{"id":230,"date":"2008-09-09T18:25:22","date_gmt":"2008-09-09T23:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/archives\/230"},"modified":"2008-09-09T18:25:22","modified_gmt":"2008-09-09T23:25:22","slug":"teaching-physical-science-with-childrens-literature-spectacular-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/2008\/09\/09\/teaching-physical-science-with-childrens-literature-spectacular-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Physical Science with Children’s Literature: Spectacular Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Do you like to read poetry and\u00a0like\u00a0learning about science?\u00a0Here’s a fun and colorful book that allows you to enjoy both at the same time.<\/p>\n

Spectacular Science <\/a>is a book of poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins which incorporates the beauty of poetry with the fascination of science. From describing the essence of science in terms a child can understand to identifying specific topics\u00a0in science, this book covers many different interests a child may have in the broad science field.\u00a0 Hopkins has chosen specific poems about images and ideas that children are familiar with. In\u00a0entitling his poems,\u00a0“Snowflakes” and “Dinosaur Bone”, Hopkins invites\u00a0children to begin to see that the things they encounter in everyday life, the things they love, are all a part of science. The poems also describe instruments which are used in conducting scientific experiments\u00a0and how they are employed. While using rhyme and rhythm, this excerpt from the poem entitled “Under the Microscope” written by Hopkins himself, provides an insight into the world that is too small to view without this tool.<\/p>\n

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Unseen with
\nan unaided eye
\namoebas
\nglide
\non a small
\nglass slide.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Along with the beautiful language and the scientific overtones, the illustrations jump off the page in strange and bright ways. The drawings coincide with the poems in that they depict the main idea or topic of the poems but they are also somewhat abstract. Children will love to wonder at the bizarre interpretations of the creatures that fill the pages along with the thought-provoking poems.<\/p>\n

Curriculum Connections
\n<\/strong>This book\u00a0may help a child\u00a0understand the way in which magnets attract (K.3) and the concept of\u00a0its poles. Water’s phases are alluded to in a poem about\u00a0ice and water.(K.5) (2.3)Also, a\u00a0child may learn the way a prism works and how it produces a rainbow.(5.3)
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\nAdditional Resources
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