Month: January 2015

Finding Children’s Books

childrensbooksI am always on the lookout for excellent book selections for the children. We love illustrated books and try to read several throughout the week as part of our school day. I will often find the children reading them together in the evening as well. 

 
While I can scan the shelves or displays at our library branch easy enough, and we do tend to come home with several books that we just grab off the shelves, our library system has several branches and content changes as books are reshelved where they are returned. 
 
I also prefer books that I’ve read some feedback on or that have been recognized in some way for their content. I regularly sit down with book lists compiled from various websites and request them from our library. Then I can pick them up from our branch’s hold shelf. Super easy! Here are some of my “go to” resources for children’s book recommendations.
 
ALA Book Awards
 
Various book medal awards are given each year by the American Library Association to recognize outstanding books. The Caldecott medal is awarded each year for children’s picture book, and the award goes to the artist, regardless of whether they are also the author of the book. The Newberry Medal is awarded each year to the author of the most distinguished contribution to  American children’s literature. The Silbert Book Medal is awarded to the author and illustrator of the most distinguished informational book each year. 
 
Current medal recipients, as well as winners from previous years, are listed on the ALA website. Additional award lists can also be found on the ALA website under Youth Media Awards.  The ALA also puts together a list of Notable Children’s Books. This is an excellent source of children’s book titles to include in your weekly reading.
 
SB&F Prizes for Excellence in Science Books
 
Science Magazine also includes a roundup of science and nature themed children’s books each year when they publish the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prizes for Excellence in Science Books. Often there are medal recipients included in this roundup. Current and previous years are available here. 
 
Goodreads
 
Goodreads  is also another great resource for book recommendations. You can “Explore” book selections by genre, and see new releases as well as most read each week. There are also Lists  – Goodread members often put together lists of their own recommendations or contribute to larger lists that are searchable. Each book selection includes reviews and commentaries by members. 
 
Pinterest
 
Pinterest is a great resource for book lists. A simple search for children’s literature will turn up a large selection of blogs and websites that contain children’s book recommendations. These book lists range from the top books “all children should read” to content specific titles such as “books about courage.”
 
Author’s Websites
 
Another way to find books is to explore a particular author. Once we’ve read one book from a particular author, we usually seek out other titles, which are often award winning books too. A simple Google search will usually turn up an author’s website and book list. For example, right now we are reading through several selections by Molly Bang. Look for an upcoming post on a science series she has put out! 
 
 
 

Learning with the Tuttle Twins

I think one of my most important jobs as a parent is educating my children about their inherent rights and liberties that exist regardless of politics or government. I believe that growing up with a firm understanding of their rights will allow them to function more confidently in the world. 

 
This past Spring we discovered a wonderful resource for learning about some of these topics. Connor Boyack’s new series, The Tuttle Twins, presents some of these ideas in a colorful, fun format that is easy to understand by a younger audience but not over-simplified.
 
The first book in the series, The Tuttle Twins Learn about the Law, introduces children to some of the ideas that Frederic Bastiat covered in his well-known collection of essays, The Law. Through colorful illustrations and fun conversations with the main characters, Ethan and Emily, concepts such as legal plunder, which might be a little heavy for younger audiences, are readily understandable.
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Kyri loved The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law, and carried around Bastiat’s The Law for weeks afterward, reading the essays.
 
We were SO excited when this first book in the series was released! Kyri walked around the house reading this book, as well as her own copy of Bastiat’s The Law, for weeks. We had wonderful conversations about the topics the book introduced.
 
I was excited to learn about the much-anticipated follow-up book that was published just before the holidays – we preordered and Kyri received it as a Christmas gift! In the second book in the series, The Tuttle Twins and the Miraculous Pencil, Ethan and Emily learn about what is really required to produce something simple that we probably take for granted every day – the wooden pencil. Boyack has presented the ideas from Leonard Read’s classic essay, “I, Pencil”  in a fun way for children to really comprehend how the free market works. 
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Kyri was amazed to learn about the complicated family tree of the simple wooden pencil.
 

This series is wonderful and I can’t recommend it enough. Check out the links above and see for yourself – the illustrations are amazing and the stories are powerful. You can also click on my affiliate link to the left of the page to read more about The Tuttle Twins series.

Dreaming Dots

Kyri and I love DK’s My Art Book. This is our main art resource this year and it has wonderful information and projects to work through. Each section has a two page lesson on an art form or particular artist’s style. This is then followed by a detailed art project. The pictures are stunning and really make it easy and fun to complete the projects.

This week we had a lot of fun learning about aboriginal Australian art, and decorating our own rocks.

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We used smaller rocks than suggested in the book (because that is what we had on hand), and acrylic paint to decorate. We outlined our animal shape on each rock and then painted. We paused a few minutes between colors to keep paint from mixing. One optional step we did not do was coat the rock, or at least the painted part, in varnish to protect the decoration. We had a lot of fun with this and will end up doing several more, so we may end up varnishing them after the next batch.

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Air is a Mixture of Gases

This year we have switched over to Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding. We are focusing on Chemistry topics, and so are working through primarily A thread in Volumes I and II.

This past week we’ve been working on topic A7,  Air: A mixture of gases (mixtures and chemical reactions).

Air is an excellent example for understanding molecules, mixtures and chemical reactions. Air is made up of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Oxygen is required by animals for respiration, and carbon dioxide is produced as a waste product. The oxygen and carbon dioxide in air are held constant in the atmosphere by green plants, which use carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. We’ve covered photosynthesis previously, in Biology as well as earlier this year when learning about energy, so this cycle is familiar around here. Here is a video that sums covers the Carbon Cycle.

We also love the app My Incredible Body  and learned all about respiration to get a better understanding of how we as animals breathe in air to bring oxygen into our body, and breathe out to expel carbon dioxide.

Air is made up of matter and has weight

Sometimes when we can’t see something, like air, it can be a little difficult to understand how it is made up of matter. To help visualize this, we set up this simple experiment. We started by tying string around the center of a wooden dowel, making sure the dowel was balanced. We then blew up two balloons, one much fuller than the other. We tied each balloon to an end of the dowel, spacing them the same.

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Kyri is a pretty smart cookie, so she expected the balloon that was inflated more to weigh more as well since it contained more air. As expected, the heavier balloon pulled its end of the dowel down lower!

Burning Requires Oxygen

We next set up a simple demonstration. Placing a tea light in a shallow plate of water (be sure to not cover the candle!), we then covered the candle with a jar and observed how, after just a short time, the flame sputtered and then was extinguished. I explained that the wax was the fuel (potential energy) and burning released this potential energy as kinetic energy in the form of heat and light. Oxygen is necessary for the fire to burn the fuel. Air is made up of approximately 20 percent oxygen, so in an enclosed jar, the oxygen is used up fairly quickly. Once the oxygen is used up, the flame goes out!

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Mixtures and Chemical Reactions

When we started discussing mixtures, we used some simple examples to understand – a mixture of coins or a bag of mixed candy. In those simple examples, the individual components didn’t change and were identifiable. But sometimes when components are mixed, a reaction occurs and the components are broken apart and new components formed. Our second demonstration involved the release of carbon dioxide during a chemical reaction.

Baking soda and vinegar can be mixed, and when they react carbon dioxide is released. This is a fun chemical reaction because of the intense fizzing!

Burning Releases Carbon Dioxide

Similarly, when a candle is burned (also a chemical reaction!), carbon dioxide is also released. Carbon dioxide, like air, is not visible. But we used a fun demonstration to produce and observe carbon dioxide.

We lit a tea candle in a shallow plate, and in a half-pint mason jar combined 1 Tbsp baking soda and 1/4 cup vinegar (Pour slowly to prevent fizzing over!). The carbon dioxide that is produced from the reaction remained in the jar and because it is heavier than air, can actually be “poured” like a liquid. We carefully tipped the jar toward the flame, as if we were pouring but taking care to not pour out any of the liquid contents. While we couldn’t see the carbon dioxide directly, we could observe the flame sputtering and finally going out, as the carbon dioxide poured over the wick and prevented the flame’s access to oxygen.

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