Education | Page 5 of 39

Tales of Ancient Worlds, potato chip history for fourth grade and up

Imagine a world where Indiana Jones and the National Treasure movies never existed. Yeah, it would certainly be a world where quality cinema was lacking three or four excellent films between the two series. But, even in that situation, kids would still be fascinated by archeology and ancient worlds. That’s where Tales of Ancient Worlds: Adventures in Archeology hits home. It is a reference book, but education and the fruits that it yields are awesome. This is a book that’s tailor-made for fourth or fifth-graders on many levels.

Tales of Ancient Worlds: Adventures in Archeology is the armchair compendium that every erstwhile fourth-grade Indiana Jones needs to show them the light.

It’s fun! It’s educational It’s entertaining! It teaches!

A Walk Through The Rain Forest, is flora and fauna-forest perfection

Back to that art class that I was asked to teach the other week. One of the students produced an illustration that was absolutely stunning. It was realistic, which led me to immediately mention hyper-realistic as a way to describe certain illustrations. By a happy coincidence, I had A Walk Through The Rain Forest in my backpack and showed them some examples of this student’s work, but elevated to the next level. A Walk Through The Rain Forest is an illustrated book where the text isn’t simple, but it does tell a simple story.

A Walk Through The Rain Forest is an illustrated book whose subtle text and hyper realistic art willfully drags you through the dirt.

Stop, collaborate and stare at the images

Atom: The Building Block of the Universe is compact STEM happiness

If Andy Warhol designed a STEM book centered around small things he would’ve created Atom The Building Block of the Universe. Atom is a compact illustrated book that makes the complex seem simple but also acknowledges that it certainly can be confusing. It does this with absurd graphics, by comparing odd things and layering it all against a sea of dots that would make Nancy envious. *

Atom: The Building Block of the Universe is an illustrated book who compact size belies its intelligence and approachable nature.

The Atom is boring you say

We The People and The President gets kids learning by curiosity

Well, color me surprised when I found We The People And the President. It was in my office, tucked away in a corner where the graphic novels usually hang out. It’s a mystery how it ended up there that I attribute to my youngest son cleaning the office that I should’ve tidied before this time. I say this as a sense of surprise because this is an engaging, easy-to-read reference book that offers up tidbits of government information on every page.

We The People And The President grabs kids by their infographic collars and dares them not to be entertained, or educated by this fun book.

Make government intersting. This book “Hold my soda.”

Ready-To-Read Super Gross, baits the STEM hook for 2^nd and 3^rd graders

Teach a child a foreign language and the first things that they’ll remember is the profanity, slang or pickup lines. In other news: kids who only study one year of Spanish make the world’s worst interpreters. As a testament to that, it’s been more than 25 years and I can still say “you’re very cute” in Norwegian. The gross facts from reference books, those strange blurbs about animals that they’ll never see are always the first ones to get read. How-To-Read Super Gross is a book series that leans into that tendency and gives it a big, yucky hug. What’s In Your Body? is the big font combination of photographs and illustrations and witty dialogue that emerging readers crave.

Ready-To-Read Super Gross, What’s in Your Body? perfectly sets up and answers STEM things that first through third graders want to read and talk about.

TAstey STEm for ages 5 and up

Inner Workings, a cut-through, STEM, curiosity book for a couple of pages

I taught a fifth-grade student who drew detailed illustrations of automobiles in his spare time. They were surprisingly intricate, exterior drawings of cars with some having overview representations of their engines. While many kids who are that age like cars, this student’s passion and talent certainly went to the next level. Inner Workings is an engineer’s look at how just over two dozen things that kids see on a daily basis work. The illustrations in the book mainly consist of cross-section pictures that are done in a classic-retro style. It’ll initially draw in those mechanical engineer kids, as well as those who are just curious about how the soft-serve ice cream machine works.

Inner Workings is a how-it’s-made book that’ll preach to the STEM, engineering crowd, but could’ve yelled at everyone with more narrative.

The STEM Choir rejoices, but it could’ve reached wider and higher

Foldout Anatomy, a fold-out look at the systems that keep things alive

Pound for pound, page for page, Foldout Anatomy has the most entertaining information in a STEM reference book that we’ve seen in months. Yeah, there are lots of qualifiers in that statement, but getting kids to willingly read non-fiction is necessary, but can be challenging. Foldout Anatomy is an interactive book aimed at upper-elementary through middle school students, with enough tidbits of knowledge to entertain and educated those older souls who wander into its pages.

Foldout Anatomy is an interactive, fold-out book that looks at the systems that keep living things alive in a manner that fun and educational.

Thumb through, read them all why don’t you

STEAM Tales The Wizard of Oz, the text and science of Dorothy’s tale

STEAM Tales The Wizard of Oz is not a word-for-word retelling of the classic book by L. Frank Baum. Nor is it a twisted version of the Yellow Brick that changes the tone and heart of the story in favor of accentuating certain characters. This is a truncated version of The Wizard of Oz text that inserts four instances of science, and two STEAM activities for kids to do in each chapter. It’s not as far-fetched or as uninteresting as you might think, let’s take a look at an example.

STEAM Tales The Wizard of Oz retells aspects of the classic story, spotlighting engineering, math and science aspects of the yellow brick road.

Follow the STEAM Yellow brick road