Archive for the 'nonfiction' Category

Teaching Geography with Children’s Literature: Maps

Published by Kelly on November 2, 2009 in resource links, nonfiction, geography, book review, teaching, reading and social studies. 0 Comments

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Maps, by David L. Stienecker and illustrated by Richard MacCabe, is a book designed to help introduce children to geography with a focus on maps and globes.

This book highlists the many purposes and differences between maps and globes, how to read them, and the many ways in which they can be drawn.  The author and illustrator provide child-friendly text and illustrations to show how maps can be used to visualize and locate specific regions, water features, forests, and landmarks of the world, as well as dicussing that maps can also be created for make believe.  The book offers children a view of North America on both a map and globe, and then slowly zooms out to show the Earth as a whole from the perspective of the sky.  This book also provides children with question prompts they can respond to during or after reading, while providing teachers with hands-on activitiy ideas for further study, a glossary of essential terms, and an index.  Lines of latitude/longitude, projections, compass, hemisphere, equator, and thematic maps are the main topics discussed throughout the book which allows the teacher discretion for how much content to share depending on varying student levels. 

Curriculum Connections

Maps serves as an excellent and useful resource to help teach, reinforce, and emphasize several kindergarten - first grade geography learning objectives in accordance with the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL’s).  Students can enhance their understanding in that a map is a drawing of a place to show where things are located while a globe is a round model of the Earth (SOL K.4a), facilitate identification of land and water features (SOL K.4c), encourage understanding that maps and globes show a view from above the Earth and that features are smaller in size (SOL K.5a/b), develop map skills by identifying map symbols (SOL 1.4a), and facilitate accurate identification of North America and Virginia on maps and globes (SOL 1.4d). 

Additional Resources

  • Discovery Education provides a wide range of geography lesson plans from grades kindergarten - 5th grade - lesson plans are organized by topic, and when clicked on,  provides you with a wealth of resource links, extention activity ideas, suggested readings, and evaluation assessments specific to the lesson

  • Kids Geography offers a wide range of fun, interactive games for students to play either at school or home - games are organized into continents, American capitals, latitude/longitude, and the collective Earth so teachers, students, and parents have the ability to select games that are specific to what the student is learning

  • Enchanted Learning is the place for teachers to go for an endless supply of various geography maps, printables, quizzes, and activities - if teachers want to focus on their state geography, there are links to supply you with tons of state maps for students to label, quizzes, and symbol and emblem worksheets specific to your state 

Book: Maps
Author: David L. Stienecker
Illustrator: Richard MacCabe
Publisher: Benchmark Books (New York)
Publication Date: January 1998
Pages: 32pp
Grade Range: Kindergarten - 1st Grade
ISBN-13: 978-0761405382

Teaching Geography with Children’s Literature: Let’s Go Traveling

Published by Sarah on November 2, 2009 in nonfiction, geography and book review. 0 Comments

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Robin Rector Krupp’s Let’s Go Traveling  is the story of a young girl, Rachel, who journeys around the world, exploring the real-life mysterious landmarks of 6 different countries.  She travels to France to see pre-historic cave drawings, to England for Stonehenge, to Egypt for the pyramids, to China for the Great Wall, to Mexico for Mayan ruins, and Peru to see Machu Picchu. Rachel’s trips are narrated in first person, and the book is designed somewhat like a scrapbook, full of pictures, postcards, and journal entries written by Rachel.  Along with the narration and “scraps,” there are random tid-bits of facts and vocabulary words scattered throughout the book. There is a lot of information in Let’s Go Traveling, so this book would work well for students who just want to quickly flip through pages and still learn something, or for those who are really interested in travel and ancient world cultures.   

Curriculum Connections

Let’s Go Traveling is filled with facts and stories about important locations that are often used when students are learning about geography (VA SOL 2.4, 3.5). In additon to the maps and info about the countries, the author also explains some of the history behind some of the facts included in the book.   Because Let’s Go Traveling covers very different locations, the book could be read for an introductory lesson on how landscapes and cultures vary depending where in the world a person is; or, only certain sections of the book could be used to focus on specific lessons (like Egypt). 

Additional Resources

  • The Children’s Author Network  provides a nice short bio of Robin Rector Krupp and the other books that she’s written.
  • At the National Geographic for Kids website, the People and Places  section supplies a good amount of information in a kid-friendly format about anywhere in the world. I enjoyed the “What school is like in (featured country)” segment, where a video highlights what it is like to be a student in a different country.
  • A fun way to help kids practice their geography and map knowledge is offered at KidsGeo.com, where a student can play games ranging from learning the locations of states and countries, to knowing capitals, to reinforcing latitude and longitude.
  • The National Council for Geographic Education is a good resource for teachers who are looking for additional support with their geography skills and lessons.

Book:  Let’s Go Traveling

Author and Illustrator: Robin Rector Krupp

Publisher: Scholastic

Publication Date: January 1992

Pages: 38 pages

Grade Range: 2-5

ISBN: 0590485768

Teaching Geography With Children’s Literature: The United States of America: A State-By-State Guide

Published by Sidney on November 1, 2009 in nonfiction, geography and book review. 0 Comments

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The United States of America: A State-By-State Guide, writen and illustrated by Millie Miller and Cyndi Nelson, is a richly-detailed guide to our fifty states.  Beautiful illustrations and intriguing facts about key points of interest make for an engaging read.  Whether you’re researching a school report or playing trivia games, this book offers tons of interesting facts about the history, geography, archaeology, and other marvels of each state.  Meticulously drawn and labeled maps are an added bonus.  The last two pages are devoted to beautifully-rendered drawings of each of the state flags. 

Curriculum Connections
This book would be a wonderful resource to use for writing reports or drawing maps of the fifty states.  Teachers could use it to formulate assessments to gauge students’ knowledge on a particular state or states.  It would be an awesome addition to any elementary classroom library.  In the state of Virginia, this correlates to SOL 3.6 - developing map skills; VS.2 - locating Virginia and its bordering states on a U. S. Map; and US 1.1 - analyzing and interpreting maps.

Additional Resources
   *  Check out this literature-based elementary geography lesson.
   *  Click here to embark on a mysterious treasure hunt.  
   *  Check out this interactive U. S. map to learn fun state facts. 
   *  Print out a blank map of the fifty states for assessment purposes here.   

Book: The United States of America: A State-By-State Guide
Authors: Millie Miller and Cyndi Nelson
Illustrators: Millie Miller and Cyndi Nelson
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.
Publication Date: 2006
Pages: 64
Grade Range: 3-5
ISBN: 978-0439827652

Teaching Geography with Children’s Literature: A World of Wonders

Published by Emma on October 29, 2009 in environment, nonfiction, history, earth science, geography, book review, poetry, diversity, social studies and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Geography can be an overwhelming subject to teach. Don’t be alarmed! J.Patrick Lewis’s book of poetry, A World of Wonders, illustrated by Alison Jay, covers a wide variety of geographical concepts through different types of poems that your students will love!

The book opens with an acrostic poem about Christopher Columbus’ discovery in 1492, and takes readers on a voyage all over the world. With fun and engaging illustrations, Lewis writes poems about Marco Polo, Aurora Borealis, the difference between longitude and latitude, the poles, and the five oceans, only to name a few. One of my favorite pages is full of 6 City Riddles, where students must guess where in the world they would be given the clues. I love the riddle for Sydney, Australia: “Where are you if…You see a modern opera house? Come visit here and bring your spouse–Or y’r mate, if you may. Enjoy a barbie shrimp! G’day!” The book concludes with a poem which encourages children to take care of their world, an essential topic to tie into a geography lesson: “Make the Earth your companion. Walk lightly on it, as other creatures do. Let the Sky paint her beauty–she is always watching over you.”

Curriculum Connections

This book could be used in many different areas of geography, and across a number of different grades. Since the topics from poem to poem are so different from each other, I would suggest reading applicable poems at the start of a geography lesson. For example, when beginning a lesson on the five oceans, share with students the poem “Oceans Five.” A World of Wonders could be applied to SOL 2.5, where students must locate the equator, 7 continents and 5 oceans, and 3.5, which further studies the continents, oceans, and the equator, as well as studying the regions discovered by different explorers. Lewis’ book could also be applied to some of the SOLs for Virginia Studies, such as USI.2, which covers different geographic regions of North America, and water features of the United States. The World Geography SOL WG.4 could be taught through this book as well, because it challenges students to analyze and locate physical, economic and cultural characteristics of the world regions.

Additional Resources

  • Allow your students to explore countries all over the world on National Geographic’s kid-friendly site.
  • Play this Message in a Bottle game to teach your students about longitude and latitude.
  • Where in the World? is a great webquest to use in your classroom, where students collect information of a world region to write a postcard home to the states.

General Information
Book: A World of Wonders
Author: J. Patrick Lewis
Illustrator: Alison Jay
Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: 2002
Pages: 40
Grade Range: 2-4
ISBN: 0803725795

Teaching Economics with Children’s Literature: Goods and Services

Published by Kelly on October 26, 2009 in economics, resource links, nonfiction, book review, reading, social studies, teaching and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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Goods and Services, written by Janeen R. Adil, is a book designed to help introduce children to the basic world of money and economics, how money and economics affects them on a daily basis, and why money and economics are important to their world.

This book is explains and illustrates main monetary and economic principles that make up our world, including: goods and services, consumers and producers, how taxes are related to government services and goods, and how income is made, saved, and used to buy goods and services.  All of these premises are explained through a variety of examples connected to real-world situations most children can easily relate to through their past or current experiences.  Because economics is such an important and real part of everyone’s life, the book contains real-life photos versus illustrations in order to help children connect economic meanings to the world around them.  In trying to connet these concepts to the current world, the author has inserted ”fun facts” into the book which offers both vital and current statistics on the specific principle being discussed.

As a bonus, the book provides a glossary, links to internet sites, an activity idea, and other literature resources as tools to help reiterate understanding of the econimic principles explored within the book, and can be used by teachers, students, and parents.  Also near the end of the book, the author dedicates a page connecting past history with today in order to illustrate how taxes have been around for almost 5,000 years by the Anciet Egyptians.

While this book is filled with all of the essential information students need to learn about economics, it does an excellent job in providing examples and pictures to illustrate the relevancy of economic concepts in an easy to understand, meaningful way.

Curriculum Connections

Goods and Services serves as an excellent and useful resource to help teach, reinforce, and emphasize the first grade learning objectives of economics in accordance with the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL’s).   Explaining the difference between goods and services, and how people are consumers and producers of goods and services, (SOL 1.7) is the focus throughout the entire book, as well as illustrating the importance of having to save money for the future purchase of goods and services (SOL 1.9) through a litany of real-world examples.

Additional Resources

  • ProTeacher is an amazing website solely dedicated to teachers of all elementary grades that provides a wide collection of lesson plans, printable worksheets, project themes, and ideas for setting up a classroom economy on an array of economic premises, including how financial markets and the stock market work.  This site also provides a blog and chat room for teachers to share their experiences on teaching economics within the classroom. 

  • EconEd Link is a comprehensive website that provides teachers with incredibly detailed lesson plans that include all the resources needed to effectively teach students about goods/services and consumers/producers.  The lesson that is linked has been contributed by Nancy Sedivy and is adaptable for students in kindergarten - second grade   The lesson provides links to several interactive games students can utilize, resource links to worksheets and activities, assessment tools to measure student understanding, and several ideas for extension activities.

  • MoneyInstructor.com is a website designed for teachers, students, and parents alike and is devoted to help students ranging from kindergarten - sixth grade learn about all aspects of economics.  This site includes a variety of resources that teachers can use within the classroom, students can access at home, and parents can use as a resource to help their children’s growing knowledge of economics.  There is a wide range of economic principles provided on this site, including the basic premise of money and what it is, how to differenciate between needs and wants, the importance of saving, spending, and sharing, and why taxes are put on goods and certain services.  All of these economic principles provide a variety of worksheets, games, and acitivity ideas to enforce children’s understanding.  Also, because this site is designed for grades kindergarten - sixth grade, teachers, students, and parents have the ability to move at their own pace in relation to their individual learning abilities.

Book: Goods and Services
Author: Janeen R. Adil
Publisher: Capstone Press
Publication Date: January 1, 2006
Pages: 24pp
Grade Range: First Grade
ISBN-13: 978-0736853958

Teaching Economics with Children’s Literature: One Hen: How one small loan makes a big difference

Published by heather on October 26, 2009 in nonfiction, economics and book review. 0 Comments

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One Hen: How one small loan made a big difference written by Katie Milway and illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes is an inspiring true story about a young boy from Ghana who takes out a small loan and ends up with a thriving farm.

The story begins with Kojo’s hen, the first thing he buys with the loan money. Soon, he began selling the eggs from the hen in order to purchase additional hens. He takes the money he earns from the hens and starts saving it to attend school. After college, he begins a farm and raises a family of his own. His farm grows into a wealthy investment and he is then able to lend money out to others. Kojo never forgets that his good fortune and determination began “with a good idea and a small loan that made it come true. It all started with one brown hen”.

Curriculum Connections: 

One Hen: How one small loan makes a big difference could be used as an introduction to the concepts of loans and saving money. It could also aid with teaching students about economic choice. This book can be used for SOL’s such as: 3.9 - The student will identify economic choice and explain opportunity cost.

Additional Resources:

One Hen: This is the official website for the book. You can find quizzes for the book, printable poster for the classroom, lesson plan ideas, interactive games for students, and activities for different age groups and content areas. It is a kid friendly site, good for the classroom.

Learning Resource Material: This is a PDF from Kids Can Press that has an overview of the book and provides activities for young readers and older readers.

Microfinance for Kids! A PDF newsletter that explains what microfinance is to children. It even introduces children to the real Kojo and talks about his life.

General Information:
Book: One Hen: How one small loan made a big difference
Author: Katie Milway
Illustrator: Eugenie Fernandes
Publisher: Kids Can PressPublication
Date: February 2008
Pages: 32
Grade Range: 3-5
ISBN-10: 9781554530281

Teaching Economics with Children’s Literature: Money Madness

Published by Emma on October 21, 2009 in history, nonfiction, book review and social studies. 0 Comments

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David A. Adler’s brand new book, Money Madness, is not only highly-informative, but interactive and fun for young kids at the same time. The engaging illustrations by Edward Miller use both collages and images of real money.

The book begins with the question “What’s all this money madness?” and proceeds to tell its readers why people want and need money. Money Madness utilizes many scenarios in order to simplify topics for young readers. Within the first few pages, the author prompts children to “imagine a world without money…If there was no such thing as money and you needed new clothes, you would have to make them. Imagine if you had to knit your own sweater. Imagine if you had to raise a sheep to shear it, spin the wool to make the yarn, and then knit the sweater yourself.” Through Adler’s book, children not only learn the importance of money, but of it’s history as well.

Adler introduces his readers to the idea of bartering before there was such a thing as money. He shows children through many examples how it would be difficult to barter, because the trades wouldn’t always be fair, and sometimes what you wanted that person did not have. Adler also shows children the many different forms of money before it became what it is today: “At one time cows, sheep, camels, rocks, feathers, salt, dried fish, fishhooks, animals skins, and strings made of beads made from clamshells were all used as money.” Then Adler uses real images of metal money to introduce to students the concept of money as a metal, and how it eventually developed into the coins we have today, and finally into bills as well. On one fun page, the author shows the bills and their names from all over the world. At the end of Money Madness, Adler does a brief introduction to inflation and using credit cards and checks as a substitute for money. Young readers will learn through this book not only the history and use of money, but of it’s importance in our world.

Curriculum Connections

This highly informational yet simple book can be used when introducing students to money and its importance. But it can also be used for more complex topics, such as different currency, bartering, and inflation. Money Madness would correlate well with the SOLs 2.8, which introduces the idea of bartering, or 2.9, which shows how limited resources require people to make choices about what to produce and/or consume. Money Madness could also be used for Virginia Studies, for example for SOL VS.4d, where students have to describe how Virginia colonies used money, barter and credit.

Additional Resources

  • Allow your students to follow Wise Pocket’s friends in their stories about earning, spending, and saving money.
  • This website shares many great activities for teaching your students about bartering. 
  • The US Mint’s kid-friendly site has many great economics activities, including this one where students can examine currency from all over the world.

General Information
Book: Money Madness
Author: David A. Adler
Illustrator: Edward Miller
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 24
Grade Range: 2-5
ISBN: 0823414744

Teaching Earth Science with Children’s Literature: What Makes Day and Night

Published by Kelly on September 21, 2009 in nonfiction, earth science, resource links, book review, teaching, reading and science. 0 Comments

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What Makes Day and Night, written by Franklyn M. Branley and illustrated by Arthur Dorros, is a book answering children’s questions as to what causes ‘day to be day,’ ‘night to be night,’ and how the sun appears and disappears during these times.

This book follows a group of inquisitive children on their journey into finding out exactly what causes these events to happen, starting off with the basics of how our planet, Earth, is constantly spinning and rotating on its axis and the daily evoluations it makes around the sun.  The illustrations provide children with a clear sense of the Earth’s full rotation around the sun and shows the different stages of sunrise, day, sunset, and night, as well as providing insight into the moon’s lunar phases.  In addition to providing solid, factual information on these concepts, the children in the book conduct their own experiements at home with a flashlight in order to have a hands on understanding of how days and nights are created and the effects of light and darkness on Earth.

This book can surely serve as an anticipatory resource prior to a unit on Earth’s movement and motions within the solar system, and can be read aloud to the class or read independently by students because of the simplicity and student-friendliness of the text.  The author and illustrator do an excellent job of allowing students to grasp and process these abstract concepts through facts, home experiments, and detailed illustrations, leaving them with a sense of pride and curiousity to learn more about our plant and solar system.

Curriculum Connections

What Makes Day and Night serves as an excellent and useful resource to help teach, reinforce, and emphasize the third grade learning objectives in accordance with the Virgiia Standards of Learning (SOL’s).  Investigating and understanding the basic patterns and cycles of the Earth in relation to the sun and moon (SOL 3.8) is supported throughout the entire book through its discussion and illustrations of the stages and time of Earth’s rotation, its effects of the sun on the planet, and the phases of the moon (SOL 3.8a).

Additional Resources

  • Eye On The Sky offers an excellent lesson plan, demonstration, and printables for teaching students the Earth’s rotation and how it causes day and night - plus, this lesson can be adapted for grades 1 - 3.

  • Jefferson County Schools‘, located in Tennessee, website dedicates a page full of classroom lesson plans, activities, and numerous resources aimed at teaching students all about the Earth’s rotation and its effects on people, plus interactive websites for students to work with at school or at home!  Additionally, this site provides a range of lesson plans and activities on other units covering Earth Science.

  • SkyTellers provides a multitude of resources for activity ideas, books, and websites links for students and teachers solely devoted to how Earth rotates and it’s implications on day and night, seasons, lunar phases, and the sun.  Also, this website offers insights on other Earth Science concepts, such as the origin of starts, constellations, meteors, and the solar system.  This is definately a website to have on hand for many Earth Science lessons, no matter the grade level!

Book: What Makes Day and Night
Author: Franklyn M. Branley
Illustrator: Arthur Dorros
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication Date: March 1986
Pages: 32pp
Grade Range: 3rd Grade
ISBN-13: 9780064450508

Teaching Earth Science with Children’s Literature: The Three R’s: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle

Published by Jennifer K. on September 21, 2009 in earth science, nonfiction, environment, book review and science. 0 Comments

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Introduction and Summary:
The Three R’s: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle, written by Nuria Roca and illustrated by Rosa M. Curto, is a great resource to use when teaching students about conservation.  The book discusses the ways in which the main character, Paul, can reduce, reuse and recycle items found in his everyday life.  For example, Paul tries to reduce his water and electricity consumption at home, and wears tee shirts his brother has outgrown (reuse).  The book also discusses how Paul recycles at his home and school.  “In the kitchen at Paul’s home there is a container for things made of plastic, metal or glass, and another for all other garbage,” (page 25).  The author does an excellent job putting the three R’s in concise terms that are understandable and relatable to students.  The book also explains landfills, and how trash and pollution ultimately impact plants, animals and people.  “Plastic bags are very handy, but sometimes they end up in the sea where they can be dangerous for animals.  Turtles may take them for jellyfish and eat them, or they may get tangled up in the plastic rings used to hold cans together,” (page 17).  The end of the books contains fun activities students can do to recycle items found in their homes.

Curriculum Connections:
The Three R’s: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle is appropriate for use in the kindergarten curriculum to show how everyday materials can be reused, recycled and conserved.  The Three R’s does a great job showing how materials can be used over and over again, such as bags at the grocery store (SOL K.10 A).  Pages 18-27 do a great job describing what everyday materials can be recycled, as well as the process used to recycle materials (SOL K.10 B).  Page 13 is particularly useful in illustrating how water and energy conservation, at home and in school, helps preserve resources for the future (SOL K.10 C).   

Additional Resources:
-This word search is a great way to reinforce vocabulary. 
-This activity is a great means to see how your school handles recycling and garbage.  Note: This is a worksheet from the UK and uses the word “rubbish” instead of trash.  Modify.
-This link contains many crafts that can be made by recycling items that students would normally discard.

General Information:
Book: The Three R’s: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle
Author: Nuria Roca
Illustrator: Rosa M. Curto
Publisher: Barron’s Educational Services, Inc.
Publication Date: February 2007
Pages: 36
Grade: K-1
ISBN-10: 0-7641-3581-3

Teaching Earth Science with Children’s Literature: What Makes a Shadow?

Published by Sydney on September 20, 2009 in earth science, nonfiction, science and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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 What Makes a Shadow, written by Clyde Robert Bulla and illustrated by June Otani, is a part of the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science book series that explains the simple and easily observable scientific concept of shadows for young children. The book begins by identifying and defining shadows and broadens by explaining what makes shadows, why some shadows are different than others, and where we see shadows everyday without even realizing it.

“The sun…shines on you. But the sun does not shine through you. There is a dark place behind you where the sun does not shine. The darness is your shadow.”

“Sometimes the sky is dark with clouds…The shadows make the day dark. We say, “This is a cloudy day.”

“Watch the sun go down. Watch the night come. Night is a shadow.”

 

Curriculum Connections
What Makes a Shadow? is a great book for introducing the concept of shadows for the kindergarten curriculum (Virginia SOL K.7a). The book broadens from the simple observation of a child’s shadow following behind him or her on a sunny day to more abstract observations such as the darkness of the sky on a cloudy day and the darkness of night. Not only are readers presented with a definition of shadows, but they also are given the opportunity to observe how shadows change based upon the distance of the object from the light as well as the amount of light that shines through the object.

Additional Resources

  • This is a fun, live performance of a hand puppet artist creating different images on a large screen accompanied by the music of Louis Armstrong.
  • This is a simple, interactive poem about shadows. Students can either read it themselves or listen as the computer reads it to them.
  • This is an interactive java applet with shadows. Move the images and/or the light bulb and see how the shadow changes.
  • This interactive day and night webquest teaches students how day and night are created as the Earth turns. Students can read the text or have it read to them as they follow the directions of the text.

Book: What Makes a Shadow?
Author: Clyde Robert Bulla
Illustrator: June Otani
Publisher: Collins, Rev Sub edition
Publication Date: 1994
Pages: 32
Grade Range: K-3
ISBN: 0060229160