As a homeschooler, BOOKS are everything. They are our hobby and curriculum, they are the center of family time, leisure time, they are in every room in our house, we LOVE books and we REALLY love high quality, beautifully illustrated/photographed science books. There’s just no substitute for beautiful pictures/illustrations. Science is a visual subject, we like to read about all the science topics but we need to also SEE the things we’re reading about.
We have been enjoying these 4 Lonely Planet science titles for weeks, along with the Trekking the National Parks Board and National Parks Trivia Games. Science has been so fun this summer with all these great resources.
We are a National Parks loving family and this book, America’s National Parks, has been so great to inform us more about some of our favorite parks and others we can’t wait to visit. Along with the Trivia Game, we’re getting pretty knowledgeable about these amazing spaces in the US. The format of this book is great and the pictures are fantastic. Each 2 page spread covers a national park with information about wildlife, astronomy, things not to miss, etc.
Our state has 5 National Parks and we have visited 4 of them, some of them several times each, and there were still new things we learned! There’s so much on this planet just waiting to be discovered and observed, and this book will definitely enhance our future National Parks visits.
The Unfolding Journeys: Rocky Mountain Explorer has also been really fun with tons of information about the flora and fauna there is to be discovered in the Rocky Mountains where we live. Some things we knew and have observed, others we know now to look for on our next hikes.
The fold out format of this book is really fun for the kids and the illustrations are done in a very appealing style. My 11 year old has made a few paintings of his own, using this book as a model.
We definitely love a good sticker book, and the Let’s Explore series, Jungle edition, has been really fun for my monkeys. We did the page about gorillas the other day and learned a little about where gorillas live, what they eat, how they take care of themselves and their young. My 4 year old twins loved it and can’t wait to do another page!
Some of the pages require some reading and the stickers are used to essentially answer a question, so I help them with that part. But other pages are just scenes that the stickers can go anywhere. I love the mix and the opportunity it gives to have a little lesson while they are busy with the stickers.
And finally, the Animal Atlas. This is a beautifully illustrated atlas – we have several and this is definitely one of our favorites because of all the great information, beautiful illustrations, fold-out elements, and flaps. My kids love flaps in a book, and these pages are super thick so the fold out pages and flaps are sturdy.
This atlas talks about wildlife by region, and we studied North America most recently, along with our study of the Rocky Mountains and National Parks. We learned some more interesting things – all the books have different information, so using them all together has given a very thorough coverage of a very broad topic.
We talked about some animals and then did some shadow art. I love how each of these books grab kids of all ages – younger ones with the pictures and older ones with an appealing layout of facts and information.
{I received these books to facilitate this review.}
