Education | Daddy Mojo

Dia de Disfraces, un libro que passé el Navidad Musica exam

I just finished a contract where I was teaching advanced French to high school students. It was great practice for my guttural language skills and allowed me to read their library of French books. In this class library was a couple of dozen children’s books of all ages, with many of them being aimed at lower elementary school. I love it when I teach a foreign language and the teacher has a library of books in that language for students who are learning it. Dia de Disfraces is one of those illustrated books that are great for Spanish classrooms for a couple of reasons.

Dia de Disfraces is a charming illustrated book in Spanish about dressing up and being yourself, even when others aren’t with you.

Every library needs a handful of 2nd language books

Above the Trenches, a graphic novel that edutains with ease from all angles

Having taught a couple of classes to middle school grades about World War I, I know that the subject can be confusing. The time spent on WWI for most middle school classes is very brief, with more time allowed for the Treaty of Versailles, especially for those lower grades. Those ages know about the mythos of the flying ace, even if they get hazy on who were the Allied Forces and what were the causes that led to it. Above the Trenches is a graphic novel in the Nathan Tale’s Hazardous Tales series. This entry is specifically about the flying aces that took to the skies in WWI and how they came to shape this new form of combat. Ironically, the most famous WWI pilot, the Red Baron doesn’t factor into Above the Trenches that much. Instead, the graphic novel is about the Allied Powers and their build-up of the foreign legion and the men who jumped into this relatively new mode of transportation.

Above the Trenches is a graphic novel with dozens of characters, and country-spanning action, that manages to make people appreciate history.

a Graphic novel with brains, funs and airborne guns

Plague-Busters! uses humor, quip-ridden text and art to make STEM fun

There is a difference between a good book and a fun book. Good books don’t necessarily have to be fun and those fun books don’t always have to be good, in a literary or personal sense. You may read some tawdry summer beach love book about teenage vampires or romantic solo vacations to the edge of the world and they are 100% your jam, and others might not view them as good, but they sure are fun. Plague-Busters! Medicine’s Battles with History’s Deadliest Diseases is a fun book that’s laden with dozens of illustrations and snappy text that makes the world’s low points accessible, without watering down their scale.

Plague-Busters! Is an entry gate, heavily illustrated, entertaining chapter book with humor and science on the planet’s deadliest diseases.

Dancing rodents among the bulbous infection, c’mon in

Big Ideas from History: A History of the World For You, critical think 101

The problem with history textbooks is that they don’t put things into a conversational tone that makes kids curious. They do have photographs and illustrations but the text blurbs are usually quite short and just like Jack Webb or J. Jonah Jameson, they list just the facts. Sometimes they follow up every other page with a thinking activity or series of questions that students will leave blank or fill out with incomplete sentences when asked to answer them by the teacher. Big Ideas from History is an intelligent reference book that looks at integral chapters in history, like evolution, the start of religion, the ends of civilizations, science, and many more big concept issues.

Big Ideas from History: A History of the World for You examines world history from the perspective of facts, opinions, and curiosity.

Don’t fear books that make you think or ask big questions

A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures, fun learning you don’t expect

I love books like A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures, An Illustrated Encyclopedia. It’s an entertaining reference book with dozens of critters that I hope to never encounter and that students are intrigued by. This is the sort of book that will hook mid to upper-elementary school students who have caught the ‘animal bug’ and need to do those first essays. As a saving grace to those educators who have to read or listen to those essays, A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures has multiple dozens of them that they haven’t heard of before. The odds of having your educator’s eyes gloss over because you’ve heard about the Brazilian Death Beetle one too many times.

A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures: An Illustrated Encyclopedia is a fun, fresh take on the critters that stoke the imaginations of kids aged 8 and up.

reference books need not be borning nor cookie cutter

The Presidents Decoded, a fun, no-nonsense look at the White House

In my office, I’ve got a very small shelf that I affectionately call the best books that I never reviewed. Why didn’t I review them? Sometimes my schedule just got too busy, the new release got to be not so new or I just completely forgot. The Constitution Decoded: A Guide to the Document That Shapes Our Nation by Katie Kennedy is one of the books on that shelf. This is a reference book that presents the Constitution of the United States of America in a way that makes it entertaining and teachable, without diluting the content or presenting it in an intimidating manner. The Presidents Decoded: A Guide to the Leaders Who Shaped Our Nation is cut from the same cloth and delivers similar, but not an identical level of enjoyment.

The Presidents Decoded looks at every U.S. President through number 46 in an entertaining, apolitical way that’ll attract kids aged eight and up.

Nevermind the education, it can be

El Dia Del Agua, un libro para estudiantes aprendiendo Espanol

When learning another language, full immersion is the absolute best way to do so, if that’s an option. Depending on your age it certainly can be more confusing, but the results will happen quicker, once your brain stops trying to fight the process. This is where children’s books in a second language can be a very important learning tool. El Dia Del Agua is an illustrated book that exemplifies that fact. It’s 100% in Spanish and provides Spanish language learners the opportunity to practice their pronunciation, inferential clues, and grammar.

El Dia Del Agua opens the window for learning Spanish through an illustrated book that doubles as a world view on other cultures.

An illustrated book for spanish speakers, a language helper for those studying it

Please Don’t Bite Me!, smart text and timeless art serves up insects right

There are some books and some publishers that are impossible to resist for elementary school readers. These are the types of books that operate like a friendly, education-based Venus Flytrap. Kids will open the book to any page, be curious or entertained about what they see, and then thumb forward or backward to dig into more of the book. The book’s title, Please Don’t Bite Me! also entices kids to open it up. Instead of asking a question, it posits something in the form of a statement. What could be biting me? It’ll probably hurt, I sure hope this thing doesn’t bite me. Is this biting thing something that’s poisonous?

Please Don’t Bite Me! is a brilliant combination of enticing, timeless visuals with non-fiction text that engages ages 7-10, without grossing them out or dumbing it down.

Nature is timeless, the art is classic