Accelerated Reading Level: 5.1
It is always a treat when an adult can learn something from a children's book. This book focuses on feathers from 10 birds. While many children may think that the sole purpose for bird feathers is flying, each of the ten feathers discussed in this book have a different function. This illustrated book looks and feels like a nature journal with "feathers" taped or stapled in and notes on what makes the feather unique. I love that the author didn't try to educate us on ten birds, but narrowed in and focused on one small part of the bird --- its feathers. As a teacher at a STEM school, we teach students how to be scientists recording in a science journal. There is a specific layout that much be followed. Because of the scrapbook layout, this could lead to discussions comparing science and nature journals. It is my intention this year, to take my students outside more to observe nature --- whatever part of nature they are most inclined to observe. If they find artifacts along the way, this book can serve as guide for making nature notes. I highly recommend this book as part of your science curriculum.
Accelerated Reading Level: 4.2
Guided Reading Level: P
The books that I have reviewed since starting this blog, have all been published within the last year. This one was published in 2012. I have included it in this post because I feel it is a perfect fit to go with "Feathers: Not Just for Flying." Here the author focuses on a different part of birds -- their beaks and uses simple sentences to explain how beaks help the birds. It also goes on to provide information about each featured bird. If you do the two books together, you really should compare the artistic styles of the books. "Feathers" is illustrations and "Beaks" is 3D cut paper. It might be fun to work with your schools art teacher and see if students could illustrate and color an object and then create the same object with cut papers and put them side by side.
No comments:
Post a Comment