Innovative Kids sent us a couple of titles from a great series of science books called "Little Pirate: Science Made Simple" to review. We've been reading them to Z and they've had quite an impact. One of the things that I really like is that although the main characters and background images are illustrated, the object of the story (the trash in the bookWhy Do We Recycle? or the animals in the book Is That a Bat?) are photographs.

Each book features three main characters: Little Pirate - the curious explorer, Parrot - the bird with the answers, and Mystic - a mermaid/girl character who makes keen observations and is always ready for adventure.

The books state that they are for ages 3-6 and I think young kids could engage with this book somewhat due to the bright, interesting illustrations, but the books are really best for kids ages 4-7 or so. There is enough information in the books to last for several years of readings - the younger kids will get the superficial, surface level information and the older kids will really enjoy relating the books to real world topics.

At the end of the book Why Do We Recycle, there are a couple of pirate craft suggestions. We read the book as a bedtime story - just glossing over the crafts since it was bedtime - and were so confused when Z woke up the next morning asking to make a pirate ship out of a plastic bottle. (She finally showed us the project in the back of the book.)

We highly recommend this series! At under $10 on Amazon.com and with their buy three, get the fourth for free deal, these are a great buy. Other titles in the series include: What's in the Egg?, Is a Shark a Fish?, and Why Does the Wind Blow?.

In accordance with our Keep No Stuff policy, we'll be donating these books to charity. - Jennifer

We're using Hooked on Phonics' newly revised curriculum to teach our five-year-old daughter Z to read. A lot of that learning centers around word families, groups of short words with similar endings (basically, they rhyme) that can be easily learned as a group. This is the first of a series of posts that collects fun Sesame Street clips that can help kids learn words from different word families. Each post will collect 2-3 word families. Enjoy!

-at

-ake

-an

- Jennifer