NCTE, NSTA, Kirkus Raindrops Roll

Raindrops RollFloored and thrilled that RAINDROPS ROLL was just named

An Orbis Pictus Recommended Book by NCTE, the National Council of Teachers of English. This award for the best nonfiction of 2015 considers ALL the nonfiction books, K-8. They choose a winner, five honor books, and eight recommended books. (Bronze award sticker for recommended.)

An Outstanding Science Trade Book for 2015 by NSTA, the National Science Teachers Association. I’m so excited that folks are loving not only the words but also the photos I took. I work hard to make sure my photos bring wonder and science content so their approval means a lot.

One of the 12 Best Informational Picture Books of the year according to Kirkus.  It’s also honored in what is my favorite award category name ever:  The Best Picture Books For the Sense-of-Wonder Shelf, again by Kirkus. Doesn’t every library and classroom and home need a “Sense-of-Wonder” shelf?  Isn’t that what’s it all about? I’m going to rush out and read the other titles, fiction and nonfiction. As many of you know, even when I was college I identified my goal in life as “helping people feel a sense of wonder in nature.”  Feels like life moment achieved that my book fit in such a category.

 

AAAS K-2 Lesson and Whale Review

HereComeTheHumpbacksAAAS Science NetLinks has put up an excellent K-2 lesson on food chains that uses Vulture View and Trout Are Made of Trees. It links with Project 2061 Benchmark 5 The Living Environment; and National Science Standard C, Life Science.  The National Science Teachers Association website has a section called  NSTA RECOMMENDS which points out good resources for science teaching. Here Come the Humpbacks was just added with a full review.

Continue reading “AAAS K-2 Lesson and Whale Review”

Stars Beneath Your Bed and Science Standards

Stars Beneath Your Bed: The Surprising Story of Dust is a natural for fulfilling the new science standards. That’s one of the things I learned when I attended NSTA and spoke on a panel of authors organized by Carrie Launius and hosted by Wendy Saul. Each of the educators at the conference gave activities to go with various books. Carrie worked with teacher to get them to consider how the book deals with cross-cutting concepts:

Patterns

Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation Continue reading “Stars Beneath Your Bed and Science Standards”

English/Language Arts and Science Standards For Trout Are Made of Trees

 Standards:

Trout are Made of Trees

English/Language Arts Standards

Kindergarten

K.1.1 Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

K.1.2 Follow words from left to right and from top to bottom on the printed page.

K.1.3 Understand that printed materials provide information.

K.1.4 Recognize that sentences in print are made up of separate words. Continue reading “English/Language Arts and Science Standards For Trout Are Made of Trees”