Bones

Bones by Steve Jenkins is another great science fiction book that can help students with their science classes. Learning about bones is a difficult thing, and they are hard to remember, but learning in creative ways will help them to remember maybe one or two. This book is a great way to learn about different animals and species with bones in an interesting way. It has pages that flip open to show more pictures. It's also a picture book, because without the pictures you won't get a very good view of what the book is talking about. I think it's very entertaining and even taught me more about bones and animals I didn't know. This can bring interest in students who like the outdoors, science, and animals.

Some fun activities you can do with the students are to print out pictures of different skeletons and for them to pick out what animal it can belong to and to color in the arms, legs, skull, and then name as many bones as they know.

Mama, Do You Love Me?

This is a story about a little girl who keeps asking her mom if she does certain things, will she still love her. And of course the mother will always love her no matter what she does or says. It's a wonderful book to read with your children as a bedtime story or just to read aloud with them. It's a sweet book that has a powerful message that no matter what her mother will always love her.

The author Barbra M. Joosse did a great job incorporating the heritage of Native American's in the story by using different pictures that represent Native's and even words and animals. In the back of the book are all of the words that a student might not know and the meaning of them and what they do.

An activity you can do with the class is to write down something special to their parents to say, "I will love you, forever and for always, because you are my Dear One."

Looking at Lincoln

The biography/historical fiction book Looking at Lincoln by Maira Kalman is a great way to learn more about Abraham Lincoln. It's not a book with just a list of facts, it has a story line with it and allows the reader to enjoy it more instead of just reading a boring book. It's a great way to help with book reports and other assignments students have to do.

Students can do a time-line of his life and the things he liked to do.

A Bad Case of Stripes

The story of A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon is another great book to bring into the classroom. It brings mystery of why Camilla has stripes all over her body. Then it gets worse, she turns into different colors and different patterns and nobody can tell why she's like that. The only thing she can think about is her not eating her favorite food, lima beans. The ending has a great meaning that no matter what people think, do what you want and do what makes you happy. Everyone likes different things and they all have different interests and it's always okay to be different.

A fun activity you can do is before the ending of the story, ask the kids what they think the reason for Camilla's case of "stripes" is. And what they can do to fix her. Nobody's answer is right or wrong, it's all just fun and allows them to play doctor and detective at the same time.

Green Eggs and Ham

My favorite book of all time is the famous Green Eggs and Ham by the wonderful Dr. Seuss. This book is full of fun and adventure, and written in a poetic and rhythmical way. It's hard not to enjoy and get into the story because of how fun it is to read. Reading it to children, you can really get them involved because this book has 50 or fewer different words so the children can say out loud, "I do not like them Sam I am, I do not like green eggs and ham!" They really enjoy that because it's bringing them outside from just listening to actually enjoying the story.

A fun activity to do is to bring in eggs in the classroom and inject the eggs with green die and then crack it open and make eggs in the class and see how many students will try them even though they're green.

Astronaut Living In Space

Science fiction is a topic that most people don't enjoy too often, and space travel is also something with a little interest. Well a wonderful book to read that can change anyone's perspective of science fiction is Astronaut Living In Space by Kate Hayden it's extremely interesting and full of facts about astronaut's who live in space for a period of time and what they do for fun, eat, and sleep. It's full of science that can help expand a child's interest in space travel. Children even gain an interest to wanting to become an Astronaut. 

A fun activity to do is to have the children in the classroom guess how many miles it takes to get from earth to the moon, and how many days they think it will take, and even how fast the space shuttle travels. And then give a prize to whoever is closest. This will get them to use their own knowledge and the knowledge they learned from the book as well. 

First Flight

A good way to bring in historical fiction to a class is to have a discussion about the Wright Brothers who are the two American's who created and invented the first successful airplane. This book is a historical fiction book about a young boy Tom Tate and the first flight of the airplane. It's a great book to learn a little bit more of the Wright Brothers in an interesting way. That's a great way to get students into history or topics that might not be their favorite, if they can find a book that has something that can relate to them.

An activity to do with the students is to have them all draw/make their own airplanes and to decorate them and to name all the pieces they can remember of the airplane.