Stellar poetry

Out of This World : Poems and Facts About Space by Amy E. Sklansky (811 SkO 2012 PIC BK) is a good book to connect science and language arts for early elementary grades.

The combination of poems written in various styles, interesting facts and darkly coloured illustrations provides an appealing opportunity to learn more about astral bodies and phenomena.

One of my favourite poems for its imagery is After Blastoff.

The Earth

fills

their window

and then

drops away,

like a

basketball

baseball

golfball

marble. 

How far from home

they’ve traveled today.

Facts that struck me as particularly interesting include:

*Each space suit costs more than 10 million dollars.

*Footprints left from any of the twelve astronauts to have walked on the moon remain unchanged for billions of years.

*Uranus spins on its side.

Who knew?

Check out today's Nonfiction Monday event at Capstone Connect .  Looks like an interesting round up of nonfiction children's literature.

Timely reflection

September 12th, 2011 – New moon rising.

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin (523.3 CrF 2009 PIC BK) is a poetic reflection about the phases of the moon. The high quality of production contributes greatly to the appeal of this book. Thick glossy paper and the lino-block print illustrations make it a pleasure to turn the pages. The rhyming text is okay. I have to fess up that I’m not a huge fan of rhyming text in nonfiction books as I often find it gets in the way of the delivery of information, with the ‘poems’ laboured and contrived. This time I found it worked relatively well.

The majority of the book looks at eight phases of the moon, from not visible to waxing to waning. In between is the full moon, of course, but also a waxing gibbous moon and a waning gibbous moon. I’m thrilled to learn about gibbous moons – a new term for me. Each of the featured phases has a tabbed page with a four-line poem, a die-cut of the moon’s image and a sentence telling when the moon rises and sets. I’ve never really thought about seeing the moon during daylight hours but now I’m noticing it much more.

Two pages at the end of the book provide basic information about lunar phases and why we only see fragments, depending the orbits of the moon, earth and sun. A few facts about the moon are included as well, laid out in a simple rhyme to aid memory. This part’s a little much for me but if it works for you, great.

I recommend this for early elementary grades and would pair it with Moon by Steve Tomecek (Jump into Science series by National Geographic) (523.3 ToM 2005 PIC BK) for more straight forward information about the moon and Full Moon Rising by Joanne Taylor (523.3 TaF 2002 PIC BK) which looks at the seasonal aspects of each full moon (Wolf Moon in January, Honey Moon in June, etc.) in a northern prairie landscape.

Today is Nonfiction Monday.  Stop by Wrapped in Foil to read about nonfiction children's literature reviewed from many blogs. Enjoy.