Are you ready to get your hands a little dirty? Are you ready for a little bit of chaos? Actually I'm not sure that's really selling this to anyone... STEAM or STEM (a for art) is an educational trend where we celebrate the sciences (and also the arts even though the arts and the sciences are usually slightly at war?) in the classroom and empower our learners to learn by doing and to develop a life long love of science, technology, engineering and math.
This month I have some great new books that will be published in the next few months or are already on the market and will make a great addition to your STEM collection and classroom library in the early years!
Penny and the Engineering Tail of the Fourth Pig
This story is a fractured fairytale based on the story of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. Penny is a bit different from her piglet siblings, while they build houses in a small town she is busy going to engineering school in the city. When she gets a call from her siblings that the Big Bad Wolf has destroyed their homes and they need her help, she quickly heads home to help her siblings design safe and sturdy houses that no wolf can blow down.
This story shows a female character who is interested in STEM, introduces children to the jobs of engineering and architecture, and throws in some cute fairytale and “pig-themed” fun. As a Grade 3 teacher I can easily see ways to incorporate this picture book into lessons around fairytales and STEM. In fact I have done science activities related to hairdryers and the three little pigs’ building materials with my students in Grades 1-4, and think this would be a great fit for an introduction to that activity. I would highly recommend this book for teachers of children in grades K-5 and it could potentially be used in other grades or settings as well.
I really appreciate the opportunity from Netgalley and the publisher to read and review an advance copy of this book! I am looking forward to purchasing a copy for my students in the future!
Too Many Pigs and One Big Bad Wolf
This book is a fractured fairytale based on the story of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. The premise of the story is a conversation between two characters, maybe a narrator and a listener/reader using two different font colours. The narrator is trying to tell a short story about a wolf and pigs but the listener feels the story is too short. The narrator then gradually adds or multiplies the number of pigs from the previous page until there are way too many pigs but the story isn’t any longer and the two speakers give up.
While being a funny play on a beloved fairytale, it is also an invitation for exploring math concepts using manipulatives such as a rekenrek (abicus) and pictorial representations such as groups in multiplication. This book also gives options for a “high ceiling low floor” approach to mathematical problem solving because it allows children to enter at any point. There are questions about basic addition and also multiplication.
This is a fairly short but interesting story that I think would have a lot of buy in from early and middle elementary students in grades 1-4. I could definitely see myself using this in Math class to bring literacy and numeracy together with my Grade 3 students and would recommend this book to my colleagues.
I really appreciate the opportunity from Netgalley and the publisher to read and review an advance copy of this book! I am looking forward to purchasing a copy for my students in the future!
Emma’s Sunflower
Emma’s Sunflower is a picture book about a young girl who watches throughout the seasons as a sunflower goes from a seed knocked to the ground by a crow to a beautiful summer sunflower in her backyard. I think that this book would be a great entry way into lessons about plants and seeds, seasons and birds. The story ends with some fun activities you can do after reading, such as going back to look for clues in the pictures or creating your own nature-based art.
I think this book would be great for a K-2 classroom or as a provocation for students in preschool-Grade 4 when learning about life cycles and plants. It is a great opportunity to bring literacy, art and science together.
I really appreciate the opportunity from Netgalley and the publisher to read and review an advance copy of this book! I am looking forward to purchasing a copy for my students in the future!
Wednesday Wilson Fixes all Your Problems
Wednesday Wilson is an enthusiastic little entrepreneur who also just tries to get through school life with her friends and enemies (the Emmas). When her little brother worries about a project related to a family tree, she gets some inspiration for a new business.
I love that this book features a strong, non-white, female character who is interested in business. I think Wednesday will be a fantastic role model for young girls everywhere. The story includes some footnotes throughout with definitions of more challenging or unfamiliar words, usually business terms such as “trademark” but also words like “funk” or “acknowledgements”. I also love that Wednesday’s family is non-traditional and includes both her Nonna and Nonno and I think, two mothers. I think there are many young children who would enjoy this story and see something of themselves in the characters. I would definitely recommend this novel to early elementary teachers or parents of children ages approx 5-9.
I really appreciate the opportunity from Netgalley and the publisher to read and review an advance copy of this book! I am looking forward to purchasing a copy for my students in the future!
In the Clouds (Inquiry)
In the Clouds is a book about a curious little girl who wants to know more about the world around her. Perfect for a teacher introducing inquiry and question formulation, or families of inquisitive children always asking why, this book models questions and the idea that questions lead to more questions. Additionally, this book lends well to a study of clouds or weather, from terminology like cumulus as well as questions (and answers) about how clouds form, I could see this book being an introduction to science units across the grade levels. The story ends with a few pages of information about the questions in the book as well as about weather and clouds, but I also feel this type of book would spark curiosity in students and encourage them to go beyond these questions and answers to create their own questions and search for the answers through the inquiry process. While this book is probably best fit for grades 1-4 I could see using this with older and younger students as weather is part of many middle years science curriculums and preschool children love to ask why to everything around them!
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book! I look forward to purchasing a copy for my grade 3 classroom library!
Arithmechicks Take a Calculation Vacation
This book is an excellent opportunity to bring literacy into the math classroom. The arithmechicks offer several opportunities to practice basic addition and subtraction facts and to learn about fact families. There are four basic (under 10) fact families explored in the story, but I think that it would be fairly easy to go beyond just those mathematical concepts to look at story problems and word problems, explore vocabulary related to addition and subtraction concepts and create their own story and math problems.
The pictures are fun and inviting and the words are fairly easy to understand. I could see this being used as a shared reading or read aloud experience, but I think that lots of children in the K-2 range would find this book accessible. It would also be a good fit in those classrooms because of the ties to basic numeracy concepts that are woven throughout this book. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book!
Again Essie
This is the story of a boy and his little sister who loves to knock over all of his toys. He decides to build a wall out of boxes he finds around the house to try to stop her from getting to his toys. As he builds the wall readers can see his thought process about 3D shapes and consider non-standard measurement (measurement that does not use the metric or imperial system, but rather objects or reference points) to determine the placement of each box as well as how much distance in both width and height he needs to fill based on the size of his cat who is a similar height and width as his sister. I could definitely see using this book in a preschool or k-2 classroom as a jumping off point for inquiry, STEM, project based learning lesson. It also demonstrates math in everyday life as well as the importance of trying a variety of strategies until you find one that works!
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this excellent book! I look forward to buying a copy for my classroom library in the future!
Franz’s Phantasmagorical Machine
This is a really neat book about a boy/man building a machine that is based on a real inventor. As a teacher, I feel this book would be a great introduction to any unit on building or STEM, such as simple machines, pulleys and gears, structures etc! It would also be a great mentor text for creative biographies told in a story-like manner. Finally, I also feel it would be a great book for discussing growth mindset/perseverance. I would recommend this book for K-6 schools and classrooms. It likely could be used with younger or older students though too!
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this great book! I look forward to purchasing a copy for my classroom library!