Books directly addressing science, or related to science topics

·         Outstanding Science Books                         http://www.nsta.org/publications/ostb/

The National Science Teachers Association, in concert with the Children’s Book Council, publishes a list of outstanding science books for K-12 every year.  Activities for the different science areas are included from 2010 forward.

·         Picture-Perfect Science: Favorite children’s books for teaching science, K-6

http://commoncore.dadeschools.net/docs/science/Elementary%20Science/PPSFavoriteBooksK-6.pdf

Lots of Common Core lists are popping up.  This one’s from the Miami-Dade County School System, a long list-divided by areas of science-of classic to fairly new fiction and non-fiction books.

·         MSU Science Book List                                   https://www.msu.edu/~stanawa8/Booklist.htm

The list aligns each book with the Michigan Curriculum Framework Science Benchmarks instead of the Common Core State Standards, but it matches each book’s content with science process skills such as observation, measurement, investigative process, etc., along with which science concepts and vocabulary are covered, provides a story brief and includes comments such as whether the depiction of viewing an eclipse was done correctly (The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons-it was) or whether safety guidelines regarding thunderstorms were followed (Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco-they weren’t).

·         Integrating Science with Children’s Literature

http://www.terrificscience.org/downloads/presentations/Science-Lit-Book-List.pdf

Terrific Science is a company that provides professional development opportunities in science for teachers of preschool through college age students.  This extensive list of books is supplemented by free downloadable pdfs of coordinating activities.

·         Gail Gibbons’ Teacher’s Guides                 http://www.gailgibbons.com/teachers_guide.html

Gail Gibbons has written many, many science based picture books for the K-3 crowd (many NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book selections).  She has two guides available for download with worksheets that coordinate with her books.  You will undoubtedly use some Gibbons books at some point if you are teaching primary grades!

·         Seymour Simon                                                                http://seymoursimon.com

Author of more than 250 science books for kids (many NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book selections), his website offers identified educators (with a school email address) lots of supplemental material.  He has a blog and kid activities as well.

·         Eric Carle Caterpillar Exchange                    http://www.eric-carle.com/catexchange.html

A bulletin board where educators and others can post ideas they have regarding extensions of Carle’s books.  Some are science related, many are art related.

·         MeL or Michigan Electronic Library           http://mel.org

MeL Databases-Book Flix pairs e-book fiction and non-fiction beginning readers, and many science books are included.  NoveList K-8 Plus allows you to limit your search by several filters including: age (0-8, 9-12), fiction or nonfiction, Lexile level, grade level, or even publication date.  MeLCat-over 10 million book titles, including kids’ titles, available from over 400 libraries around the state.  CMU (as well as many other colleges and universities) participates in MeLCat.  M.O.R.E.-Michigan Online Resources for Educators-A growing collection of tens of thousands of curriculum based materials such as lesson plans, interactive Web sites, and other instructional resources for K-12 education.