Teaching Physical Science with Children’s Literature: A Color Sampler

Posted on March 23, 2010 by openwidearchive

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A Color Sampler written by Kathleen Westray describes how to create colors by using primary colors, secondary colors and intermediate colors.  The twelve colors that make up the color wheel (primary, secondary and intermediate colors) can be mixed to make up hundreds of other colors.  An example would be if someone wanted to create the color citron, green and red would be added together. The book describes how to make the color black and shows how adding black and white can change a color.  The book plays with color showing how a color will look lighter against a dark shade and lighter when placed against white. This visuals in this book help to support the color creations.  Colors that go well together are called complementary colors; they are created when a color is matched with a color directly across from it on the color wheel.  
“Color is everywhere, and everything has color. The variety of color is endless…and this is just a sampler”.

Curriculum Connections

This would be a great book for an early elementary school student.  It shows a color swatch of each color along with the written word.  A Color Sampler would be a great book to introduce students to colors and how colors are made (K.4 a). The book also shows what happens when black (darkens) or white (lightens) an existing color. The book plays with shapes and colors by showing how a color can look darker or lighter depending on the location of each color or shape.

Additional Resources

Students can play Mix and Paint with Curious George from PBS Kids. Students can pick which picture they would like to paint and then with the help of Curious George they can create colors from white, red, blue and yellow. It makes learning about color creations fun!

Teachers or parents can print off color pages from Kids Color Pages with over one thousand categories to pick from. This would also be a great way to bring in material from other subject areas.

Mixing colors is a great lesson plan for teachers.  In this hands-on activity students can mix colors with shaving cream in a Ziploc bag and watch the color change. After the colors have been mixed, students can then paint with the new color they just made.

Book: A Color Sampler
Author: Kathleen Westray
Illustrator: N/A
Publisher: Ticknor & Fields
Publication Date: 1993
Pages: 28
Grade Range: k-5
ISBN: 0-395-65940-X

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Teaching Physical Science with Children’s Literature: Touch It! Materials, Matter and You

Posted on March 23, 2010 by openwidearchive

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“Touch it! is a lively and easy-to-understand first science book that explores materials-their color, shape, texture, size, mass, magnetism, and more.”

Touch it! Materials, Matter, and You written by Adrienne Mason and illustrated by Claudia Davila covers a lot of information on physical science, but breaks it down for the primary grade levels. It starts by explaining to the children that our world is filled with different types of materials, and talks about how you can see, feel, describe the different materials. There is also hands on activities throughout the book to help children gain a better understanding of the content. The pictures are very bright and colorful, and the author asks questions, such as, “In this picture, What kinds of textures do the objects and creatures in this farmyard have?” So, it allows the children to be active learners. This book goes on to talk about the mass of materials, magnetic materials, using materials, stretchy materials, and materials around us. Like I said, this book covers a lot of information, but each section has a brief description and a great hands on activity to go along with it. At the very end there is a special section for parents and teachers to find more activity ideas and information to help adults and teachers answer young learners’ questions.

Curriculum Connections

This book is great for your primary grade levels. It helps to teach children about materials, their properties, and their uses. The book gives you hands on activities you can use that go along with the information being talked about, or you could come up with some of your own activities to follow along with the information. For example, the section about texture, you can find objects for the students to feel and have them touch and describe how they feel, and them compare the different objects. Also, ask the students how the texture relates to how the object is used. (PS.1)  Another great idea to pull from this book is talking about floating materials. You can demostarte the buoyancy by placing different objects into a bowl of water in front the class, or let the children get into groups and do it on their own. This is a fun activity, and will keep the students attention. (PS.2)

Additional Resources

Why does a boat float? Here you will find a buoyancy activity for children. The kids get a chance to be hands on and find out on their own why boats float. It is a messy experiment, but the kids will love it!

Magnetic Experiments At this website, you will find several different magnetic experiments. I believe children need to be active learners, and these are great experiments the children can do to get a better understanding on magnets. Also, most of them are very simple and can be done in a short amount of time.

Physical Science Activities This is a great resource for teachers. There are crossword puzzles, printables, and other material for teachers to use in their classroom to review and learn about physical science.

General Information

Book: Touch It! Materials, Matter and You
Author: Adrienne Mason
Illustrator: Claudia Davila
Publisher: Kids Can Press
Publication date: 2005
Pages: 32
Grade Range: 1-5
ISBN: 1-55337-760-5

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Teaching Geography With Children’s Literature: Follow That Map! A First Book of Mapping Skills

Posted on March 23, 2010 by openwidearchive

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"Do you know how to find a hidden treasure?  Do you know how far your house is from the candy store?  Do you know the way to your favorite ride at the amusement park?  It's easy!  Join the friends below and follow that map!"  This book teaches kids all about maps in a fun and interactive way.  Terms such as legend, compass rose, landmarks, and symbols are introduced.  There are also sections on understanding a globe and creating your own map.  A convenient index of map terms is also included.

Curriculum Connections

A great introductory level book, this could be used to introduce the concepts of maps.  Once introduced, the students could create their own maps.

It would teach them how to demonstrate map skills by constructing simple maps, using title, map legend, and compass rose. (SOL 2.6 ).  The book would be most appropriate for grade levels 2-3.

Additional Resources

This teacher’s site has many great ideas for class activities about maps.  Even contains a video on reading maps for the students to watch!

This activity page allows students to decorate their own compass rose as well as complete the direction labels.

This video clip shows teachers some ideas for teaching kids about map skills.

This site contains learning activities directly related to the book, provided by publisher.

Title: Follow that Map! A First Book of Mapping Skills

Author: Scot Ritchie

Publisher: Kidscanpress.com

Publication Date: 2009

Pages: 32

Grade Range: 2-3

ISBN: 978-155453-274- 2

 

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Teaching Physical Science with Children’s Literature: Electricity

Posted on March 22, 2010 by openwidearchive

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Electricity, a DK Eyewitness book written by Steve Parker, is a great introduction to electricity.  The book is written in short sections with one topic per two page spread.  There are lots of pictures which make the book very visually interesting.  Each section discusses the science behind electricity and includes information about important historical scientists.  Topics covered include Circuits and Conductors, Electromagnets, Discoveries using electricity, Electricity in the home, and more.

Curriculum Connections

This book could be used help students investigate and understand the characteristics of electricity (VA SOL 4.3) like conductors and electricity (4.3a), basic circuits (4.3b), static electricity (4.3c), transformation of electrical energy into light, heat, and mechanical energy (4.3d), electromagnets (4.3e), and historical contributions in understanding electricity (4.3f).  The short sections make it conducive to using the book to supplement multiple activities and lessons.

Additional Resources

Learn more about electric circuits with the interactive Blobz Guide to Electric Circuits.

Play this Conductors and Insulators game to learn more about electricity.

Explore Static Electricity with this experiment.

General Information

Book: Electricity
Author: Steve Parker
Illustrator: DK Eyewitness Books
Publisher: DK Eyewitness Books
Publication date: 1992, republished 2005
Pages: 72
Grade Range: 3-5
ISBN: 0756613884

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Teaching Physical Science with Children’s Literature: Wow! Said the Owl

Posted on March 22, 2010 by openwidearchive

Wow! Said the Owl

There is no shortage of books about colors, but Tim Hopgood has written and illustrated a particularly satisfying story with Wow! Said the Owl.  One curious little owl takes a long nap at night (“instead of staying awake all night , as little owls are supposed to do”) so that she can stay awake and see the dawn.  Following is page after page of bright colors from the yellow of the sun to the green of the trees to the red of the butterflies and orange flowers. Young children will love the bright collage style illustrations, the simple predictable language, and the cycle of night-to-day-to-night.  Teachers will appreciate the opportunity to teach or reinforce color identification with the color wheel at the end of the book that encourages kids to “Look through the pages [of the book] and see if you can find them.”

Curriculum Connections

This book is best suited for the early elementary curriculum when students are learning to make basic observations of objects (K.1a) and the physical properties like color that can be used to describe them (K.4a). Young children will love playing a modified version of “I Spy” using this book for inspiration.  The teacher should model the game by telling children that she/he is going to close his/her eyes and pretend to be the baby owl who has never seen daylight before.  When the teacher opens his or her eyes, he should say “Wow! said the owl…… I see something [color].” and encourage the children to guess what he or she sees.  If children are having difficulty, additional physical properties can be introduced like shape and size to help children guess the object.  After the teacher has modeled the game several times, children can take turns being the baby owl. As a follow up activity, students can take a walk together outside and look for objects with particular colors.

Additional Resources

  • Caterpillar Circles and Colors -This printable can be used to test color knowledge.  By numbering the circles, teachers can then call out a color and a number and ask students to color the appropriate numbered circle.
  • Owl Coloring Sheet – This printable is an accurate representation of a barn owl and a good way to connect the lesson to a life science lesson as well.
  • Can You Guess the Color? – This song or poem is a wonderful way for young children to make associations between objects and colors.
  • Color Activities – This website includes numerous printables, games, and activities for teachers to use when teaching colors to young children.
  • A Rainbow of Color Activities – This website includes books, printables, songs, games, and lots of other activities for teachers to use when teaching colors to young children.

Book: Wow! Said the Owl
Author and Illustrator: Tim Hopgood
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 32
Grade Range: PreK
ISBN: 0374385181

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Teaching Physical Science with Children’s Literature: Properties

Posted on March 22, 2010 by openwidearchive

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Introduction and Summary:
Properties by DeltaScienceReaders is a beginning reader book that is set up in the style of a textbook but in a much small version. The first page is the table of contents and asks the student to “Think about…” and then list out: matter, properties, solid, liquid, gas. There is also a section on “People in science”. This section talks about geologists and explains what a geologist does. I liked this because the geologist pictured is a woman and in science there are few female scientists shown in books. The book explains everything in kid language and has a lot of great pictures. When discussing properties, there is a page that asks the student to identify on the page what objects are soft and what objects are hard? A teacher could take similar pictures and create a worksheet with matching. The book goes on to explain magnets and then asks the student which of the photographs would a magnet attract. When explaining liquids, solids and gases, the book explains that
“All liquids flow. Some liquids are easy to pour. Some are hard to pour. Some things float on liquids. Some things sink in liquids.” I like how the book puts keywords and terms in bold and at the end of the book there is a glossary of terms.

Curriculum Connections:
This book covers K.3 a and b, K.4 a,b, c, d and K.5a and c.  The introduces magnets and magnetism(K.3a andb).  This book would be great at the end or beginning of the unit on magnets. The book also introduces comparisons of color, shapes, textures, sizes and weight. (K.4a-d). The book explains the phases that water goes through and introduces the concept that some things float and some things sink.

Additional Resources:
Ms. Lee’s Kindergarten Experiments with Science is a great website for teaching Liquids and Solids to young students. The site has what experiments she conducted in her class and how to do them. It also has pictures of the kids doing the experiments.
Classified! is an experiment found on The Franklin Institute website. It is a step by step on how to conduct an experiment in classifying objects such as buttons, leaves and peanuts in their shells. It suggests using peanuts but because of allergies, teachers may have to find some other object to classify.
Changing State is an interactive activity on changing liquids to solids and gas. It is something that a student could see on a projection screen and it asks questions at each step. It would be too hard for some younger students to read on their own but they would be able to tell what everything is by the pictures.
Blue Goo is an experiment on the National Geographic website using water, cornstarch and blue food coloring. It explains the experiments and even prompts teachers to ask about before and after doing the experiment.

General Information:
Book: Properties
Author: DeltaScienceReaders
Publisher: Delta Education
Publication Date: 2003
Pages:16
Grade Range:Kindergarten through 1st grade
ISBN: 1-59242-251-9

 

 

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Teaching Physical Science With Children’s Literature: If You Find a Rock

Posted on March 22, 2010 by openwidearchive

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 “If you find a rock, a nice flat,

rounded rock that sits just right in the crook of your finger,

then you have found a skipping rock.” Or, “Maybe you find a soft white rock

a rock that feels dusty in your fingers.  Then you have a chalk

rock, and you use it to make pictures on the pavement.”

Introduction and Summary

If You Find a Rock written by, Peggy Christian and photographed by, Barbara Hirsch Lember is a whimsical children’s book about the hidden elegance and uses of rocks.  This book inspires natural curiosity and discovery and encourages us all to slow down, relax and discover the natural wonders of rocks.  The author describes many different types of rocks that one might find on a nature walk.  They are described by their shape, size, color and other physical characteristics as well as ideas of what the kind of rock you find might be good for.  Children  have never been able to help collecting rocks and this book gives them a way to classify thier collection.  You might find a splashing rock or a skipping rock or a wishing rock or a resting rock, this book celebrates rocks and where they might be found.

Curricular Connections

This would be a great book to use as a read aloud for young students when introducing physical science.  The book describes rocks, where you find them and what you could do with them in many different ways.  It also describes many physical attributes and characteristics of different kinds of rocks.  This book is definitely a good classroom conversation starter.  The book does not use many scientific terms so it’s a good jumping off point when introducing how physical properties of an object can be described.   It leaves room for the teacher to discuss physical properties like color, shape, texture as well as size and weight of objects.  (K.4 a, b, c, d)

Additional Resources

Here are some useful sites that may accompany this book well.

Try this site that has lots of great information on how to classify rocks and where they come from.  This site can be used with older students or as teacher background knowledge.

This is a nice interactive site that can be used with older kids and to provide background knowledge for younger children.

This is a great site to use for a teacher resource.  It provides a compilation list of many, many websites that a teacher may look through to get information on teaching about rocks.

This website provides ideas for lesson plans about rocks.  It includes four days of plans on different topics related to the physical science of rocks.  The ideas include, What are rocks and how are they formed?, My life as a rock., How do rocks cycle on the Earth?, How can rock properties help to identify rocks?  The site also includes resources for teacher background knowledge and links to other books that may be used with the lessons.

There are so many great sites that have to do with rocks and here is another one.  It is complete with another list of books about rocks that would be appropriate for young readers and activities to build curiosity about rocks.

General Information

Book:  If You Find a Rock

Author:  Peggy Christian

Illustrator:  Barbara Hirsch Lember

Publisher:  Voyager Books Harcourt, INC.

Publication Date:  2000

Pages:  32

Grade Range:  K-4

ISBN:  9780152063542

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Teaching Physical Science with Children’s Literature: Elephants Aloft

Posted on March 22, 2010 by openwidearchive

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Elephants Aloft, written by Kathi Appelt and illustrated by Keith Baker, is a beautiful children's picture book that uses just one word on most pages to tell the story of the young Asian elephants' travels to visit their Auntie Rwanda in Africa.  Before the cover page, the book begins with a letter written to Rama and Raja from Auntie Rwanda,

Dear Rama and Raja,
I miss you!
Please come
for a visit.
Love,
Auntie Rwanda

The book cleverly and simply continues with one preposition word on each page.  It allows the beautiful illustrations, done in colorful acrylic, to tell the story of Rama and Raja's travels in a hot air balloon to see their Auntie Rwanda.  They get "In" the hot air balloon basket, then they fly "above" the Asian town, and "beside" one of the domes of the Taj Majal.  After they fly "through" the clouds, they go "between" the rock pillars, "behind" the waterfall, "across" the ocean, at night they float with balloons attached to their feet "below" the basket & the moon, in the morning they go "around" a snow capped mountain, the elephants go "under" the water in their basket as they bathe, "beyond" the rainbow, "over" an African village, "out" of the basket as they finally land their balloon, and "into the arms of Auntie Rwanda".  A simple concept beautifully done to clearly illustrate these positions words.  Young children and students will love to travel along with these adorable elephants as they learn position words.

Curriculum Connections

Elephants Aloft can be used to introduce and/or enhance the physical science standard of learning that states a student will investigate and understand that the position of an object can be described.  (VA SOL K.4e) It contains six of the position words contained within the VA SOL K.4e (over/under, in/out, and above/below) as well as several other position words.  The Kindergarten student will be able to "read" the pictures in order to describe one object in relation to another object and according to its motion.  While looking through the illustrations, the student can also describe the colors of the objects in the story.  (VA SOL K.4a)

Additional Resources

General Information

Book: Elephants Aloft
Author: Kathi Appelt
Illustrator: Keith Baker
Publisher: Harcourt Brace & Company
Publication Date: 1993
Pages: 36
Grade Range: PreK – 2
ISBN: 015225384X

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Teaching Geography with Children’s Literature: The Patchwork Path

Posted on March 22, 2010 by openwidearchive

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The Patchwork Path is written by Bettye Stround and illustrated by Erin Susanna Bennett.  The story is told by Hannah, a ten year old girl, who is a slave on a Georgia plantation.  When the story begins, Hannah’s sister has been sold to another plantation and soon after that, her mother passes away.  Before her mother died she taught Hannah how to make a special quilt.  Each section of the quilt has a special meaning and gives directions to run to freedom.  There is a code that goes along with the quilt to remember what each section means.

The monkey wrench
turns the wagon wheel
toward Canada on the bear’s paw trail to the crossroads.
Once they got to the crossroads,
they dug a log cabin on the ground.
Shoofly told them to dress up in cotton
and satin bow ties and go to the cathedral church, get married, and exchange double rings.
Flying geese stay on
the drunkard’s path and
follow the stars.

The monkey wrench is the quilt itself.  One day in spring Hannah’s papa has her air out the quilt and that signals to the other slaves that they will be escaping tonight. The wagon wheel is Hannah’s papa because he is the wagon driver for the plantation so he knows all the roads, streams, and woods and knows where to hide while they are escaping.  Hannah and her papa escape that night and run through the woods until they get to a church where they hide under the floor boards until it is safe for them to come out again.  The next day they see a flock of geese flying North and they know they must follow the geese to get to freedom.  On their journey they find bear paw marks and that leads them to a safe cave to sleep in for the night.  They always walked in a zigzag pattern like a drunkard’s path because it would be harder for the Master’s dogs to catch their scent.  The Shoofly pattern on the quilt reminded them that if anyone ever came after them they should scatter like flies and then meet up at the spot that they were separated.  After a long journey Hannah and her papa finally make it to Lake Erie where they drew a log cabin in the sand to signal that they needed help to cross the lake into Canada.  That night a free black man found their sign and brought them new clothes.  The new clothes made Hannah and her papa look like they were already free and headed to church.  That night they board a boat for Canada and sail into freedom.  During their first winter of freedom Hannah makes a new quilt with scraps of their old slave clothing, sections of their other quilt, and new fabric too.  Hannah leaves one section blank so that when her sister Mary is reunited with them, they can finish the quilt together.


Curriculum Connections
The Patchwork Path would be a great book to read after student’s have had some experience with maps and directions.  It was recommended for grades K – 3, but I think that Kindergarten would be a little too young to use this book to illustrate using maps.  It would be better to show how student’s could make a simple map of a familiar area, like their neighborhood or home town and for older students, including a title, legend and compass rose with their map (VA SOL 1.5, 2.6).

Additional Resources

  • Students could use this coloring page as a map and then write a secret code about how to get to the “X”.
  • This website has printable pages to make a “Where I Live” booklet.
  • This website is an interactive map about the underground railroad. It has 3 different activities such as finding the shortest route for a person escaping from slavery in Georgia.

Book: The Patchwork Path
Author: Bettye Stroud
Illustrator: Erin Susanne Bennett
Publisher: Candlewick
Publication Date: 2005
Pages: 32 pages
Grade Range: K-3
ISBN-10: 0763624233

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Teaching Geography with Children’s Literature: What The World Eats

Posted on March 22, 2010 by openwidearchive

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 Introduction and Summary

What The World Eats is a very informative factual book written by Faith D’Aluisio. The book provides a snapshot of what people around the world eat. It is a very enlightening book that really engages the reader and would be a wonderful tool to get students thinking. The book includes many maps including a world map which indicates all the countries profiled in the book and then smaller maps for each country that is profiled. The book provides facts about each of the locations and also stats about that particular area’s population and demogrpahic information. A native family is profiled for each country that is profiled and excellent, compelling photographsby Peter Menzel adorn each page. The profile includes information about the country, what the family eats, how they get their food, how much they spend on food, etc.

Curriculum Connections

This book would be great to use in a unit when students are learning about other countries and cultures. Because the book profiles so many different families in different countries studnets can ot only learn about other countries but also the people who inhabit those countries and get a look at their culture. This book could also be used to compare and contrast the United States of America and the American lifestyle with those of other countries, especially developing nations.

In Virginia, this book would be a great resource to use with Virginia SOL standards WG 1 (e) and WG 4.

Additional Resources

 1. The book includes recipes that each profile family selected to share with the readers. Teachers could select a few of these recipes and bring the dishes into school to share with the class.

 2. A great website providing lesson plans and activities for using food to dicuss cultures and countries.

3.  This website provides an interactive World map that students can use to explore more about different countries.

4. This is the website that accompanies the book!

General Information

Book: What The World Eats

Author: Faith D’Aluisio

Photographer: Peter Menzel

Publisher: Tricycle Press

Publication Date: 2008

Pages: 160

Grade Range: 5-8

ISBN: 1582462461

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