Elementary school | Page 13 of 19

Peculiar Woods: The Ancient Underwater City, a magical all-age graphic novel

Peculiar Woods: The Ancient Underwater City is a graphic novel by Andres J. Colmenares that’s the brother from another mother of Adventure Time. That isn’t 100% correct, let me break that down a little bit. Peculiar Woods is a much more kid-friendly version of that sense of quirky sense of humor and style of animation that television shows and comic books exhibit. Peculiar Woods is the start of a graphic novel series that’s weird enough to be cool for middle school but has the reading level appropriate for some third-grade students. It’s that mystical all-age graphic novel that makes the older kids enjoy it due to its content, and also allows the younger readers to be able to understand it.

Peculiar Woods: The Ancient Underwater City is the start to a beautiful friendship with an all age graphic novel series that’s smart, funny and has some feels for ages seven and up.

This is the start of a beautiful friendship

How Was That Built, beautiful, architect, STEM food for ages eight and up

A friend of ours is a nuclear scientist. Illustrated books are for children and present simple content or fairy tales for young readers. One of those statements is false.

Intelligent illustrated books are an excellent way to teach. They can present advanced content on a level that’s not intimidating to younger audiences, and maybe, just maybe, inspire someone to change the world.* How Was That Built?: The Stories Behind Awesome Structures is an illustrated book that wears its intelligence on its sleeve and is the sort of book that’ll answer questions, inspire curiosity, and plant architectural seeds that’ll bloom in two or three decades.

How Was That Built? is a brilliant illustrated book on the construction, science and engineering behind bridges and buildings around the world.

You want your children to be more intelligent than you…,don’t you?

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!

One Cool Duck, file under: a kid’s first graphic novel

I contend that reluctant readers aren’t really reluctant; it’s just that they haven’t found their jam. Their jam is the book that speaks to them, and the sooner they find their jam, the quicker they will start to devour any of that ilk that stands in their way. Thus begins the domino chain of academic success, personal happiness, world peace and teachers everywhere rejoicing. One Cool Duck: King of Cool is a kid’s first graphic novel that could be that book for some younger elementary school students.

One Cool Duck is a graphic novel series aimed at very young readers. King of Cool is the first entry in it that’ll charm pre-k and up.

Hello 4 year olds in search of your jam

Afterward, Everything Was Different, great art, but lose the gender

Have you ever read a book and thought that you knew what it was about, but then saw what the author’s intentions were and it ran in the opposite direction of what you thought? Afterward, Everything Was Different only sounds like the sequel to the reboot of Sex and the City. In reality, Afterward, Everything Was Different is a wordless book by Rafael Yockteng with illustrations by Jairo Buitrago. I know, how a wordless book needed an author is a mystery, but let’s look at the book and why I initially, and still do to a point, enjoy it.

Afterward, Everything Was Different is a wordless book whose art does the thought-provoking talking, but then the author’s note makes it weird.

Wordless, almost wordless, what’s a few words between friends?

Who Ate What?, a fun, engaging guessing game through history

I like to imagine conversations between myself and some of the elementary school aged children that I teach. Here’s one that’s running through me head right now about Who Ate What? A Historical Guessing Game for Food Lovers.

8YO kid: I don’t like to read

Me: Do you like ninjas and cave people?

Kid: Yes, highly respected elementary school teacher, I do like to look at pictures of them.

Me: You should check out Who Ate What?

Kid: That sounds like a book that would make me read something. Me no like printed paper learning.

Me: Well, it is a book, but it’s an illustrated book that looks at well known civilizations, how they lived and what they ate or drank; thus the title, Who Ate What?

Who Ate What? is a fun guessing game for elementary school audiences that makes them ask questions and think about things.

Have you ever written something that only you will probably read?

Josephine and Her Dishwashing Machine, cleans up on a little known inventor

Any teacher that has had to read umpteen hundred essays on the same inventors knows my pain. It’s the exercise in rolling your eyes when the student says that their essay will be on the same inventor, who invented that thing that seems to be a go-to for elementary school kids. There’s a void of books aimed at that audience who need to know about more people that history might have forgotten. Josephine and Her Dishwashing Machine is an illustrated book that joyously plugs that hole.

Josephine and Her Dishwashing Machine is an illustrated book that examines the inventor of an appliance most of us use daily, but know nothing about its origin.

Hello history, it’s great to meet you

Her Eyes on the Stars, great story, but it’s been done better before

The story of Maria Mitchell is a fabulous one for many reasons. It’s about a young woman who has always loved studying the night sky and the objects that occupy its space. In the mid-1850s she was living in Nantucket and she’s noticing something amiss in the darkened sky. It’s a blur, a cottonball blur of a thing that’s set against crystal clear objects that are perfectly in focus. Her Eyes on the Stars: Maria Mitchell, Astronomer is the story about her childhood fascination with the sky; and her young adult life when she sees what just might be the first comet discovered by an American.

Her Eyes on the Stars: Maria Mitchell, Astronomer is an illustrated book with an awesome story worth seeking out, but this version could’ve used a softer touch.

Deja vu, except, not as good as the first time