Education | Page 22 of 40

A Tiger Tail, by @MikeBoldt, a first day of school tale kids will relish

Kids are weird. Having said that, I’m weird and so are you. There is something about all of us-at one point or another, that we thought we were different, uncool, strange or utterly alien. The difference is that kids are brand new to being different and find it tougher to deal with. A Tiger Tail, (or what happened to Anya on her first day of school) by Mike Boldt is the story of a girl’s first day of First grade and her strange new appendage.

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Oscar and the Amazing Gravity Repellent, doesn’t repel, is amazing

Oscar and the Amazing Gravity Repellent by Tina L. Peterson is a book that hooks you from the title, baits you with curiosity once you start reading it and reels you in once you’re 20 pages deep. It’s a story with characters that any student 8 or older will relate to and does so in a way that surprising and very mature. By ‘mature’ I mean that there aren’t any juvenile pranks, body noise jokes, aloof parents or other things that might be in an upper elementary to middle school book. If your reader is down Wimpy Kid, but looking for something with almost no pictures, a strong sense of storytelling and lots of imagination then they’ll love this book.

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Super Fly: Revenge of the Roach is a young elementary gold mine

I owe Super Fly an apology. Super Fly is the title character in a (now) series of books that are just about perfect for young elementary school readers. The chapters are short, the vocabulary is approachable, the book has drawings on half of the pages and it’s packed with parent approved potty humor. However, when I first saw Super Fly I thought it was too much like Fly Guy. With the second book from Super Fly out, Revenge of the Roach I realize now that this series is a big step up, from a reading level perspective than our first fly love.

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The Kid From Diamond Street, Edith Houghton’s true tale

Spring means baseball and The Kid From Diamond Street, The Extraordinary Story of Baseball Legend Edith Houghton is a story about that game that could easily slip between the cracks of history. This is a children’s book that simply tells the story of a young girl who played the game very well and traveled the world doing so.

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Baseball History for Kids: approachable and fun for 9 and up

There is just something about baseball and kids. Baseball History for Kids: America at Bat from 1900 to today by Richard Panchk is aimed at that sweet spot of children being passionate about something, able to read and wanting to learn. This book is a love letter to the game of baseball, its history, the players and the fans. It also doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to addressing the dark periods in the game and history, like segregation, work strikes or other things.

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Slothlove will give you warm feelings about slow creatures

I don’t know much about sloths. I know that they’re the embodiment of slow things, have a couple of pointy fingers and look like Samara from The Ring when she’s crawling on the floor. They also seem to smile a lot; I’m not sure if they’re actually happy or if most of them simply have a fur pattern that humans identify with as a smile. You may have guessed that Slothlove is the most unlikely book that you’ll love about lazy(?) creatures that are probably happy all of the time who you’re most likely never likely to see in the wild.

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Tumble Trax, from Learning Resources, magnetic marble review

Go to any children’s museum and they’re likely to have some sort of steel plate on the wall with magnetic running boards for balls or marbles. Tumble Trax from Learning Resources is essentially the same version of those, just scaled down slightly for players at home. This is an activity that can keep kids engaged for hours, watching the marbles fall prey to gravity before being captured by magnetic boards.

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STEM Robot Mouse Coding Activity Set review

I dread the day when our children’s homework gets too difficult for me to assist with. That was my fear with STEM Robot Mouse Coding Activity Set by Learning Resource. I do not know how to code and here we have a children’s coding activity set. Do not obsess over the term ‘coding’ in this case. On the first page of the directions it states that all coding does is transforms information into a form that a computer can understand. After a few minutes with Colby, the programmable Robot Mouse adults will understand how to make it work and so will your children.

Yes, after showing our 4 year old how to program Colby to find the mouse he could do it on his own. It’s not because the activity set is simple by any means, it’s as complex as you want to make it as you create mazes of all sorts of turns, cubby holes and more for the cheese to hide in.

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