrub,
So she put her (cow, duck, pig, etc) into the tub.
Wishy-washy, Wishy-washy, cow’s in the tub.
Wishy-washy, Wishy-washy scrub-a-dub-dub!
I made each animal dark brown on one side and a bright color with sparkles on the other. I start with all of the “dirty” animals up on the board, and flip them over as they get washed in the tub.
Finally, I handed out scarves and we “washed” our heads, faces, behind our ears, etc. with them. I had the kids call out body parts that we should wash. They got a huge kick out of washing our bottoms!
Here are some other blogs with great “Bath Story Time” ideas!
http://thecitylibrarystorytimespot.blogspot.com/2009/05/bath-time-may-6th-and-7th-2009.html
http://sillylibrarian.com/blog/?s=bath (I love the 5 Elephants rhyme!)
http://www.librarynoise.com/2011/03/preschool-storytime-bathtime.html
Flashlights in Story Time
Posted: November 8, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: activity, flashlights, light, shadows, translucent and opaque 1 Comment »
I brought 22 flashlights (20 purchased from Target in sets of 4) into my evening story time. I’ve now done flashlight activities with three groups of kids and can call it a success!
Here are the different activities that I have tried:
- Explain that some things are transparent and some are opaque. We used scarves, pink tissue paper, my clothes, our hands, books, mats, etc. It was fantastic hearing the kids call out the words “transparent” and “opaque” with each item. This worked really well.
- Explain that light goes in a straight line. That’s why the flashlight shines where I point it. Shadows are made when something blocks the line of the light.
- Shine the light on your toes, knees, hips, tummy, back… under your chin and make a funny face.
- Shine the light on the ceiling and make little circles (you could do different shapes)
- Shine your light on something red… something blue… etc.
- Shine the lights out the windows so that the neighbors see us–totally fun!
- Dance to “The Freeze” by Dave and Steve and when the music stops, freeze completely–your light too!
- Have extra flashlights on hand and test all of them before story time. Be prepared with alternative activities if you might be short on flashlights. (I’m sure that I could have used it as a sharing lesson, but when one kid was left without a light, I had the library staff searching their cars until one more was found!)
- It worked well when I had all of the flashlights in a bag and first brought one out of my pocket to talk about light. We did the transparent and opaque exercise before I handed out the flashlights.
- Hand the flashlights to the parents, not directly to the kids.
- With the first two groups I completely turned off the lights (22 flashlights are bright in a story time room), but I left a small light on with the smaller third group. Both ways worked fine.
Like this:
Oh! Bella (of Tarra and Bella) died! Children’s librarians everywhere mourn.
Posted: November 6, 2011 Filed under: Animals, In the News | Tags: animal friendships, elephants, Tara and Bella Leave a comment »Here’s the link to the book on Amazon.com.
The Rogue Librarian blog had a great post reviewing animal friendship stories. Check it out for more info on these inseparable friends and similar stories of unusual friendships.
Outline of Early Science Education Standards
Posted: November 5, 2011 Filed under: In the News | Tags: concepts, homeschool, K-1st, outline, planning, teachers Leave a comment »Standards for K-1st Grade Science
These guidelines from the State of Washingon, provide a great outline of the science topics that K-1st graders should be introduced to. They gave me a lot of ideas of activities that I could use for my science activities. The concepts include:
- Part-Whole Relationships
- Tools and Materials
- Liquids and Solids
- Observing the Sun and Moon
- Push-Pull and Position
- Classifying Plants and Animals
- etc.
By selecting a category, more information and detail is given. For example, for Part-Whole Relationships, specific tasks include:
- Name at least five different parts, given an illustration of a whole object, plant, or animal.
- Compare a part of an object with the whole object, correctly using the words “whole” and “part.”
The full list of grade levels and academic topics can be found at this site: State of Washington, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Grade Level Standards and Resources. These standards describe in detail what students are expected to know and be able to do in each grade.
