Books for Upper Elementary

Crafty Ideas from Junk

October 3, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Crafty Ideas from Junk is a book I pulled from my art shelves. It’s not a large book by any means but has a number of fun crafts in it to delight your budding artist. (or simply a child looking for some way to occupy their time) Games, robots, necklaces and plant holders are just a few of the activities waiting to be discovered.

Each craft/activity comes with a needed supplies list. Some are more loose in their requirements than others, as well as instructions following. I found that some of the directions left me a bit confused as to what I was to do first or next or just how to accomplish the task at hand, but that gives the opportunity to do some problem solving, which is a great part of doing crafts isn’t it? To have to figure some of it on your own. Helps make the craft or game more your own.

One of the things I would like to do with a Co-op class sometime is to have a “make games for your siblings class”. I look at the instructions above and think… this would be a great game to older kids to make for their siblings. What do you think?

More than 25 crafts, games and activities fill the pages of this softcover tomb by Myrna Daitz. Children will find themselves encouraged in their efforts to keep themselves busy. I like this little book and it will rejoin the others on my shelf. Perhaps in the spring I’ll actually host a “Make a gift for your Siblings class”. Would be fun don’t you think?

Crafty Ideas from Junk
Myrna Daitz
Exley Publications Ltd
48 pages, softcover,
art book, elementary, craft, art

Cleopatra and the Ancient Greeks

September 27, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Have I ever told you how much I enjoy the “for kids” series from Chicago Review Press? They are written for kids and all contain 21 different activities for students to complete. They are fantastically written with loads of pictures and interesting tidbits throughout. Today I am reviewing Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt for Kids.

From the Cover:

Cleopatra has been called intelligent and scheming, ambitious and ruthless, sensual and indulgent. This unique biography captures the excitement of her life story, including portions that have been largely neglected, such as her interest in literature and science and her role as a mother, and allows readers to draw their own conclusions. Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt for Kids also includes maps, time lines, online resources, a glossary, and 21 engaging hands-on activities to help readers better appreciate the ancient culture and era in which Cleopatra lived.

What You Get:

Over the course of 144 pages students are led through the life of Cleopatra, starting with her life as a young princess and closing with the end of the era. Each of the 8 chapters contains up to three activities for students to engage the student in active learning from science experiments to art projects to making food.

Cleopatra worked hard to keep her family on the throne of Egypt and throughout her reign she kept Egypt stable. As a child in the Ptolomy household, she was well-educated. They put a strong emphasis on learning, as Egyptian queens played an essential role in the governing of the land. Cleopatra kept learning all her life. In the pages of the book you learn these facts and more.The student will understand how this tough, smart lady kept a country going in the time of growing Roman domination.

You’ll find 21 different activities to do. Some of them are creating a writing a tablet, build a shadoof, make a garland, create an Egyptian style necklace, mummify a hot dog and many more. Each assignment comes with a materials list and clear instructions to complete it. I loved the variety in the assignments.

You’ll find a timeline at the start of the book from when Cleopatra VII is born, through to the death of Cleopatra and Anthony. Span of some 40 years.

Scattered throughout the pages you’ll find maps, busts, coins, plants and buildings from the era. All those images that bring history to life that normally you’d have to go to a museum to see and piece together, brought all together in one book.

The close of the book lists the Egyptian Dynasties, Additional Resources with grade ranges – not just books but museums as well, and a glossary. All in all a complete walk through of the life of Cleopatra.

My Thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoy these books. Every single one I review I keep for my book shelves with the full intent of going through them with my lad.. grade nine is coming yet! 🙂 Very thorough, written so that upper elementary students can understand, complete enough for high school students to work through, filled with ideas for taking rabbit trails, with great variety in hands-on activities. They’d be perfect for doing a history course all year long (each taking about 8-9 weeks to complete).

Others that I’ve reviewed: Albert Einstein, Marine Science, Michelangelo, and Marie Curie.

Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt: her life and world, with 21 activities
Simonetta Carr
Chicago Review Press
For Kids Series
21 activities.
144 pages, trade paperback
History, hands-on learning, upper elementary
Reviewed for Chicago Review Press

Where to buy: Amazon.

Who Owns These Bones?

September 15, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Do you remember I reviewed a book about Roadkill? I have a fantastic book to go along with that one! Anyways, the book I have today with called Who Owns These Bones? It has been a pleasure to review this book.

From the back

“Welcome to the secret world of skeletons! From the largest elephant to the smallest mouse, each animal is different, and that goes for their bones, too!

Meet a whole host of amazing skeletons and learn about what makes each one unique, from how to tell a gorilla from a human, to how to recognize a turtle just from its skull.

Lift the flaps to discover each skeleton’s animal owner, and find out amazing anatomy facts along the way! Can you work out Who Owns These Bones?”

The finer details:

40 pages fill out the space between the sturdy hardcovers, while finding simple illustrations in shades of white, black, grey and orange.

A variety of activities fill the pages with the bulk of them being lift-the-flap. Do you see all the information that dots the pages? This is no wee kids book of bones…this book is meant to delight and educate. Answers are always provided, sometimes on the back of a flap or on the bottom of a page.

My Thoughts:

This informative book would be an excellent addition to a course about bones, fossils or perhaps with a Dinosaur book or two. 🙂 Mind, it would also be an interesting add-along if you were doing a course with Northwest Treasures. Bones are an important part of understanding how animals are put together, this book is just filled with them. I wasn’t keen the evolutionary stuff but once we got past that paragraph or two the book just focused on bones. Bones, cartilage, exoskeletons, teeth, horns, fingers and toes, and all parts in-between. Bones, bones and more bones, and along with it lots of learning to be done. This book could fit into a lot of different studies it is just that good. I urge you to give it a gander. 🙂

Who Owns These Bones?
Henri Cap, Raphael Martin, Renaud Vigourt
Laurence King
Hardcover, 40 pages, Ages 7-11
Paleontology, Science, Archaeology
Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

Building with Paper

September 12, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Building with Paper is a neat book that gives you specific projects in working with paper.

You can build a Paper Town, Bridges, Boats, Castles & Forts, and a Stadium.

You get clear instructions

With excellent drawings

Each Section is clearly delineated with a face page.

My thoughts:

My son went through a period where he was constantly building things with paper. I had him look through this book to see if it was good and he said “yes, I would have liked this book two years ago”. It teaches not only the folding and building, but how to put the pieces together so they hold together well. Papercraft boat anyone? The one in the book looks like it would float well and possibly even hold a small figurine making for a lovely play time that you make yourself. It would be fun to do as co-op class don’t you think? Building a castle together? HA! that would simply be a hoot!

McCalls Golden Do-It Book

July 11, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

I can’t recall where I picked this book up or even if it’s a hangover from my childhood, all I know is that every time I go a cull of my art books and ask,”Do I REALLY need to keep this one?”, somehow this book ends up back on my shelf. 🙂 Ergo, I thought it was about time for me to share it with you. My copy of McCalls Golden Do-It Book is getting a bit battered, the spine is loose, the pages a bit worn, but still the ideas are as real as anything. So much make and do within the pages of this book.

What do you get?

A number of different sections divide up this tome. Each section containing 2-8 projects, great for children 6-14 years old. (or later if so inclined). Littles might like to try their hand as well but will most likely need some older person’s help to make the projects turn out well.

Crayons, Paint, Paper, and Paste
Printing
Sculpture
Toys
Weaving
Needlework
Dolls
Music
Puppets
Gifts
How-to Section

You may be wondering, have we even completed any of the projects? Well we’ve made cars and houses out of boxes, the lad for a while was big into paper craft, we’ve made boats and done some weaving. Do I have pictures? Um… no. That would have been on my hard drive (external) that crashed last year and we’ve been unable to recover the data. And well.. that’s that!

One thing I do want to try yet with my lad is making a seed painting and a yarn painting. I just think they’d be rather neat to do and see what we could each come up with… or maybe I should save those ideas for co-op days. 🙂 Even to making sample kites to fly over enemy territory…hmm.. the ideas are endless.

What do I think?

Some of the instructions could be a bit clearer and some items are used which aren’t as common today (for instance, I’ve never used rubber cement with my lad). I’ve not heard of excelsior… which when I google it is a woody twine all mixed together. Where to find I dunno. It does sound neat to play around with just to see what one could do with it. Most of the instructions are just enough while leaving the rest to common sense. Will it make the cut next spring? I dunno, we’ve done most of what we want to in it, so we may just need to pass it along to another family with a creative keener. 🙂 It’s a good book with oodles of images and ideas to go along with each art project.

McCalls Golden Do-It Book

Hardcover, 160 pages, 6-14 years

Art, crafts, creativity

Where to find Amazon.

Self-Destructing Science

June 7, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Raincoast Books sent me this tearing, folding, cutting, drawing, constructing and experimenting book called Self-Destructing Science: Space book to review. It’s a neat book about 8 x 11 inches filled with different ways to explore outer space. When you are finished with the book, the book will finished!

Contained within the 64 pages are activities ranging from framing the stars, to starting a colony of alien space bugs. How about challenging a friend to a Mars rover race or building a rocket?

Learn about the planets, and space gear. Being an astronaut and how to make a big bang. The sheer variety of activities will delight and amaze children age 8-12.

Be do be warned. The pages of this book are packed full of run and exciting science-based projects that use up it’s pages. You will tear, fold, bend, cut, experiment and scribble your way through exciting discoveries of outer space. All you need is your imagination, the pages of this book and a few simple household ingredients. You’ll find easy to follow instructions and great illustrations to guide your way. Why not have fun learning?

My Thoughts:

I loved that each experiment/activity was self-contained. In other words, doing one page wouldn’t prevent you from doing another. Only one activity per page. The sheer variety… games, experiments, cut and paste. This book is not just worksheets or similar types of work. There is excellent variety. I didn’t find all of the projects easy to understand, for instance the galaxy one left me feeling befuddled. For the most part though they were easy to understand and should be easy to complete. Working through this book (if you bought one per student) would be a great way of studying space together with a group of students in a co-op setting.

My Son’s Thoughts:

I think this would be a fun book to do. I think some of the activities I would have to figure out by doing them. It would be fun to do some of these with other children as well.

Self-Destructing Science: Space
Isabel Thomas
Illustrator: Nikalas Catlow
Bloomsbury
64 pages, Cardstock
Reviewed for Raincoast Books
Outer Space, Activity Books, Science
ages 8-12 years

Review: Lions & Liars

May 10, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Lions & Liars is an intriguing read for your upper elementary to middle school students from Kate Beasley. Surprising character qualities in boys, hair-raising adventures, and scary weather makes for a fast paced read. The hardest part of this review for me is not giving away the story as I tell you how much I enjoyed it!

It was actually quite funny as I started reading this book as my lad headed into his hour long karate lesson. The class let out and I continued reading expecting my boy to find me. He apparently walked right past me, out to the car, waited for a while and then came back to find me…and I wouldn’t leave until I read the last five pages. He was so impatient with me until I said “I think you’ll like this book!” Then all was forgiven. 🙂

From the Back of the Book

Frederick Frederickson has a food-chain theory about life. There are lions, like the school bully. Gazelles, like the bullied kids. There are meerkats, and the fleas that live on the butts of meerkats. Frederick’s a flea.

Fifth grade is off to a terrible start when Frederick arrives at a disciplinary camp for troublesome boys. His fellow troop mates – Nosebleed, Specs, The Professor, and little-yet-lethal Ant Bite – are terrifying. But in between trust-building exercises and midnight escape attempts, a tenuous friendship grows between them. Which is lucky, because a Category 5 hurricane is coming and everyone will have to work together – lions and fleas alike – to survive!

My Thoughts:

I received an advanced readers copy so not all the illustrations were done yet, but the ones that I did see were simple line drawings that nicely conveyed the story. Not having the drawings allowed me to use my own imagination, wondering what the artist may have wanted to illustrate, so it would be interesting to see the final rendition.

Don’t those simple pencil drawings covey the story well? Lost and tired on a boat. What will Frederick do?

It was a book of growing up and realizing important truths about yourself and those in your life. I found it a good read with parts that caused me to laugh, and parts that made me (as a mom) wince with worry. I can well imagine by boy just enjoying the read and watching the well-developed characters change and become something more than what they planned. Friendships blossomed and what it means to be a guy well learned. Boys need to be boys and they need to learn to be men too.. so it was a fun read watching them grow up a bit.

I do have to say this… it is a boy focused book and some aspects of it would not appeal to most girls, though some girls might laugh. Encourage your boys to read it. It’s a fair decent book.

Lions & Liars
Kate Beasley (author)
Dan Santat (illustrator)
Farrar Straus & Giroux
Softcover, 304 pages
Ages 8-12 years
Friendship, Fear, Discipline, food chain,
Reviewed for Raincoast book.
Where to purchase: Amazon Link.

Books for Upper Elementary

Crafty Ideas from Junk