School Age Storytime–Our Place in Space

K-2 grade STEAM storytime

 

If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNulty – This fanciful trip to the moon with a young astronaut is full of fascinating real-life facts, from the distance the moon (240,000 miles, approximately 100x the distance from NJ->CA) to what would happen to your weight on the moon (reduced gravity means that a 60lb. kid would weigh approximate 10lbs.) to what would happen to your orange juice in zero gravity (floating orange blobs) and more. The return to earth makes a strong case for appreciating the biodiversity on our blue planet.

Action: Do You Want to Go With Me To the Moon? (Source Unknown)
Do You Want to Go With Me To the Moon?
Let’s get in our rocket ship & blast off soon.
Faster and faster we reach to the sky.
Isn’t it fun to be able to fly?
We’re on the moon, now all take a look
And gently sit down, and I’ll show you a book!

Big Bang: The Tongue Tickling Tale of a Speck that Became Spectacular by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofana  (Imaginatively-written explanation of the big bang explains this mighty idea in accessible ways – e.g. comparing the original speck to a backpack with “your books, clothes, lunchbox…plus 100 Mt. Everests, the sun, some stars, and 100 galaxies…”

Older than the Stars by Karen C. Fox (Didn’t have time for this whole book so shared excerpts without the repetitive verse… started with the opening page “You are older than the dinosaurs…older than the stars”  through the bang and the bits (protons, neutrons, electrons), to atoms for the stars (hydrogen, helium), supernovas to our sun, earth and life upon it made of atoms of carbon, iron, etc. to humans 600,000 breathing air once breathed by dinosaurs…  timeline at the end chronicles 11 3/4 BILLION years!)

Ended with singable book:  Knick, Knack, Paddywhack by Marissa Moss (Kids guessing what he is making!)

Bedm 12/1/17  http://www.newsweek.com/supermoon-2017-full-cold-moon-728118

"Life, the Universe, and Everything!" (with a nod to Douglas Adams,
author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.") 

Big Bang: The Tongue-Tickling Tale of a Speck That Became Spectacular
--523.18 DECRISTOFANO (alliteration meets marvelous description of this amazing event)
Martian Rock - Shields  (Martians venture through the solar system and finally find life on the "third orb" - penguins! -- great lead-in to the next book which showed how our thinking changed as we learned more about the night sky...)
Boy, Were We Wrong About the Solar System! -- 523.3 KUDLINSKI
Flannel: Moonkey -Thayer (some classes)  (nice friendship story)
We -- 599-938 SCHERTLE (some classes)   (a lyrical look at 4 million years of human history)
Nightgown of the Sullen Moon -- Willard (modern myth)

11/3/10 Bedm K-4

Cute book recom by Helen Peterson  How to Bicycle to the Moon & Plant Sunflowers by Mordicai Gerstein