Science is everywhere, in everything we do, see, and read. Books-all books-offer possibilities for talk about science in the illustrations and text once you know how to look for them. Children's literature is a natural avenue to explore the seven crosscutting concepts described in the Next Generation Science Standards*, and with guidance from Valerie Bang-Jensen and Mark Lubkowitz, you will learn to develop the mindset necessary to think like a scientist, and then help your students think, talk, and read like scientists. Sharing Books Talking Science is an engaging and user-friendly guide that provides practical, real world understandings of complex scientific concepts using children's literature. By demonstrating how to work in a very familiar and comfortable teaching context-read aloud-to address what may be less familiar and comfortable content-scientific concepts-Valerie and Mark empower teachers to use just about any book in their classroom to help deepen students' understanding of the world. Valerie and Mark supply you with everything you need to know to get to the heart of each concept, including a primer, questions and strategies to spot a concept, and ways to prompt students to see and talk about it. Each chapter offers a list of suggested titles (many of which you probably already have) to help you get started right away, as well as "topic spotlight" sections that help you connect the concepts to familiar topics such as eating, seasons, bridges, size, and water. With Sharing Books Talking Science, you will have the tools and confidence to explore scientific concepts with your students. Learn how to "talk science" with any book so that you can infuse your curriculum with scientific thinking...even when you aren't teaching science. *Next Generation Science Standards is a registered trademark of Achieve. Neither Achieve nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.

The Butzows' groundbreaking, critically acclaimed, and best-selling resource has been thoroughly revised and updated for today's classroom with new titles and new activities. More than 30 exciting instructional units integrate all areas of the curriculum and serve as models to educators at all levels. With each chapter there is also a list of related sources-including Internet sites. Adopted as a supplementary text in schools of education nationwide, this resource features outstanding children's fiction books that are rich in scientific concepts yet equally well known for their strong story lines and universal appeal. Activities can be used with appropriate titles for higher grades.

Due to popular demand, the Butzows have put together more fascinating thematic units that make science more exciting for young learners. Each chapter focuses on an individual book and includes vocabulary; concepts; applications; and a wide variety of activities, including hands-on and inquiry-based topics, games, puzzles, word searches, and more. The authors' approach helps connect the conceptual content to real-life experiences. Physical, life, earth, space, and environmental sciences are included.

Links 14 popular children's stories with themes on earth and environmental science. Activities includes science experiments, craft projects, library research, collateral reading and writing projects, and field trips. Topics include: the American prairie, the arid environment, tornado and weather, the arctic, the north woods, the rocky mountains, fossils, coral reefs, tropical lagoons, California coastal islands, the open ocean, whales and marine fishing, freshwater lakes, and wetlands. For grades 4-7.

Recent scholarship on children’s literature displays a wide variety of interests in classic and contemporary children’s books. While environmental and ecological concerns have led to an interest in ‘ecocriticism’, as yet there is little on the significance of the ecological imagination and experience to both the authors and readers – young and old – of these texts. This edited collection brings together a set of original international research-based chapters to explore the role of children’s literature in learning about environments and places, with a focus on how children’s literature may inform and enrich our imagination, experiences and responses to environmental challenges and injustice. Contributions from Australia, Canada, USA and UK explore the diverse ways in which children’s literature can provide what are arguably some of the first and possibly most formative engagements that some children might have with ‘nature’. Chapters examine classic and new storybooks, mythic tales, and image-based and/or written texts read at home, in school and in the field. Contributors focus on exploring how children’s literature mediates and informs our imagination and understandings of diverse environments and places, and how it might open our eyes and lives to other presences, understandings and priorities through stories, their telling and re-telling, and their analysis. This book was originally published as a special issue of Environmental Education Research.

Natural disasters enthrall with their potency, might, and devastation. Tap into students' inherent awe of storms, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, avalanches, landslides, and tsunamis to open their minds to the wonders and power of the natural world. Using quality children's literature as a springboard to learning, this guide extends the understanding of science concepts through short activities, longer projects, and adventures. This participatory approach keeps the focus on the processes of science and promotes a personal response to learning. Students can use the literature and activities not just to better understand the forces of nature, but to grasp the implications of that potency on the lives of people near and far. Grades 3-6.

In a similar treatment to their previous books about science and literature, the authors consider over 25 picture books (both new and classic, but all new to this volume) that provide examples in nature (topics include living things, earth and stars, and natural changes) for children to observe, describe, and appreciate. Summaries of each book are included as are extensive vocabulary lists, science concepts, puzzles, and integrated activities in math, language arts, writing, social studies, science, and art. The book also offers integrated activities in the area of information literacy to help hone student skills.