Some might say... (ouch! sorry!) that teaching science to primary school children is very difficult. And it is-- but this book, 68 pages full of experiments for kids ages 5 to 12, makes things a little bit easier. And... it was written by my dad-- Alan Ticotsky!

When my dad is not playing his Clapton-esque Fender Stratocaster, he is a science co-ordinator for a public school system. This means that he helps other teachers prepare science lessons for their classrooms. Since he can't be in all of the classrooms in the world at once, he wrote this book to help others plan experiments for their students. With this book, (even if you are not a teacher) you can do most of the experiments described in your own home, since they are intentionally simple to set up.

The best way to learn science is through hands-on lessons. When children are in elementary school, they need to be involved in lessons in order to absorb the information.

This book begins with a description of how to set up a science classroom and then moves into descriptions of lessons. The book is broken up into several sections:
Air
Water
Dirt and Rocks
Earth in Space
Using the Sun's Energy
Motion
Sound
Light and Color
Simple Machines
Magnetism and Electricity
Plants
Animals
and The Human Body

An example of a lesson from the "Earth in Space" section is for kids to build spheres out of clay and then pressing on their "planets" to form mountains. Children will certainly absorb this lesson in how mountains are formed better if they do it themselves than if they read about it in a book.

Another section is on how guitars and xylophones work. The students create instruments and manipulate the length of the strings or water in a jar to create different pitches. As is the case with all the experiments in the book, this lesson is fun and educational.

There are well over one hundred lessons and experiments in this book (How do Magnets work? How do pulleys work? the circulation system; building an ant farm, etc. etc.) I could go on to describe many others, but, hey, doesn't my dad deserve some royalties? : ) You should buy the book. (But, seriously, it is an excellent book and it has sold around 38,000 copies since it was first published in 1986. If you don't believe me, check out some other sources.)

If there are any negative aspects of this book it is that there are not enough pictures, and the pictures are all black and white drawings. The book is packed with words-- each page has at least two or three lessons on it-- and not very many illustrations. Also, the format could utilise more bullets or lists as opposed to paragraphs. This would make it a bit easier to follow.

Just another quick shout-out

My mom writes books, too! Check out this link for the review of her children's novel, "Me and the Weirdos." http://www.epinions.com/book-review-1DB0-B4201C-3887239A-bd1 Or click on the link on my profile page.

My dad wrote another book--about the history of science-- which should be coming out fairly soon, so keep on the lookout for that.

Recommended: Yes