Daddy Mojo used to teach. Being an ex educator he’s interested in many things about education, such as teaching policies, best practices and bureaucracy.
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.
Koalas are the cutest things on Earth that people outside of Australia will never see in real life. They also smell like the worst parts of a wet pug. Koala, A Natural History and an Uncertain Future is a narrative look at these marsupials that are only able to eat one thing. And even then, that Eucalypti tree might not be the correct species, which means that our cuddly little friend won’t eat it. Throughout history the koala has almost been an afterthought; when Europeans first landed in Australia they didn’t notice them for a decade and it took another 20 years for them to actually be studied.
Illustrated books can also be reference books. Aliens is one that fits in that category, although given its subject title and alluded subject matter you’re right to be suspicious. The key to where upper-elementary students will get the most from the book is in the book’s full title. Aliens, Join The Scientists Searching For Extraterrestrial Life is more about the science-based aspects around aliens, rather than the green basketball-playing men in our imagination.
If you’re older than 12 trips around the sun then you know the answer to that, but you may not know why. Actually, you may not even know the answer to it, you’ve just stopped caring or have moved on to less bathroom-centric queries. Is It Okay To Pee In The Ocean? is the most comprehensive look at going number one that elementary school kids will experience. It’s a surprisingly entertaining STEM read and runs deep with scientific research and credibility, so much so that those middle school students will enjoy the book also.
Ansel Adams only photographed mountains, didn’t he? Yeah, I thought that, and you might’ve also. That’s how Seen And Unseen, What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration caught my attention. Seen And Unseen is by Elizabeth Partridge with illustrations by Lauren Tamaki and provides an impressive overview of Japanese Americans who were imprisoned in Manzanar in the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
I was talking to a student one day about the approximate distance between Georgia and New York and they had absolutely no clue. Their spatial abilities were suspect at best with them guessing at only a couple of hundred miles to multiple thousands. Space is like that too, except so much more interesting and potentially complex. The Planets Are Very, Very, Very Far Away puts the impossibly massive scale of the solar system into a scope that anyone is able to understand. Author Mike Vago is an author who produces books that are as much of a publishing statement as they are informative, entertaining, or both.
But what about girls?, I can hear that being asked now. I’m casting a wide net that’ll describe a majority of boys, but not all boys. I’ll cast the same wide net and say that a series of emerging reader books on unicorns or kittens will be a big hit with girl readers in second grade. Whenever I teach ELA and I have to attribute one trait to a group there are always a couple who will say, “But, I….”, and yes, you might be the exception to that. Great Battles for Boys is a series of books that hits the reluctant reader boy on the head in an enjoyable and historical way.
Family, especially the older branches in our trees can be complicated, can’t it? When Dinosaurs Conquered the Skies is an illustrated book whose sibling we read in 2022. That book, When Plants Took Over the Planet is a gorgeous illustrated book that’s all about the massive wave of plants that crept out of the water millions of years ago. Its sibling, When Dinosaurs Conquered the Skies is cut from a similar cloth in its layout and illustrations. However, in reading it I decided to treat it as a narrative book, instead of a reference book and the result was quite interesting.
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