Magazines for Kids

Magazines are a great way to get your kids interested in reading. Erica from the What Do We Do All Day blog has done the hard work of rounding up a list of 16 magazines for  preschool and grade-school aged kids. Our family has had experience with the Ranger Rick (and the preschool, My Big Backyard now called Ranger Rick, Jr.) and Highlights for Kids. One that I have never seen before is Ask, a science magazine for kids 7-9 or 10. For older kids, they publish Odyssey.

Kids love to get mail so magazines make great birthday or holiday gifts, especially since the gift lasts the length of the subscription.

NYPL: 100 Best Children’s Book for 2013

The New York Public Library is out with an interactive list of the best children's books of 2013. You can search by reading level, genre and theme. Click on a book that interests you and it will take you to a short description  of the story. There is something for everyone.

More Best Books of 2013

Horn Books and James Patterson’s Read Kiddo Read blog have published their list of best children’s books for 2013. You will notice a great deal of overlap with the Nerdy Award finalists and between the two lists. There is a book to please very kid. Check it out!

Locomotive

Locomotive is part geography book, part history book and part instruction manual for all things to do with trains. Written and illustrated by Brian Floca, it is a homage to the locomotive which was the height of mid-nineteenth century technology.

It is 1869. you, your mother and a sibling  are taking the train out of Omaha, Nebraska to join your father in San Francisco. You learn about the crew and what they do to keep your train running. As the train crosses Nebraska, you get a glimpse out your windows of the Platte River Valley and the Plains beyond. Are you hungry or bored? A “butch” ( a young boy selling books, newspapers and food) comes through your car. You learn how the passengers stay warm and that it is rude to use the “convenience” when the train is sitting at a station. You get off the train for a simple railroad dinner along the way. At the end of the day, a new crew boards and a new engine pulls the train. At night, some people sleep in berths the porters pull from the ceiling. In your car, you try to sleep on your bench seat as best you can.

Out of Cheyenne, Wyoming your train starts climbing up the Rocky Mountains. That requires two engines to pull the train. You see the beautiful rock formations out your window. Near Salt Lake, you reach Promontory Summit; the place where the Union Pacific meets the Central Pacific Railroad and where a golden spike joined the two halves. This is where you change trains. You got here by way of the Union Pacific Railroad. You will finish your journey on the Central Pacific Railroad.  On through the high desert to Truckee to start the steep climb over the Sierra Mountains. Up to Donner Pass, through the summit tunnel and down hill from Summit Station to San Francisco, where your father is waiting for you at the station.

All along the route, we learn what each crew member is doing to keep the train moving towards its destination. Each page is beautifully illustrated, not with generic scenery but what you would actually see if you where on the train. This is a book to be poured over.  Inside the front cover is a map of your journey and a little about how people traveled before the railroad.  Inside the back cover is a primer on steam power.  Locomotive is my new favorite picture book. It is a book for kids who think they are too old for picture books. It is a jewel!

The Sonoma County Library has several copies of Locomotive. The AR level is 4.7.

On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein

Jennifer Berne uses Albert Einstein’s curiosity to take the reader on a journey through his life. Even as a young boy, he was curious about the world around him. A gift of a compass helped him to see that there were hidden mysteries in the world and he wanted to understand them. One day while riding his bike, he looked at the beams of light coming from the sun to the earth. He imagined himself racing through space on a beam of light. Albert began reading about magnetism, gravity, light, sound and numbers. But he still had questions. He keep on reading and wondering and learning.

The illustrator, Vladimir Radunsky, helps to visually illustrate the scientific concepts that Albert was thinking and wondering about: motion, the universe and his famous equation, E=mc² . Right to the end of his life, Einstein was thinking about and working on questions.  But still there are many questions to be answered; maybe you or your child might become one of the scientists who will answer one of them.

At the end of the book is more information about Einstein’s life and his thought experiments, as well as a list of more books about Albert Einstein.

Several copies of   On A Beam of Light can be found at the Sonoma County Library. The AR level is 4.5.

What is S.T.E.M.?

With the full implementation of the Common Core Curriculum in the 2014-2015 school year, you will be hearing lots more about S.T.E.M. or Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics as drivers for the economy of the future. Two-thirds of my Schools of Hope students this year want to be scientists. Their interests range from space to oceanography to curing diseases. Most kids are natural scientists; they want to know how things work.  In the coming months, we’ll be looking at a wide range of books, websites and apps that inform kids about S.T.E.M. subjects. Two we have already featured are Why With Nye on the Juno mission to Jupiter and Bedtime Math’s daily math problems for kids of all ages.

Juno Mission to Jupiter

It it has been my experience working with elementary grade students that many of them are fascinated by space. Bill Nye (The Science Guy) has a new web series in conjunction with NASA to explain the Juno mission to Jupiter. In an interview on NPR this morning, Bill Nye said that his show was aimed at an audience of ten year olds, as that seemed to work for a wide range of ages. As of today, there are five episodes of Why With Nye with a new one set to air tomorrow. The topics include: the Juno Earth flyby, the super storm on Jupiter and is Jupiter like a piece of the Sun? In two to four minute episodes, Bill Nye uses props and geeky humor to give you the answers. Check it out!