Quick Collections!

 Welcome this month's guest blogger, Heather L. Montgomery*!

Round rocks, red leaves, rhinoceros beetles—we all know that kid who would cram them in a pocket then clutter up the closet. . . That kid might be a scientist. George Washington Carver, Jane Goodall, Charles Darwin—all were incessant collectors as kids! 

My recent picture book, What’s In Your Pocket? Collecting Nature’s Treasures, features nine historic and modern scientists who grew their skills by packing their pockets, then sifting and sorting through nature stuff. Collecting artifacts develops skills—observation, description, sorting, evaluation—with broad application. 

Kids can build permanent collections, seeking out just the right thing to fit a category and taking care to find the perfect specimen, but there’s lots of fun to be had in quick collections, too.  On your next outing, why not put your pocket-packing skills to the test? 

Alphabet Mess: Quickly collect 30 or more random items into a pile. Then turn the mess into a tidy alphabetical line. Can you make a complete alphabet?

Categories: Call out a category (nut, something orange, something ancient, once living thing, something fuzzy, something smelly, etc.) and see what everyone finds. Bring the artifacts together to compare/contrast. For easy display of small items, use a white ice cube tray. In addition to the stated category, what else do those items have in common?

Picture Perfect: Develop a list of sensitive items (butterfly, bird, living flower, moss on a rock) and collect pictures instead of samples. Not enough cameras? Work in pairs. One person (the photographer) must line up the blindfolded person (the camera) so that when the camera flips open the shutter (blindfold) the item is directly in view.

Collection Connections (left): Make a grid on a piece of paper (adjust size according to your needs). Place one artifact in the center square. Any collected item can be added to an adjacent square if you can name one way in which the items connect. For example, they could both be animal parts, one (a plant) could use another (soil), they could both provide shelter, they could be the same color, texture, shape,… For an extra challenge, add an item and let others guess the connection.

*Heather L. Montgomery writes for kids who are wild about animals. An award-winning author and educator, Heather uses yuck appeal to engage young minds. Her books include: Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill, Bugs Don’t Hug: Six-legged Parents and Their Kids, and What’s in Your Pocket? Collecting Nature’s Treasures. Learn more at www.HeatherLMontgomery.com

A SPORTS-TASTIC CHALLENGE!

Welcome this month's guest blogger, Jennifer Swanson!

How many of you are currently watching the Tokyo Olympics? Me! <waves hand wildly> 

I LOVE sports. I should. I grew up with three brothers and a father who love sports. It was natural that I would as well. After all, I spent most of my days playing baseball in the backyard with my brothers, shooting hoops in the driveway, swimming laps in the pool for swim practice, running, hiking, biking, etc. You name it, I’ve played the sport. 

But many of you also know that I LOVE science, too! (Remember, I was the one who started a science club in my garage when I was seven.) So, when an opportunity came to combine the two in a book, I literally jumped at it (after all, the long jump was once one of my events). 😊 

In my The Secret Science of Sports: The Math, Physics, and Mechanical Engineering Behind Every Grand Slam, Triple Axel, and Penalty Kick  (August 2021, Black Dog & Leventhal), my recipe for a great book is -->  STEM + Sports = GREAT FUN!

Hold on. There is one thing you should know. This book is not meant to be read sitting down. I want readers to DO the STEM with the sports. To SEE and EXPERIENCE the science, technology, engineering, and math in every sport. 

TRY OUT these three challenges from the book:

You’ll need: • soccer ball  • balloon

Did you have fun? I hope so! My goal for this book is to have it taken outside, sloshed through mud-filled soccer fields, covered in sports drinks stains from tennis and football players, and yes, even end up with rippled pages from getting wet next to a swimming pool.

It’s also a PERFECT guide to the 2021 Olympics. (Hint: this book even breaks down Simone Biles’ famous flip—it’s on page 159.) 

Have a great summer! Go STEM and SPORTS!

🏀    🏆    🎾

Science Rocks! And so do Jennifer Swanson’s books. She is the award-winning author of over 45 nonfiction books for children. 

You can find Jennifer through her website www.JenniferSwansonBooks.com.   

Check out Jennifer's award-winning STEM podcast for Kids SolveItForKIDS.com.

MUMMIES? EXPOSED! TWO ACTIVITIES for OCTOBERRRR…..

My new book, MUMMIES EXPOSED!, debuted in May. Spring hardly seems like the season for talking mummies, but as I say in the book, “there’s always something new to learn about something old.” So why not dig into mummy study all the year around?”

Mummies! takes an in-depth look at human bodies that were preserved either with intent or by Mother Nature. I tell their stories of discovery—and, thanks in part to STEM research—at least a part of the stories of these dead themselves: ten children, women, and men across space and time, explaining why these people (like us) were mummified or how their bodies survived the process of decay. I’m pleased to note that my book garnered four starred reviews!

Experiment Like Nikola Tesla

Welcome August's blogger, author Amy O'Quinn!

Amy M. O'Quinn

I am excited to guest post on the Hands-On Books blog today. It’s a privilege to be here! My second book, NikolaTesla for Kids: His Life, Ideas, and Inventions, with 21 Activities (published by Chicago Review Press), was released in early July—and it was so cool to hold all that hard work in my hands at last. Better yet, I am thrilled to finally be able to share Nikola Tesla’s amazing life story with my readers!

Nikola Tesla was a man WAY ahead of his time, and many considered him to be somewhat of a mad scientist. And while it’s certainly true that he was extremely quirky and eccentric, he was a visionary in so many ways. Using the rotating magnetic field, he created the alternating current supply system we still use today. He also helped design the world’s first hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls, and he came up with innovative plans and ideas for other inventions, such as a remote-controlled boat, fluorescent tubes, neon lights, and the bladeless turbine. He is now acknowledged to have invented the radio ahead of Marconi, and he also experimented with wireless energy. In fact, many of the technological gadgets we take for granted today can be traced back to Nikola Tesla’s ideas and inventions! He truly wanted to make a difference in the world and help humankind.

Purchase on IndieBound

After Tesla’s death, his belongings and papers were suspiciously confiscated by the U.S. government and sent back to his homeland in the Balkans. Because of the Cold War, western journalists had no access to any of his work—and the knowledge of his contributions to the fields of science and technology slowly faded away. While the names of Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, and other inventors of Tesla’s time have been remembered and honored, Nikola Tesla’s name was largely forgotten. Until recent years, he has been denied all the recognition he deserved. However, this is finally changing, and Nikola Tesla and his work are finally being applauded and celebrated. I sincerely hope that my book will help others discover, or at least learn a bit more, about one of the greatest inventors of all time.

Nikola was fascinated with magnetism from a very young age, and two of my favorite activities in the book center around this amazing force! Try one of the activities below for yourself.

Thanks for reading and please come visit me at amyoquinn.com!

Astronaut or Aquanaut—Which would you be?

by guest-blogger Jennifer Swanson

It’s so much fun to imagine what our future careers will be one day. You might find yourself wishing to blast off into space OR to dive deep under the ocean. But would you like either of these careers? Are they hard to do? What kind of training is needed? And WHAT does the suit you have to wear look and feel like?

   These are all amazing questions. A lot of them are answered in my book, Astronaut-Aquanaut: How Space Science and Sea Science Interact. But because this is a science/STEM/STEAM book we have some fun activities for you to do right in your own home to see which one of these careers you might choose.

Astronaut Training:

Do you have what it takes to dock at the Space Station? Grab a tennis ball, a big plastic cup, some rope or strong string and give it a try. It’s not as easy as you think!

Aquanaut Training:

Underwater is all about how things float. If you were going to dive deep under water, how do you make sure that you stay down there? And how do you make sure that you come back up? That force is called Buoyancy. It’s a force that pushes up on us as gravity pushes down. Try this experiment to see how things float… or sink

Did you succeed? Did both of your experiments work? Which one did you like more?

Challenge: If you’re looking for more ways to decide, I challenge you to design your own space suit OR underwater suit. What would it look like? What tools would it have? Draw it and compare with your friend.

So what did you decide? Will you be an Astronaut OR Aquanaut?

My choice? Aquanaut. All the way. I’d rather see this out my window: 

Than this:

Although to be quite honest, they are both amazing views! Thanks so much for joining me on the Hands-On Books!  Jennifer Swanson, www.JenniferSwansonBooks.com