The Magnifying Glass

In the Land of Giants.

 

Some of you may have seen the recent news about the 1,500 year old tree that fell in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park in California last month.  For those of you who might not have heard about this remarkable event, I thought that I would pop in and share a video link where you can get some more information on the story.  The tree itself was one of the largest and the oldest on earth and the pictures of it laying across the ground are stunning. 

There has been considerable controversy after the fact about just what to do with the tree, which I think makes for an interesting discussion to have with kids.  This is especially true since children have such a great way of ignoring all of the obstacles that adults create in thinking about these kinds of challenges! 

If you are looking for a great companion book for a discussion about giant redwoods, you can check out my review of Redwoods by Jason Chin in the TMG archives here. 

--- Annie

A Nature Exchange Book List.

All of us here at TMG are very excited to have so many families signing up for the nature exchange!  It should be really fun and interesting, and I thought that I might share a few useful books to help you get started finding and identifying some of the natural treasures in your neck of the woods.  Here are a few favorite titles that you might find helpful!

 

Out of the Ocean by Debra Frasier

 

 

The Tree Book by Gina Ingoglia

 

 

My First Pocket Guide to Rocks and Minerals by National Geographic

 

 

My First Pocket Guide to Wildflowers by National Geographic

 

These are just a few titles among many that could be great resources for the exchange.  Does your family have any favorites you'd like to share? 

 

--- Annie

Oobleck!

Hello TMG friends! I have a post up about oobleck and some good reads to go along with it, and thought that you all might like to have a peek.  Click on over to check it out and get in on the gooey fun!  I promise that it isn't as horrifyingly messy as it looks.

---Annie

On the Shelf: Dinothesaurus.

We are having a spell of pretty hot (and more importantly, humid) weather here in Vermont, and spending a little bit of time indoors with a book in the afternoon is turning out to be a pretty pleasant choice as far as activities go.  In preparation for the coming days of hot, we decided to make a library stop this morning. Among the books we picked up is Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings by Douglas Florian, and I am so glad that we did.  

For reasons that I cannot quite explain, I totally associate dinosaurs with summer.  Maybe because we often make museum trips during summer vacation?  It's hard to say, but somehow, a dinosaur book seemed to be a perfect seasonal choice today.  Plus, Dinothesaurus is a unique book about dinosaurs which makes it feel like kind of a special find.  A collection of poetry, paintings and dinosaur facts, Dinothesaurus has a little something for everyone.  Some of the poems are funny, others are factual, but all of them are sure to sound catchy to miniature dinosaur enthusiasts.  I particularly like the somewhat abstract artwork; it makes each page interesting to browse as well as to read.  

Upon further investigation, I realize that Douglas Florian has written and illustrated a number of thematic poetry books for children. We'll definitely be looking for them at the library on our next trip.  

What about you?  What sorts of books is your family reading on days when you need to spend a little quiet time indoors? 

A Favorite Book (and a Little Science Too).

Hello TMG friends!  It has been a busy spring at our house, and I haven't been able to pop in here quite as much as I would have liked.  But summer vacation is only days away, and I plan to be back with you to share book reviews and maybe a few projects too.  To get into the spirit of things, I wanted to direct you to a guest post that I have up on The Crafty Crow right now; a review of a favorite book of ours (and of fellow TMG contributor Lucia's too, if I'm not mistaken) as well as an easy but interesting little science project.  Pop on over there to check out the review and to get instructions for making a simple compass.

--- Annie

What's On Your List?

I am on the hunt for some good reading/listening/watching recommendations! The hunt started with preparations for an upcoming trip, but it is also spurred on by my realization that summer is right around the corner. And although it has been many years since I was a student, I still love having a summer reading list. So here is my list of things I hope to read/watch/listen to in the next few months followed by a list of a few my favorites that you might want to add to your list. It's a random compilation of things related to the natural world, gardening,educating,pondering, and just enjoying. 

 
My Summer List (so far...please, help me add to it!): 

The Curious World of Bugs

Prodigal Summer

The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie

Founding Gardeners

Race to Nowhere

The Secret of Kells

Running the Sahara

A Few Of My favorites:

Extreme Nature

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Remarkable Creatures

Gift from the Sea

Winged Migration

Rivers and Tides

Fresh Air Interviews: Wicked Bugs, Under the Sea, Dung Beetles

So, what's on your list for this summer? And what should I add to mine?

---Lucia

Pale Male: Revisited.

 

    I had originally planned to share a new book with you this week, but I got a little sidetracked by a delightful discovery.

     I don't know how many of you remember my review of Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City from last spring, but suffice it to say, it is a big favorite around our house.  So, of course, we were more than excited to discover that the Urban Hawks blog has been closely following the movements and activities of the Pale Male as he goes about his springtime business in New York.  

    The blog is also following a number of other hawks in the area, and there are some really great pictures of all of them.  It's especially fun to see real pictures of the bird that has become such a mythical character in our house; Mariam has been very interested in the fate of Pale Male since first hearing his story and was pretty much beside herself at the idea that she could see things like recent pictures and video.  So, a few links:

- The New York Times has a live-stream camera set up where you can view the nesting (and now egg-sitting) activities of a pair of hawks who have taken up residence atop the library at NYU.

- The Urban Hawks blog is here.  A word of caution for those of you with younger children: many of the activities photographed in recent days have been very, um, spring-like.  Depending on what your little people know about how animals make other animals, you might want to specifically pick the eating and flying posts to share. 

- Speaking of eating, here is a post showing Pale Male having a meal.  There is a video as well as some good close-up shots that show what the bird really looks like. 

 

--- Annie

 

Favorite Books for Wintry Weather.

I generally try to have enough creative brainpower to write totally unique posts for my own blog and this lovely page here.  However, I have decided that this time of year is completely crazy enough to make a bit of cross-posting a-okay.  So, click on over to Bird and Little Bird to see my list of favorite books to share with your little ones as the first snow falls.  Or, if you live somewhere warm and relatively sunny, you can just read them in honor of the rest of us as we dig ourselves out with snow shovels and rock salt. 

On the Shelf: What's This?

I had every intention of writing a post about a favorite fall story for you all this week.  But then I realized that a big part of what we are doing in our own family right now is not only about gathering leaves and acorns and watching colors change, it is also about the way that we spend autumn preparing for the winter and spring that are to come.  This last week and weekend, we dug under our community garden plot, pulling up the last of our spring sown garden plants and sprinkling cover crop seeds that will finish out the growing season for us.  This process, of course, lends itself to talking a bit about the cycle that plants and animals go through each year as the seasons shift.  Which brings me to the book that I want to share with you today: What's This by Caroline Mockford.

In my teaching life, I have often used What's This as a book for teaching about the beginning of the plant life cycle in the spring.  But this year, I realized that it is just as much a perfect book for talking about the part of the cycle that arrives each autumn as we harvest plants and look forward to the quiet of winter.  What's This is the story of a little girl who finds a sunflower seed, and through careful attention and nurturing, grows it into a beautiful plant whose seeds she saves and shares with her classmates in the fall.  What's This provides a delightful introduction to the plant life cycle by means of a sweet story with bright and sunny illustrations.  What I love, and what I think makes it an idea read for fall, is the way that it also emphasizes that although the "end" of a plant's life as the seasons shift can be a little sad, it is also part of the natural order of things and is necessary for the cycle to start again in the spring sunshine. 

Living in a place with long, cold, dark and snowy winters (I make it sound appealing, no?), books like this one, that emphasize the optimism and hope that each season brings as we move through the yearly cycle are a treasure.  Understanding that each season has its own gifts to offer is something to really reflect upon when you feel those little twinges of sadness as the tomato plants hit the compost pile.  Not that we aren't looking forward to building that first snowman- we are- but it's also good to think about the fact that sunflower season will be coming around again before we know it. 

----Annie

On the Shelf: Whitefoot.

Hello Magnifying Glass family!  Many apologies for my long absence from this space; life got unbelievably busy for just a bit and it was hard enough just to make sure that we could find everyone a clean shirt in the morning, let alone give deep thought to children's literature! 

But here I am again, popping in to share one of our very favorite pieces of children's literature with you all.  Although it feels a bit like cheating, the review that follows is mostly stolen from a post I did on my own blog about this wonderful book last year.  After some thought, I decided that there was no way I could deny you the pleasure of getting to know this amazing title just because there might be a bit of overlapping readership.  It's just too good for that.  So, here goes:

Today's On the Shelf title is a unique and beautiful book; Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World by Wendell Berry with illustrations by Davis Te Selle.  Given to us a year ago or so by some very dear friends, Whitefoot was immediately loved by both Mariam and I (although for different reasons, I suspect), yet I have somehow overlooked it when writing these posts.  This is probably because I have always kept it on the living room bookshelf, nestled among my own favorite books, rather than on the shelves in Mariam's own room where I often dig around for book review material.  As some longtime readers of my blog might have noticed, I am a lover of all things Wendell Berry and would easily cite him as my favorite poet, as well as this poem of his as one of my absolute favorite pieces of writing ever.  He is an amazing poet, writer and from what I can tell from the one time I saw him speak in person, an exceptional human being.  So, it follows that his foray into writing for a younger audience would be just as beautiful and brilliant as everything else that he does...

Whitefoot is the story of a small mouse, set adrift on a log during a flood which follows a rainstorm in the little corner of the world that she calls home.  Before the flood, Whitefoot had been nicely settled into the short life provided to her by nature.  Her nest had been made, her routine of daily survival established, her world explored thoroughly enough to feel comfortable.  The coming of the flood sets Whitefoot off on an adventure that she didn't really want, but that she will approach with the same unflappable acceptance that any wild animal would demonstrate in similar circumstances. This story is unique among children's books in that it approaches storytelling from the perspective of an animal, like so many stories do, but without assigning the animal human characteristics or personality.  Whitefoot is a mouse, and she behaves like one.  This fact makes this tale read almost more like narrative science than anything else, and this precision is something which I can see my daughter's inquisitive mind appreciates.

Like all of Berry's work, this tale reads like poetry, but Whitefoot also has just enough story to keep little listeners interested.  Yes, the prose is lyrical and beautifully descriptive and includes probably more than one or two words that small ears might not yet know. But it also has a flowing quality to it and that paired with the simple and expressive illustrations seems to be enough to help young readers appreciate just what is happening.   Nature is the main character in this tale and I believe that there is something about this that makes the story come alive for kids, even if they can't define each individual adjective.  There is also an honesty to this book that is seldom reflected in other stories for children; the life an animal is perhaps short and not entirely easy or comfortable.  But it is the life that they have, and each animal follows it's own set of instincts and lives that life accordingly.

I don't know how widely available this book is, and I suppose that some smaller city libraries may not have copies.  That being said, it is certainly worth a search effort as it is a lovely book that can be enjoyed by children of many ages as well as by the adults who read to them.  I also just discovered (added bonus) that the illustrator lives here in Burlington.  Some people get excited about the possibility of running into famous actors or musicians.  I, apparently, am much more interested in the idea that the person who illustrated the book written by my favorite poet lives in my city.  To each her own, right?