Category Archives: Science

Are You a Horse?

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Roy gets a saddle for his birthday with the instructions to find a horse and enjoy the ride, but Roy doesn’t know what a horse is. Are You a Horse? by Andy Rash had my group of kindergartners giggling and chiming in each time Roy asked a different character his big question. “Are you a horse?” Roy asks a cactus, but it can’t be a horse because it’s not an animal. Roy asks a snake, but even though it’s an animal, it can’t be a horse because a horse has legs. Time after time, Roy uses what he’s learned  and finds a new something to ask, “Are you a horse?” only to be told no. Finally he finds an animal that meets all the requirements (an animal with legs, friendly, fast, no stripes, etc.) – yes, it’s a horse! The last page had those kindergartners guffawing, because Roy and the horse do use the saddle to go for a ride, but the horse rides Roy.

There’s a great deal of “yes/no” information in this book, so it was the perfect story to teach kids how to use a chart as a graphic organizer. I made a chart with all the characters Roy meets (the cactus, the snake, etc.) going down the side. Across the top of the chart were listed all the characteristics that came up in the book: are you an animal, do you have legs, etc. Next, I put the picture of each character on a 3×5 card. To make sure I had enough for everyone in the class, I made three cards for each character. I passed out the index cards and asked the kindergartners to find the people who had matching cards (the cards had both the picture and the words to help my non-word-readers). Once the kids were sitting with their character buddies, we filled out the chart together on the Smart Board.

“Are you an animal? Cactuses, thumbs up if yes you are an animal, and thumbs down if you’re not.” Because the kids were in little teams, they could look to each other to answer the question. “Noooo!” Since the cactus did not meet the animal requirement, we wrote the word “no” with a frown face in that square. “Crabs, are you an animal?” Thumbs up meant we wrote the word “yes” with a smiling face in that square. If we weren’t certain (do crabs lay eggs? Good question!) we marked those squares with a question mark and decided to find out the answer during library time.  As a group, we used the chart to review and organize all the information we’d learned in reading Are You a Horse? and all the students were actively involved. My animal-loving “nature smart” kids were thrilled, my “logic smart” kids were in heaven, and I had a blast listening to a classroom of kindergartners asking in their best cowboy drawl, “Are you a horse?”

For more information, visit Andy Rash’s website: rashworks.com.

 

Duck! Rabbit!

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Those of you who know me know I have a huge author-crush on Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I think her books are brilliant, and Duck! Rabbit! by AKR (as I like to call her) and Tom Lichtenheld gets me every time. Is this character a duck? A rabbit? Neither, or both? Two unseen narrators debate just what this critter is, and we realize that it’s all in how you look at it.

This book is a cool lesson in perspective. You can work the science angle if you’re doing a unit on the five senses and talk about how we see things. Get little plastic magnifying glasses, binoculars, or sheets of colored transparent plastic and let little ones experiment with looking through them. Share optical illusion books and art by M. C. Escher. Talk about how differences in perspective mean that we can have differences of opinion, too. We can see things from different points of view, and one way is necessarily better than the other. Share Duck! Rabbit! and see what happens!

For more information, visit Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s website: whoisamy.com or Tom Lichtenheld’s website: tomlichtenheld.com.

Skeleton Hiccups

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“Skeleton woke up.
hic, hic, hic,
Had the hiccups.
hic, hic, hic”

By the time you’ve turned to page two of Skeleton Hiccups written by Margery Cuyler and illustrated by S.D. Schindler, all your little listeners will be chiming in “hic, hic, hic”. Skeleton has the hiccups and nothing, not holding his breath, not drinking water upside-down (which makes the water pour out his empty eye sockets), not being scared by his friend Ghost, nothing seems to help. Then Ghost holds up a mirror for Skeleton to see his own scary reflection, and the hiccups are gone!

This is a terrific Halloween choice for kids who don’t really want to be scared. Skeleton and Ghost (who wears his baseball cap backwards) are more friendly than fearsome. The repeated “hic, hic, hic”, the short sentences, and the simple plot make Skeleton Hiccups a fun read-aloud for those with bare-bones attention spans. After reading the story, talk about the skeleton each of us has inside. Sing “Skull, Shoulders, Knee Caps, Toes.” (I know that “Arms and ribs and legs and hips” isn’t exactly rhyming, so if you come up with a better fit, email me.) Then, build skeletons!

At artprojectsforkids.org, I found this cute idea for making a skeleton out of uncooked pasta. I’m bookmarking this site, because Kathy Barbro’s ideas look fun and some look easy enough even for me. There’s also a cool paper plate skeleton on isharecrafts.com for those who are more craftily-gifted. For a great change from sugary snacks, make “bones” from refrigerated breadstick dough and dip them in pizza sauce “blood” Happy Halloween!

For more information, visit margerycuyler.com.

Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow?

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Before I rave about  Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? by Susan A. Shea and Tom Slaughter, first I must rave about the public librarians in Washington. I just spent a day talking about great books and ideas with some of the most dedicated, hardworking, professional librarians I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. These librarians do it all in their eastern Washington libraries, and I am inspired by them to do more when I get back to my library in Michigan.

But if I’m spreading the love this morning, I have to send some love to Susan A. Shea and Tom Slaughter for this book.

“If a snakelet becomes a snake, can a cupcake grow and become a (lift-the-flap) cake?”

How do I love thee, Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? Let me count the ways.

1.I didn’t know they were called snakelets, so yay for learning vocabulary in context.
2. Nothing like lifting a flap to grab a young audience.
3. The flaps are actually sturdy enough to withstand multiple readings.
4. Love the rhyming practice we get to guess the right answer.
5. Half way through the book, we stop to get the answer (yes to these, no to those) and then we go to round two, which ends with a baby grows to become – you!
6. Tom Slaughter’s art is yummy.

This works wonderfully for the early science units on living and non-living things. An easy extension idea for non-crafty folks like myself is to give students a large piece of construction paper folded in half. At the top of the page, write “Do you know which ones will grow?” One one half of the page, write “Yes” and write on the other half “No”. Kids can choose die-cut shapes, or shapes cut from magazines, to glue on the appropriate side. Cute for a class book or a bulletin board, too. You know all your students will grow to love this book.

For more information, visit tomslaughter.com

Beat the Heat with Blackout

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One hot summer night, a little girl looks for someone to play with her. Everyone is too busy – Dad’s cooking, Mom’s on the computer, Sister’s on the phone – when suddenly, the power goes out. In the blackout, the city changes. The family goes up the rooftop to look at the stars, and goes down to the street to join their neighbors in an impromptu block party. When the power comes back on, instead of going back to screen-filled, distracted normal, the family chooses to play a board game by candlelight, because “not everyone likes normal”.

Brainstorm with students about what uses electricity and what we can do without electricity. Talk about how people lived (and still live) without electricity. If you have large enough windows in your classroom for natural light, try “unplugging” for an hour or two. Bring in flashlights for shadow puppets and for reading – because (gasp!) paper books don’t use electricity! Encourage families to try an unplugged night at home and let students share their experiences.

With its large, comic-book-inspired layout and few words per page, young readers will find John Rocco’s Blackout approachable – by fluorescent light, flashlight, candlelight, or sunlight.