Mindy Weisberger, on Live Science, recommends a range of books for kids, from paleontology to outer space. Most of the books are for slightly older readers (e.g. 9 and up) but there are a few from 5 (for example, Stone Girl, Bone Girl: The Story of Mary Anning).
To close out the new year here’s a round up of some resources that have been coming across the desk
“Saving My Tomorrow,” a new HBO documentary, features kids sharing their hopes for the future of the planet. See a report from NY1 on the making of the documentary, a partnership with the American Museum of Natural History, here:
PRI’s Science Friday reports on five books that “might” get your kids excited about science. Why “might” if these are five of the best science books of the year?
http://www.pri.org/people/rachel-poliquin
Meanwhile Geekdad Jonathan Liu has also been looking at science books for kids, and particularly animal books in this post:
http://geekdad.com/2014/12/stack-overflow-learning/
I like the Microbes and Tesla titles!
Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year!
You know we’re interested in the combination of “art” with science and technology, so we loved this project which hacks the traditional “green man” signal for walking across an intersection. This Smart Company (as in Smart Car) project hooked the “man” up to motion capture of an individual dancing in a nearby booth.
Many people went in to the booth and the dances were broadcast to the pedestrian light in real time. The idea was to improve safety by helping people wait for the light before crossing. The dancing made waiting less boring and more entertaining. And it worked; 81% more people stopped at the traffic light, and enjoyed it, according to this short video about the project.
From a sustainability standpoint, we like technology that makes life better for pedestrians and cyclists.
My kids loved the video but be aware, the music has a bad word (a**, as in “shake your…”).
Recently I posted some of the color illustrations (by John Aardema) for our forthcoming book Bicycles, Airships and Things that Go. Here’s a new one..
This week I’m happy to share some great reviews we’ve been getting from test readers. We’ve had four families read the book and here is what we’re hearing back:
“The girls loved the illustrations! I don’t think they were even listening to the story line half the time b/c they were rapidly scanning the pages looking to find stuff”
“Chloe’s favorite page was the one with all the different types of bicycles; specifically the café bike.”
“There was a question about what the playground equipment was made of and I admit I didn’t know what it was. Olivia (4 yrs) quickly answered it was made of wind turbines and even cited ‘wind turbines.’ I guaranteed she’s never heard or said those words together so clearly she retained it from earlier in the book, which was impressive.”
“I love the objective of raising awareness and socializing progressive topics around sustainability, and having a message oriented toward kids.”
“I could honestly envision a series of these books.”
“Overall, a fun book that I look forward to seeing in print”
“I read the book to the boys last night and they liked it”
“On most pages there was a ‘Who-oa! as in ‘How cool!’ and of course they never batted an eye at any of the technologies.. I liked the idea that reading this story taught them that such things are normal. Lots of good, cool, simple ideas”
“I would love to see a whole series of these books.”
Want your family to test read this book? Get in touch with AB (at) kidsfuturepress (dot) com