Great Books Great Lessons!

Two fantastic books have been recently released that teach children about deep sea exploration and teachers should be jumping with joy. These books are fun to read, full of great scientific facts, and the perfect pair to use for a compare and contrast lesson. 

OTIS AND WILL DISCOVER THE DEEP by Barb Rosenstock is a wonderful book that tells about the two men crazy enough to think they could explore the deep ocean in a machine of their own design. Amazingly they were successful and in 1930 became the first deep sea explorers in their ship the Bathysphere.

FLYING DEEP by Michelle Cusolito tells about the modern version of the bathysphere – Alvin the deep-sea submersible. This high-tech machine can dive two miles  to collect samples from the seafloor and allow scientists to conduct research on the deepest parts of the ocean. The author uses lovely lyrical language to describe the mysteries of the deep plus she gives lots of information about her research for the book.

I love both of these books and I think they are ideal for doing a compare and contrast lesson. Deep Sea exploration from its beginning to present day. The perfect opportunity to mix science and language arts. I have designed a Compare and Contrast lesson plan –

CompareContrastSubmersiblesLessonOnline

And worksheet CompareContrastSubWorksheet

And I’ve given you a bonus extension lesson on writing opinions. WouldYouRatherWorksheet

Hope you like the lesson. I KNOW you’ll love the books!!

 

 

Boys and Books – Get them Hooked!

Once upon a time I had dreams…

I dreamed that I would have children who loved to read as much as I did.  That we would be a literary family comparing the books we adored and arguing over Tolkien versus Lewis.

Then I met my son –

Reading is not his idea of a good time.

And apparently my son is not the only boy who would rather eat fire than read books.

As a teacher and a writer I had a new dream.  I was going to teach boys to like books.

Epic FAIL. Again.

No matter how much you bribe some boys, they will not enjoy Amber Brown, Junie B. Jones, or The Magic Treehouse.  And I used some great bribes, like – if you read this book, I’ll help you build an exploding rocket.  Or if you read this book – I’ll take you rock hunting.  Instead they wanted to read about how to build the rocket or how to find fossils.

Oh wait – they wanted to READ about how to do things!  They wanted to learn facts and decipher instructions. Finally!! I got it. And I started giving them what they wanted.  NONFICTION!!!

Over the years I have learned that all I really have to do is learn what interests a reluctant reader. (And this applies to girls, too.) Do they like cars? Airplanes? Mummies? Sharks? Outer space? Disgusting body functions?  There’s a book about that!

Nonfiction is the way to a boys (and girls) heart.  And my latest book series is designed just for them.  The Top Secret Files of History explores the truth behind dangerous spies like The White Mouse Mata Hari. Readers can discover real life pirates of the Caribbean and learn about the true Lone Ranger.

The stories are all short.  Many of them no longer than 500 words.  The books also have multiple entry points.  They are not in sequential order so readers can pick up the books and read in the middle or at the end and still get great information.

The two newest books, Wild West and Gangsters and Bootleggers will be in bookstores December 1.  I hope you will check them out for your own favorite reluctant reader!