Science For Children - A Good Alternative to Textbooks

Here in Spain, Science as a subject taught in English has been recently introduced and it is compulsory for those students who attend bilingual schools.

The collection Pinch of Salt published by Anaya is a little bit different from the text books I usually see around.

Scientific phenomena such as reflection and refraction of light, landscape transformation, energy sources and the circulatory system are explained through story which are narrated by several characters through their adventures and discoveries.

The stories are illustrated and really creative. They are adapted to the English curriculum, so the grammar and the vocabulary will be specific for a school year which is also suggested on the books' cover.

They are also perfect for a shared project: the English teacher could deal with the linguistic part of the reading while the science teacher could focus on the scientific part.

Each book comes with a CD and at the end of the story there are 'work cards' with experiments, questions and all sort of activities that will awake your students' curiosity about the world that surrounds them.

At the moment you can purchase 4 titles and their respective teacher's books:

The Heart Cave: A "pirate school" ship takes the reader into a cave which seems to work like a human heart. Following the crew your students will discover what its secrets are and why it can produce so many precious stones!

The Rock Eating Monster: A Sc-Fi story whose protagonist is Lucas, a space superhero, who is captured by a very bad wizard, Noir. To get free, Lucas will have to discover what has happened to the landscape around him while he was asleep because of a curse Noir has put on him.

The Steam Castle: There's a magical kingdom, Occam, where a princess, Enid, wants to convert her castle into a mobile one. To achieve her purpose she will have to travel to the world of humans to meet the former wizard of Occam who, in the meantime has become a scientist. Will they be able to create the energy sources they need to transform Enid's castle?

The Rainbow Party: Enid from Occam is preparing a birthday party for her father, the King. She wants to use the light and all its natural special effects to amuse him but once again she will need some help from humans and their science.

Personally I think that these books are definitely at a higher level compared to the science books used in the Spanish bilingual school system. However, the narrative style is quite far away from Roald Dahl's and the fact that scientific explanations are concentrated in a few pages sometimes creates the same state of confusion as a traditional science book. In any case, this is natural when you consider the complexity of the topics treated in the books.

I've personally never been able to remember a physics definition or formula for more than a few days because of this density of concepts--when I was in school I found it difficult to remember the mathematical side of science for the same reasons.

But the work cards will certainly help. Students will be able to experiment and make their own predictions and observations of any statement presented, adding practical experience to the theoretical one. 

And that's exactly what science is for and why I definitely love it!

  

This collection will be a good choice if you aren't satisfied with the current method of teaching this subject, that most of the time requires just learning by heart, when  you'd like your students to experience how science really works, through active thinking and learning. 

Also Available in Spanish.

           

LET'S GO SHOPPING! by Stephane Husar and Loïc Méhée

This 4th and last (hopefully just for now) book of Cat and Mouse will be useful for teaching some names of items of clothing: hat, t-shirt, shirt, trousers, dress, sunglasses, shorts, skirt, socks and shoes.

Children get really amused by these two characters and they find their way of getting dressed hilarious… buy the the book and you'll discover why.

Based on the same dialogue structure as the previous ones, this illustrated album use the verbs 'like' and 'love', adjectives like 'cool, nice etc.' and also the structure 'Let's'.

The last page shows a little dictionary English-Spanish where you'll find the translation of every single word and expression used in the book.

Oh! And don't forget to use the CD! It has got listen and repeat activities in it!

Besides, here you can get some ideas about many classroom activities and games related to 'clothes':

CLOTHES DOMINOES

CLOTHES AND MORE: part 1

CLOTHES AND MORE: part 2

CLOTHES AND MORE: part 3

EAT GOOD FOOD! by Stephane Husar and Loïc Méhée

Cat & Mouse, Eat Good Food

Here we are! Time goes by and food is the third subject I'm teaching over the next month. Again Cat and Mouse come to help me presenting some fruits and vegetables in an amusing way. 

Apple, banana, cherry, orange, strawberry, tomato, potato, carrot, lettuce and mushroom are the items that your very young learners will recognize on the book's colorful pages. As always, the structure is repetitive and easy to remember. 

With food, you can always introduce the verb 'like' , for example, playing the I LIKE IT!  game.

And once your kids have got confident with the vocabulary, you can also set up a little make-believe market with fake money (using numbers from 1 to 10) to start teaching more complex expressions like 'I would like…' , 'May / Can I have…' 'how much is it?' 'Here you are' etc.

This book also includes a CD you can use to do some listening drills. 

Actually it contains lively sounds and my pupils enjoyed it very much.

LEARN THE COLOURS! by Stephane Husar and Loïc Méhée

A new school year has just begun and I've been assigned to a pre-school mixed group of old students of mine, aged 5, and new students, aged 3.

The main challenge, in this situation, is how to present topics that my old pupils already know to the new ones without being boring and using material and books they haven't seen yet.

It's a really difficult problem to work out!

Fortunately, I came across this bilingual book collection, 'Aprende Inglés con Cat and Mouse', edited by Anaya, which in some way partially solves my problem, at least until Christmas! 

The first book I've been using over the past two weeks talks about colors, as you can read on the title. 

Cat and Mouse are the main characters who will show many balloons and teach your kids what colors they are.

The book scheme is really basic and repetitive, the pictures are colorful and bright: elements, as already mentioned in my previous post about teaching from books, that make it easier to convince young minds that a new language can be simple and fun to learn.

To complete the color experience I added complementary fun activities to involve all my students' faculties in the learning process.

First day:

I read the book aloud and then I played the game 'Touch something… Red!' 

As you can imagine it's a game where they have to run around the classroom to touch something colored as I require.

Finally we sat down to paint a clown holding several balloons, each one had an assigned color written in it. This way the oldest children could start reading and recognizing the colors' spelling while the youngest ones just had to listen to me pronouncing the color's name and choose the right crayon to paint the balloon.

Second day:

We listened to the Cd that comes with the book, repeating the lines.

Then I drew some balloons on several sheets and let the children paint them using their favorite color.

Afterwards, using the same drawings, we played a game they really love.

There is a child who's the captain of the ship and stands alone at one side of the classroom. At the opposite side, there is the rest of the class (lees one) holding usually flashcards but in this case the sheets previously painted.

Finally there is one kid who's going to be the shark, placed more or less at the same distance from the captain and the rest of the classmates.

When the captain calls out a card, pronouncing these words "I can see, I can see a blue balloon across the see!!!", the student holding the blue card has to run towards him avoiding the dangerous shark's clutches!

This game is also helpful to start to get used to saying adjectives before nouns.

Third day:

I proposed that we perform a little play using the book's lines as a script.

So, two by two, each one holding a flashcard respectively showing a cat and a mouse, recited the lines while the rest of us were holding the sheets with the different colored balloons.

I can say it was great and un unexpected success!

The oldest ones, after just a minute, were acting by themselves and the youngest were, little by little, recognizing and pronouncing the correct balloon's color. 

Beside, it's an activity you can repeat several times over the month. It seems they don't get tired of it! 

After the 'theatre' we sat down to play the "I spy" game. 

Display some animals flashcards on the table (but you can use anything colored), and then say: "I spy something with my little eye…" They must ask "What color is ti?" Tell them the color you're thinking about and they have to point to the card showing the color you said.

In this case the oldest were reviewing animal vocabulary at the same time that the youngest enjoyed the pointing experience. They loved it!

I hope I've been helpful. I'll soon review more books and present more related games and activities.

You can take a look at the whole collection on Anaya's page: Aprendo inglés con Cat and Mouse