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What to Read for Earth Day 2012 (Sunday April 22, 2012)

It's almost Earth Day!

What are you going to do?

Turn out the lights for an hour? Plant a tree? Go green? Start a compost pile?

Excellent.

How about also...read a book!

If you know me at all you know how much I work to get my active on-the-go kids to sit and read. I found two earth day friendly books they liked!

My oldest is a big "how stuff works" fan. For her, we found she liked this:

With a LEED certified architect dad, she enjoyed the look at structures that are earth friendly. Also,this book is heavy on call-outs and factoids. It begins with a look at the roles in building. Then it talks about elements of structure and building. Next, it highlights some incredible examples around the world of earth friendly structures. Throughout it offers some great ideas of DIY projects kids can do at home. Today I get to go buy more pipe cleaners to complete the cross-bracing experiment (page 13).

Last night we got a string of jokes. Did I mention there are funny jokes throughout, such as, "Why did the hole go to the dentist? Because he needed a filling!" lol

The best part for both me and my daughter was on page 53 -- which included a pros and cons debate "To Dam or Not to Dam." She just joined the school's Debate Club so this book and in particular that page gave her a great weekly topic.

For my younger, she liked this one:

Her one complaint was that it lacked monkeys.

However, what it did have was a lot of great illustrations okay for "big kids" and short text sections. I did find that some of the vocabulary was beyond beginning reader (K-1) and I had to help her a bit with an average of 3-4 words per paragraph.

She enjoyed checking out the experiments, and she tried one with cucumbers (page 44). She really grasped the idea of osmosis. She also liked the new facts she has and can share.

We're well situated for Earth Day and also for the summer (with plenty of experiments - most of which kids can do on their own with minimal supervision and assistance).

As usual, I got these books from Kids Can Press. It's a rich resource for fun, and good to know and enjoy books for kids.
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