Education | Page 3 of 37

It’s Tough to be Tiny, big STEM fun for a wide age range

Treat children as smart as you want them to be. I wish I had the opportunity to dig into books like It’s Tough to be Tiny when I was in elementary school. When I was that age I was always curious about nature, specifically the tiny things that exist in certain biomes. It’s not that I’m implying books of this sort would’ve turned me into a scientist, but their fun, STEM-centered nature might’ve thwarted at least one or two seasons of my wasting time watching Rock of Love. So, let us look at a fun STEM book that provides something for audiences from elementary through middle school.

It’s Tough to be Tiny is a STEM illustrated look at small critters that make up various biomes that’ll interest kids 7-14.

Jump on in, the STEM water is fine

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?

The Brilliant Calculator, STEM illustrated magic on leveling up the power grid

The Clarke Calculator is something that I’ve never seen, touched or used, yet its application is demonstrated everywhere I go. It’s not a regular calculator. Heck, it’s not even a scientific calculator. The Brilliant Calculator: How Mathematician Edith Clarke Helped Electrify America follows Edith Clarke’s lifelong passion for numbers and her specific invention that helped electric power wires handle to juice needed for a growing America.

Stories like these are what make kids think outside of the box

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.

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.

TAstey STEm for ages 5 and up