Posts Tagged nonfiction

Happy 3rd Anniversary STEM Tuesday!! (Enter our Big Giveaway Celebration!)

By on September 1, 2020   /   Giveaways, STEM Tuesday  

 

HAPPY 3RD ANNIVERSARY, STEM TUESDAY!!

 

The entire STEM Tuesday team is SO excited to be celebrating our third anniversary!! We have enjoyed every minute of it and hope you have, too.

Our goal, when we started this blog was to provide  engaging, exciting, and inspiring STEM/STEAM activities and literacy connections to all of our readers. Over the past three years, we have taken a deep dive into so many unique and interesting topics.

From conservation, to Health, to Field Work, and even Exploration and Technology. We have featured graphic novels, Women’s History month, sharks, and activity books. And who can forget the posts on epic achievements and fantastic failures? Such important concepts in all of STEM/STEAM.

If you have used STEM Tuesday’s posts in your classroom or homeschool, let us know by commenting below. We’d like to hear what kind of  STEM/STEAM activities and literacy connections your student’s are enjoying. If there is topic that we haven’t covered yet and you’d like to see, please also let us know. You can email us at stemmuf@gmail.com

We, the entire STEM Tuesday team thank you for reading our posts and using our resources in your classroom or homeschool. After all, it’s all about inspiring kids (of all ages) to engage with STEM and STEAM!

As a way to share our excitement of this anniversary, we are going to give YOU the prizes.

Take a look at some of the amazing giveaways being offered:

 

From Author Jennifer Swanson

TWO free books– Beastly Bionics and Save the Crash-test Dummies

 

 

From Author Kirsten W. Larson  

— Do one of my FlipGrids and invite me to join. I’ll record a FlipGrid for your students and comment on their videos.

 

Paper Airplane Creations: https://flipgrid.com/6f3beaf2

 

From Mike Hays

“Catch a Wave!” STEM Tuesday Prize Pack

For the budding young physicist, here’s an electromagnetic wave prize package inspired by the “Catch a Wave” STEM Tuesday Spin-Off post at MG Book Village. (link: https://mgbookvillage.org/2020/02/13/stem-tuesday-spin-off-catch-a-wave-edition/ )

3’ Horseshoe Magnet, Compass, Bar Magnet Set, Prism, Folding Pocket Magnifying Glass

AND two 30-min. classroom Skype visits

 

 

From Author Mary Kay Carson

TWO activity-filled books as giveaways–Wildlife Ranger Action Guide & Alexander Graham Bell for Kids

 

 

From Author Karen Latchana Kenney 

TWO books for  giveaway: TV Brings Battle into the Home with the Vietnam War and Exploring Auroras

 

From Author Carla Mooney 

TWO books  for giveaway – Inside the Human Body & The Human Genome: Mapping the Blueprint of Human Life

 

 

From Author Janet Slingerland

One book Atoms and Molecules AND a FREE 15-minute Skype Q & A

 

 

From Author Heather L. Montgomery,

Whose books include:  Who Gives a Poop? Surprising Science from One End to the Other and Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill.

One FREE 15-20 minute Skype Visit 

 

 

 

From Author Nancy Castaldo

Whose books include:  The Farm that Feeds Us and Back from the Brink: Saving Animals from Extinction

One FREE 20 minute Skype Visit 

ENTER the giveaway via the Rafflecopter widget BELOW  

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We salute all of you teachers, librarians, and parents who are doing an AWESOME job teaching your kids/students this school year. If you are looking for virtual visits, please be sure to check our websites.

Many of us are offering activities and virtual events. You can find us all HERE. 

THANK YOU for reading along with STEM Tuesday. Cheers to another great year. GO STEM!!!

 

 

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Jennifer Swanson is the creator and administrator of STEM Tuesday. Hugely passionate about making STEM engaging and inspiring for kids of ALL ages, she is also the creator of STEAMTeamBooks, a website that highlights new STEM books releasing every year, and also the creator of the new Solve It! for Kids podcast where, along with her co-host, Jed Doherty, they give a peek into the lives of real-life scientists and engineers as they solve problems in their daily jobs.

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STEM Tuesday — STEM Activity Books– Writing Tips & Resources

By on August 18, 2020   /   Activity Books, STEM Tuesday  

Sometimes, when there’s so much uncertainty in the world (like now) it’s nice to have a set of rules or instructions to follow. Honestly, having fewer choices is one reason I love writing nonfiction. We can’t just make up plots and main characters; we must stick with the facts and harness our creativity to turn those facts into compelling true stories.

This month’s booklist includes a host of STEM activity books, found here, all of which fall into the category of “how-to” books. As I looked through the books, I noticed each offered detailed rules or procedures for making or building items or conducting experiments. And each activity contained the following elements:

  • A list of supplies and/or equipment needed
  • Step-by-step instructions
  • Pictures showing the process

So how can we apply this “how-to” process to our writing? By embracing poetry, of course! Most poetry requires we follow certain rules. And some special poetry forms involve using materials like books, newspapers, markers, and more, just like our STEM how-to books. Fun, right?

Here are two simple, hands-on poetry forms to try.

Blackout Poems (erasure poetry)

No Angle by Austin Kleon

Supplies/tools needed:

  • old newspaper, magazine, or a page from a discarded book
  • pencil
  • markers

Instructions:

  1. Scan through one page of your newspaper or book, looking for interesting words that might spark a poetry idea. Lightly circle them with your pencil.
  2. Now look for other words connecting your circled words. Remember, you won’t be able to reshuffle or reorder the words. You can only use what’s available to you in the order it appears reading left to right, down to up. Circle those new connecting words with the pencil.
  3. Now go back with a marker and circle all the words for your poem.
  4. Color or blackout all the remaining words on the page, so only your chosen words remain. You can even draw interesting shapes and designs over the remaining words if you like.

Here’s a step-by-step how-to video from Austin Kleon showing how he made the poem above.

Spine Poems (found poetry)

Supplies/tools needed: Lots of books!

Instructions:

  1. Stack up books, one on top of the other, so you can read the spines.
  2. Starting at the top, read down through the spines, letting the words from each title become a line of poetry.
  3. Rearrange books as necessary until you have a poem you like.

Enjoy following these hands-on poetry “how-tos.” And here’s hoping limited choices spark unlimited creativity.

O.O.L. F (Out of Left Field)

Kirsten W. Larson used to work with rocket scientists at NASA. Now she writes books for curious kids. She’s the author of WOOD, WIRE, WINGS: EMMA LILIAN TODD INVENTS AN AIRPLANE, illustrated by Tracy Subisak (Calkins Creek, 2020), A TRUE WONDER, illustrated by Katy Wu (Clarion, 2021), THE FIRE OF STARS, illustrated by Katherine Roy (Chronicle, Fall 2021), along with 25 other nonfiction books for kids. Find her at kirsten-w-larson.com or on Twitter/Instagram @KirstenWLarson.

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STEM Tuesday — STEM Activity Books– In the Classroom

By on August 11, 2020   /   Activity Books, STEM Tuesday  

It’s August and the countdown to school has started. For many students and teachers, going to school may look a little different this year. Some students may be learning in the classroom, while others learn at home. And some students may be doing a little bit of both. No matter where you’re learning, you can use these great books to spark a lasting interest in science and STEM.

The books we’re highlighting this month are all STEM activity books. They are a great starting point for different science activities and discussions in the classroom and at home.

Calling All Inventors!
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Do your students know about scientist and inventor Temple Grandin? In this book, kids can learn from a master inventor by reading her personal stories and trying a few of the book’s 25 hands-on projects. Throughout the book, Grandin shows readers what it’s like to see the world through an inventor’s eyes, questioning and testing how the world works. You could have kids do a few of these projects and then present their results, either in person or in a virtual classroom. You can even have students think like Grandin and come up with their own project or invention!

Want to learn a little be more about Temple Grandin? Take a look at this Colorado State University article about Temple Grandin’s life.

Let’s Build!

If you want your students or kids to learn about engineering – try this fantastic book:
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This book has activities to explore important principles of engineering, such as forces and motion; liquids and reactions; shapes and structures; and light and sound. You can explore gravity by building a working model of a tower crane. You can study the range of colors in light by building a spectroscope. Maybe assign a different project to small groups of students. Have them demonstrate their project to the class. How does it work? What engineering principle(s) does it show? How is this principle used by scientists in the real world?

Take a Walk Through the Jungle

For younger kids, Rainforests is a great activity book that teaches kids about tropical and temperate forests and how we can help preserve them.
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The book also has lots of information about the creatures of the rainforest. The book begins with several chapters about the layers of the rainforest – the forest floor, the understory, the canopy, and the top layer. Perhaps have each kid choose an animal or plant that lives in the rainforest and write a few sentences about it and how it survives in the rainforest.

Kids will learn about the rainforest in different parts of the world. Try some of the book’s activities such as creating a jungle journal in Africa or communicating with message sticks in the South Asian and Malaysian rainforest. Ask the kids: How are the rainforests in different parts of the world similar? How are they different? How can we work together to conserve and protect them?

Have fun with all of the hands-on STEM and science activities in these books! It’s a great way to bring science into your classroom – no matter where it is this year!

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Carla Mooney loves to explore the world around us and discover the details about how it works. An award-winning author of numerous nonfiction science books for kids and teens, she hopes to spark a healthy curiosity and love of science in today’s young people. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, three kids, and dog. When not writing, she can often be spotted at a hockey rink for one of her kids’ games. Find her at http://www.carlamooney.com, on Facebook @carlamooneyauthor, or on Twitter @carlawrites.

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