Science Songs

Salas, Laura Purdie (2009).  Are You Living? A Song about Living and Nonliving Things. (PreS-K)

Sung to the tune of "Are You Sleeping?", this book talks about the ways to tell if something is living.  Does it move? Grow? Eat? Have feelings?  Each verse introduces one or two ways to identify a living thing: "Is it moving? / Is it moving? / Can it fly? / Gallop by? / Living things need dinner, / Or they get much thinner, / So they need / To drink and feed."

If you read this book aloud, be sure to practice the song first--the rhythm changes in a few places to fit the syllables.  Also be prepared to discuss some of the more advanced vocabulary ("People have emotions, / Thoughts and clever notions".)  The colorful illustrations are directly tied to each verse, making this a fun book to start a science lesson for young children.

Samantha Hansen: Rock Star!

Nancy Viau (2008). Samantha Hansen Has Rocks in Her Head (Gr. 3-6)

Ten-year-old Samantha Hansen is crazy about science.  She loves learning about caves, clouds, the weather, and especially rocks.  She also likes to make lists: a talent she got from her dad, who died a long time ago.  When her mom announces a family vacation to the Grand Canyon, Samantha's wildest dreams come true: she'll get to see the biggest, oldest, most colorful rocks she's ever heard of.   The vacation almost falls through, however, because Samantha has trouble controlling her temper.  It's not easy to be calm with a pesky older sister and classmates who like to tease!

There's a lot to like about Samantha Hansen.  She asks honest questions and makes honest mistakes.  She's a good friend and a (mostly) good sister.  She's also a little awkward, and sometimes you want to jump into the story and stop her from whatever she's about to do.  On the whole, Samantha Hansen makes this a very good book that skips along quickly in her quest to know as much as possible about her family, herself, and (of course) rocks.

Click Magazine: There's more fun online!

Click Magazine has great articles about science, investigation, and discovery for children between the ages of 3 and 6 years old.  You can find the printed issues of the magazine in the Needham Public Library's children's room, but did you know that you can also go online for stories, information, and activities from Click?

http://www.clickmagkids.com/

For October 2009, explore caves and learn how to make a flapping bat puppet from paper, string, and a pencil.  You can also meet Click and his friends, find books about caves, play games, and send someone a message made from magnetic letters.




You can find even more great websites by visiting the Association for Library Services to Children's online suggestion list!