What’s Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew? written and illustrated by Robert E. Wells begins by exploring the characteristics and relative sizes of familiar animals and objects like the pygmy shrew, elephant, ladybug, and toadstools. Wells writes, “If [the pygmy shrew] happened to meet an elephant, [he would] probably think [he’s] the smallest thing in the universe!…But pygmy shrew you’re not so small. Not compared to a ladybug.” Following this, Wells describes smaller and smaller organisms like protozoa, paramecia, and bacteria and continues to compare their sizes with the use of his illustrations. He further goes on to examine the molecules that make up the organisms, the atoms that make up the molecule, the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up the atom along with the quarks that make up the protons and neutrons. Wells ties the book together by explaining how everything in nature, the world, the universe, and even the pygmy shrew that opens the story is made up of atoms.
This book does a phenomenal job of exposing students to new organisms and terms in a fun and visually stimulating way and reinforces these terms in a glossary found at the end of the book.
Curriculum Connections
This book could be used in fifth or sixth grade classrooms to help students review that objects can be described in terms of relative size (VA SOL K.4d) and in terms of their physical properties which may be too small to be seen without magnification (VA SOL 3.3b). It further describes how all matter is made of materials such as molecules, atoms, protons, electons, neutrons, and quarks as well as their relative size which directly relates to Virginia SOLs 6.4a.
Additional Resources
- Teachers may use this activity to help students understand the structure of atoms as well as the principles and procedures for measuring their components.
- This lesson plan uses hands-on activities to teach students about the structure of molecules and how they interact. It also gives students the opportunity to create models of two different type molecules.
- This website, using diagrams and easy-to-read instructions, explains how to use a microscope.
- This website allows students to use a virtual electron microscope and then match the magnified specimen to its description.
Book: What’s Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew?
Author: Robert E. Wells
Illustrator: Robert E. Wells
Publisher: Albert Whitman
Publication Date: March 1995
Pages: 32 pages
Grade Range: 5-6
ISBN: 9780807588376