Weeky book shelf 11/19

 Reading to himself:

Fiorenzo Faccini is the author of four great non-fiction books about four early hominid species:  A Day With Homo Habilis, A Day With Homo Erectus, A Day With Neanderthal Man, A Day With Homo Sapiens. The books offer a lot of factual information about the highlighted species along with a realistic fiction story and beautiful, vivid illustrations. The books are dated, and they are a little thick as far as information goes. I have seen some parents complain about the books being too detailed or not interesting enough for young children, but I think that depends entirely on the child. Calvin loves them.

Mega Beasts is a pop-up book that belongs to the Encyclopedia Prehistorica trilogy by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart. We own all three of the books because we were lucky enough to stumble upon them (in excellent shape even) at library used book sales. Sabuda's books are always beautifully made and lots of fun, and the art of these three in particular is fantastic. Great fun facts, lots of little things to try out and see. Calvin can't get enough of any of these.

Although not really a book, I thought I'd mention the Highlights magazine here because it does have a number of enjoyable stories in it, and because Calvin enjoys reading them. He does still prefer a book, but getting mail just for himself is fun, and the magazine provides a number of small challenges, like learning some words in Spanish, and some other activities as well, a favorite of which is the finding hidden pictures game. I love that he gets mail, and that this magazine is still completely without ads, which cannot be said of many kids' magazines out there anymore.

Also not a book, but Dover's History Coloring Books are a fun way to read about historical, or prehistorical, subjects. Each page exhibits a large image to color as well as a paragraph of information about the subject of the image.

This is a pretty short list this week, not because we haven't been reading, but because I'm having trouble keeping my chin above water. With so many things going on this time of year sometimes it's hard to keep track of them all. There has been plenty of Magic Tree House reading an play around here, and Calvin and Jon are still reading The Arabian Nights together every night.

Prehistoric Creature Creation

A couple of weeks ago (or maybe a month?) I typed up an eight page chart of some of the most common roots used in dinosaur names, their meanings, and their origins. I even printed it, then after all that work we didn't actually use the chart all that much; other than glancing at it from time to time it has spent most of its life tucked away in our history binder, and I hate wasting paper and resources.

Then today I had a flash of creativity and happened upon an idea for finally putting the chart to good use. Since many of the same roots were used in naming early Cenozoic animals we played a "creature creation" game where one of use would use the chart to make up an animal name while the other had to then draw the imagined animal and provide a short description.

I can be a craft person, but my imagination is sorely lacking at times. So are my drawing skills. Nonetheless, this was a really fun activity.

Carcassonne (review)

We've been happily playing Carcassonne for quite some time now and I've always meant to mention it here but kept forgotting. We picked it up last spring when we were looking for something new to do on vacation. Since it is recommended for ages 8-12 we thought it might remain a parent game for a while, but actually Calvin (at two months shy of five years old) took to it pretty quickly and we've been playing ever since. It is a family favorite, and we often get it out to play with friends, too.

The main premise behind Carcassonne is the building of a medieval map. Two or more players take turns drawing tiles (with roads, walled cities, monastaries, and fields) and using them to create the map. Each player has little wooden figures that they place on tiles of their choosing in order to own cities, roads, farms, or monastaries, thereby earning points. Points are kept on a small gameboard using an additional wooden figure.

For young children, simply creating the map is great fun, and the rules are easily alterred for varying degrees of difficulty. When we first started with Calvin we played it more as a cooperative "create a map" game. We introduced the rules and point system as he gained understanding of them. Since the game uses a combination of luck and strategy it can be played cooperatively, lightly, or competitively depending on the players and their skill set.

The basic original game consists of a number of sturdy cardboard tiles, wooden figures for up to five players, and a sturdy cardboard scoring board. It is enough for getting started and has a great replay value as is, but the company also sells expansion packs that are great either for adding depth to game via additional story lines (like dragons) and additional rules and strategies, or can be used simply to expand the map and make the game last longer. We have the original game along with The River, the Inns and Cathedrals and the Princess and Dragon expansion packs.

Weekly book shelf 11/5, Prehistoric mammals

 Evolution, by Douglas Palmer, is timeline of the evolution of life on earth. It's mainly a picture book, every two-page spread a beautiful rendering of an era in time, with a timeline stretched across the top of the page, and facts about the living things in short paragraphs at the bottom. The information is really too brief to be anything but interest piquing, but the pictures are very much worth the book, and the information at least helps identify things so you can look them up elsewhere. We love this book.

Top 10 Prehistoric Beasts, by Andrew Goldsmith. A list of the "top 10" prehistoric beasts. This book is extremely unimpressive. Calvin enjoyed that the pictures used seem to have been taken from the Walking with Prehistoric Monsters videos that he loves so much, but other than that it held little interest for him. There was no mention of how the "top 10" beasts were selected, and the information provided was scant, if not incorrect even in some places. Also, I found the flashy colors and multitude of fonts and font sizes to be distracting, or even distressing. Calvin really didn't spend much time on this one.

Woolly Mammoth, by Ron Wilson, is a cute realistic fiction that follows a young mammoth through his first year of life—eating on the plains, migrating south for winter, returning in the spring, and then mating. It's an older book and out of print, but we borrowed it from our library. This is one of those great animal stories that does not personify but showcases natural behavior in an enjoyable way. Calvin read this one over and over again.

Sabertooths and the Ice Age, by Mary Pope Osborne. A Magic Tree House non-fiction companion that I'm sure needs no explanation, no introduction. These books are definitive by any means, but I find them to be great companions to the fiction stories, and Calvin loves them.

Sunset of the Sabertooth, by Mary Pope Osborne. Magic Tree House. Calvin loves it, of course.

Young Scientist Series Kit 5: Solids, liquids, and gases (review)

The solids, liquids, and gases kit came in a box with the volcano kit I wrote about last summer. We used it this week alongside the BFSU section on, of course, solids, liquids, and gases, and the demonstrations suggested there. As a side note, I bought a selection of these kits when they went on sale for half price at Zulily.com and paid only $12 a piece for them. So far I'd give them a generally favorable review, but I wouldn't ever pay $24 for one.

Included in the kit:
Instruction booklet (with a section for the parent and one for the child)
funnel
popsicle stick
balloon
glue
fiz tablets
borax
raisins

Needed from the house:
water, bowls, cups, measuring cups and spoons
small glass bottle with narrow neck
soda water
sugar
corn starch
food coloring
vinegar
baking soda

Instructions in the kit guide the user through observing raisins bouncing around in the soda water, using the vinegar and baking soda reaction to inflate the balloon, making a solid with corn starch, making "slime".

The good: we had fun with the kit. I handed Calvin the instruction booklet and we identified all the things we needed from the house and collected them, then he read through the instructions for each experiment and we tried almost all of them out (I didn't have corn starch). The experiments are fun—especially making "slime"— and I liked the "materials, methods, results, and conclusions" breakdown in the instruction booklet. Eventually he'll be writing those for himself, but seeing the process first is valuable.

The less good: After really enjoying his reading through the decently scientific insructions while we did the experiments/demonstrations, we realized that he'd been reading the "guide for parent, teacher, or supervising adult". The pages aimed at kids are less scientific, more cartoonish. The kid pages are still decent instructions, written as though a conversation with a bug, but Calvin and I preferred the parent instructions and will ignore the second half of the booklets from now on.

The disappointing: Every one of the experiments described and included can be found described in a variety of home chemistry and experiment books, while the list of what was included versus what was required additionally seemed random at best. I understand supplying the liquids, and also the bowls, utensils, etc., but if they're supplying the raisins, borax, and glue, why not supply sugar, food coloring, corn starch, and baking soda? Or how about supplying only the very rare oddities, like fiz tablets, and charging less for the kit?

Conclusion: I think I've said this before, but the only reason I would consider buying these kits again (at half price) is to have the instructions in a neat format (in the adult pages) that I can conveniently hand to Calvin and which we can write on and get messy, etc., etc. Plus there is something to be said for pulling out the box and having him get excited about what is coming up, but I assume that sooner rather than later he will be asking to experiment with household goods on his own, and then the kits will have done their job and become obsolete as a material good.

When we finished the kit I left Calvin at the counter with all the materials in reach and let him go to town, resulting in fizzy raisin and goop soup.