Teaching Through Trade Books: Flying Machines

Journal Article | September 2013

This column includes activities inspired by children’s literature. This month’s issue uses two fiction trade books to inspire students to design and test various flying machines.

Teaching Through Trade Books: Pondering Plants

Journal Article | October 2013

This column includes activities inspired by children’s literature. This month’s issue has students exploring the physical structure of a plant, how a plant grows, and what a plant actually is.

Teaching Through Trade Books: Happy Birthday!

Journal Article | November 2013

This column includes activities inspired by children’s literature. This month’s issue uses the context of birthdays to explore observable patterns that result from Earth's revolution around the Sun.

Teaching Through Trade Books: Watching the Wind

Journal Article | December 2013

This column includes activities inspired by children’s literature. This month’s issue has books that help children focus on what the wind can do so they can understand that wind has power and can be used to simply blow…

Teaching Through Trade Books: The Poetry of Plants

Journal Article | March 2014

This column includes activities inspired by children’s literature. This month’s issue integrates language arts and science using nature-inspired poetry picture books to engage students in explorations of plants' life…

Teaching Through Trade Books: Will It Sink or Will It Float?

Journal Article | June 2014

This column includes activities inspired by children’s literature. This month’s trade books and accompanying activities help students investigate the concept of sinking and floating in more depth.

Teaching through Trade Books: The Science of Invention

Journal Article | January 2003

The books What Is a Scientist? and Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women are used as springboards for projects in which students in grades K–3 and 4–6 create or modify inventions.

Teaching through Trade Books: Weather Watchers

Journal Article | April 2003

In the past two months, students probably have heard weather-based sayings, such as “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” or “April showers bring May flowers.” Throughout the ages, people have developed…

Teaching Through Trade Books: Imaginative Inventions

Journal Article | February 2010

Invention assists students in understanding the relationships between the individual subjects of STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). The playful nature of this month’s trade books adds…

Teaching through Trade Books: Secrets of Flight

Journal Article | September 2009

The date was December 17, 1903. The place was a windswept beach near Kitty hawk, North Carolina. With Orville Wright at the controls and his brother Wilbur running alongside, the plane took off. This event lasted only…

Teaching Through Trade Books: Antarctic Adaptations

Journal Article | December 2004

Penguins! This month’s Teaching Through Trade Books column celebrates those tuxedo-clad birds that have come to symbolize winter and provides students with the opportunity to investigate adaptations that help penguins…

Bands to Books: Connecting Literature to Experimental Design

Journal Article | October 2004

This interdisciplinary unit of study on the inquiry process and experimental design that seamlessly integrates math, science, and reading using a rubber band cannon. The authors begin by describing a series of…

Teaching Through Trade Books: Unusual Creatures

Journal Article | October 2010

Triops, also called tadpole shrimp, are tiny aquatic animals that are easy to raise and fun to watch. Their rapid growth rate, underwater acrobatics, and entertaining feeding behaviors make these inexpensive and readily…

Teaching Through Trade Books: Oil Spill!

Journal Article | February 2005

An oil spill occurs somewhere in the world almost everyday of the year, and the consequences can be devastating. In this month's column, students explore the effects of oil spills on plants, animals, and the…

Teaching Through Trade Books: What's the Matter?

Journal Article | January 2012

This column includes activities inspired by children’s literature. This month’s issue explores the different properties of matter.