“‘What was your favorite book as a child?’ In more than 10 years of facilitating workshops, we have never heard anyone reply, ‘My fourth-grade science textbook.’ Clearly, textbooks have an important place in the science classroom, but using trade books to supplement a textbook can greatly enrich students’ experience.” —from Teaching Science Through Trade Books
If you like the popular “Teaching Science Through Trade Books” columns in NSTA’s journal
Science and Children, or if you’ve become enamored of the award-winning
Picture-Perfect Science Lessons series, you’ll love this new collection. It’s based on the same time-saving concept: By using children’s books to pique students’ interest, you can combine science teaching with reading instruction in an engaging and effective way.
In this volume, column authors Christine Royce, Emily Morgan, and Karen Ansberry selected 50 of their favorites, updated the lessons, and added student activity pages, making it easier than ever to teach fundamental science concepts through high-quality fiction and nonfiction children’s books. Just as with the original columns, each lesson highlights two trade books and offers two targeted activities, one for K–3 and one for grades 4–6. All activities are Standards-based and inquiry-oriented.
From
Measuring Penny and How Tall, How Short, How Far Away? to
I Took a Walkand
Secret Place, the featured books will help your students put science in a whole new context.
Teaching Science Through Trade Books offers an ideal way to combine well-structured, ready-to-teach lessons—with strong curricular connections—and books your students just may remember, always.
Table of Contents
National Science Education Standards: Content Standards K-4 Matrix
National Science Education Standards: Content Standards 5-8 Matrix
Alignment With A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideasi Matrix
Chapter 1: Historical Use of Trade Books in the Science Classroom
Chapter 2: Why Use Trade Books to Teach Science?
Chapter 3: Thought-Provoking Questions, by Christine Anne Royce
Goldilocks and the Three Bears and June 29, 1999
Chapter 4: A Closer Look, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
You Can Use a Magnifying Glass and Hidden Worlds: Looking Through a Scientist’s Microscope
Chapter 5: Science Measures Up, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Measuring Penny and How Tall, How Short, How Far Away?
Chapter 6: Going Wild With Graphs, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Giraffe Graphs and Tiger Math: Learning to Graph From a Baby Tiger
Chapter 7: Wild About Data, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
The Great Graph Contest and Collecting Data in Animal Investigations
Chapter 8: Taking Note of Natural Resources, by Christine Anne Royce
Weslandia and Just a Dream
Chapter 9: Words to the Wild, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Pond Walk and Salamander Rain: A Lake and Pond Journal
Chapter 10: Into the Woods, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
In the Woods: Who’s Been Here? and The Woods Scientist
Chapter 11: Discover Reading, by Christine Anne Royce
Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein and Reaching for the Moon
Chapter 12: How It’s Made, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
How Is a Pencil Made? and Transformed: How Everyday Things Are Made
Chapter 13: It’s About Time, by Christine Anne Royce
How Do You Know What Time It Is? and On Time: From Seasons to Split Seconds
Chapter 14: If You Build It …, by Christine Anne Royce
How a House Is Built and Bridges: Amazing Structures to Design, Build, and Test
Chapter 15: Imaginative Inventions, by Christine Anne Royce
Imaginative Inventions and So You Want to Be an Inventor?
Chapter 16: Let’s Try It Out in the Air, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Let’s Try It Out in the Air: Hands-On Early-Learning Science Activities and I Face the Wind
Chapter 17: A Balancing Act, by Christine Anne Royce
Mirette on the High Wire and The Man Who Walked Between the Towers
Chapter 18: Gravity Is a Mystery
I Fall Down and Gravity Is a Mystery
Chapter 19: Roller Coasters! by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Roller Coaster and Roller Coaster! Motion and Acceleration
Chapter 20: Secrets of Flight, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Animals in Flight and How People Learned to Fly
Chapter 21: Flick a Switch, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Why Should I Save Energy? and Flick a Switch: How Electricity Gets to Your Home
Chapter 22: The Wonder of Water, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
I Get Wet and A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder
Chapter 23: Kitchen Chemistry
Pancakes for Breakfast and Acids and Bases: Why Chemistry Matters
Chapter 24: Secrets of Seeds, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Seeds and Seeds
Chapter 25: Pumpkins! by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden and How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?
Chapter 26: Flower Power, by Christine Anne Royce
Planting a Rainbow and The Reason for a Flower
Chapter 27: Crazy for Loco Beans, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Lucas and His Loco Beans: A Bilingual Tale of the Mexican Jumping Bean and A Monarch Butterfly’s Life
Chapter 28: Seeing and Sorting Shells, by Christine Anne Royce
Seashells by the Seashore and Seashells, Crabs, and Sea Stars
Chapter 29: Unusual Creatures, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Triops: A Very Unusual Creature and Crab Moon
Chapter 30: Can You See Me Now? by Christine Anne Royce
Red Eyes or Blue Feathers: A Book About Animal Colors and Hide and Seek: Nature’s Best Vanishing Acts
Chapter 31: Survival Skills, by Christine Anne Royce
Animal Defenses: How Animals Protect Themselves and Beaks!
Chapter 32: Antarctic Adaptations, by Christine Anne Royce
The Emperor's Egg and Penguins!
Chapter 33: The Mystery of Migration, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Going Home: The Mystery of Animal Migration and Great Migrations: Whales, Wildebeests, Butterflies, Elephants, and Other Amazing Animals on the Move
Chapter 34: Whoo Eats What? by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Whoo Goes There? and White Owl, Barn Owl
Chapter 35: A Habitat Is a Home, by Christine Anne Royce
I See a Kookaburra! Discovering Animal Habitats Around the World and The Salamander Room
Chapter 36: Exploring Your Environment, by Christine Anne Royce
I Took a Walk and Secret Place
Chapter 37: You Are What You Eat! by Christine Anne Royce
Gregory, the Terrible Eater and Science News for Kids: Food and Nutrition
Chapter 38: Moving My Body, by Christine Anne Royce
What’s Inside Me? My Bones and Muscles and Movers and Shapers
Chapter 39: Science From the Heart, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Hear Your Heart and The Heart
Chapter 40: Disease Detectives, by Christine Anne Royce
Germs Are Not for Sharing and What Are Germs?
Chapter 41: Rock Solid Science, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
If You Find a Rock and Rocks: Hard, Soft, Smooth, and Rough
Chapter 42: Rocking Around the Rock Cycle, by Christine Anne Royce
Let's Go Rock Collecting and The Rock Factory
Chapter 43: The Dirt on Soil, by Christine Anne Royce
Dirt and A Handful of Dirt
Chapter 44: Fascinating Fossil Finds, by Christine Anne Royce
Fossils Tell of Long Ago and Dragon in the Rocks: A Story Based on the Early Childhood of Paleontologist Mary Anning
Chapter 45: Mysteries of the Past, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Prehistoric Actual Size and Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs
Chapter 46: Earthquakes! by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Earthquakes and Earthquakes
Chapter 47: Delving Into Disasters, by Christine Anne Royce
The Blizzard and Hurricanes!
Chapter 48: Cloud Watchers, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Fluffy, Flat, and Wet: A Book About Clouds and The Man Who Named the Clouds
Chapter 49: Weather Watchers, by Christine Anne Royce
The Cloud Book and Weather Forecasting
Chapter 50: Sunrise, Sunset, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Day and Night and Somewhere in the World Right Now
Chapter 51: Moon Phases and Models, by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan
Phases of the Moon and The Moon Book
Chapter 52: Seeing Stars, by Christine Anne Royce
Out and About at the Planetarium and The Constellations: Stars and Stories