Jennifer Swanson - STEM Tuesday

  Happy Holidays from the STEM Tuesday team! Can you believe it’s that time of year again when you have to go out and buy gifts? Do you know what you’re getting? Why not consider the gift of a STEM/STEAM book? It’s a great way to introduce a love of science to kids (of ALL ages)  OR to expand upon and encourage a love of STEM to grow. Not sure where to find awesome STEM/STEAM books? We can help! Look at our site! Each month comes with a Book List for the topic we are covering that month. Just search by topic on our home page HERE Then click on the search by topic part and you’ll get a drop down menu where you can select the topic you’re looking for. Most of the books on the list are already attached to Bookstop so you can just click on the title and ORDER and you’re done!     If you’re...

It’s the time of the year to be grateful. Grateful for what we have in life. Grateful for communities like From the Mixed-Up Files…of Middle-Grade Authors. Grateful even though life sometimes throws us curveballs.  Life does throw us curveballs. Sometimes we hit the ball, most of the time we miss. Life also has been known to lob a ball right down the fat part of the plate allowing us to take one heck of a swing. Sometimes we drive those for base hits; other times we knock the ball out of the park. Life provides unexpected opportunities. Recently, while listening to the fantastic three-part episode on The Little Mermaid from Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent podcast, Revisionist History, life lobbed a pitch that floated across the strike zone as big as a beach ball.  In Episode 2 of the Revisionist History podcast, Malcolm Gladwell talks to Angus Fletcher, a literature professor at...

Welcome to STEM Tuesday: Author Interview & Book Giveaway, a repeating feature for the fourth Tuesday of every month. Go Science-Tech-Engineering-Math! Today we’re interviewing Katie Coppens, author of Geology is a Piece of Cake. It’s a “truly delicious, hands-on way to study science in action,” says Kirkus Reviews. Mary Kay Carson: Tell us a bit about Geology is a Piece of Cake. How did the book come about? Katie Coppens: I’m a middle school science teacher who uses analogies to help my students understand concepts. One of the analogies my students have enjoyed is learning the difference between a rock and a mineral through cake; where minerals are like the ingredients for cake and the cake is like the rock. Year-after-year, I kept expanding cake examples to a range of concepts in geology, such as fossil formation and plate tectonics. My students benefited from these analogies and the ideas kept coming. Then, I...

How to Start a Story What’s one of the hardest parts of writing? Writing very first paragraph (like this one)! The first paragraph of any piece of writing, also called the “lead,” has to accomplish a lot. It must give the reader an idea of what the piece is about. And it must pique the reader’s interest and encourage them to keep reading. How do writers do it? To find out, I studied the openings in several books from this month’s book list. Start with a Question Did you notice I used this technique to begin this blog post? It’s the same technique Kathleen M. Reilly uses to open her book, FAULT LINES & TECTONIC PLATES: “Did you know that the surface of the planet Earth is similar to one enormous puzzle? A puzzle is made up of anywhere from a few pieces to thousands of pieces. And each piece...