Review: The Truth About Nature

The Truth About Nature: A Family’s Guide to 144 Common Myths about the Great Outdoors by Stacy Tornio and Ken Keffer

This book could be a useful resource for those incorporating science into their storytimes. The 144 myths are arranged by season and are accompanied by forty strange-but-true nature facts, 32 assorted legends, and 16 activities/experiments. There are quick tips at the beginning of the book to help you use the book to best advantage and a great index in the back to help match your storytime topic to book topics. Check it out!

Rabbit Habits

Forever Friends by Carin Berger

Rabbit’s Gift by George Shannon

After enjoying these story lines, there is a nice list of rabbit facts at http://www.brighthubeducation.com/preschool-lesson-plans/64076-bunnies-classroom-theme/ and (if you don’t know someone with a real bunny to bring to storytime) some beautiful photos of real rabbit breeds at https://www.arba.net/breeds.htm.

The Long Sleepover

Ridiculous by Michael Coleman

Sleep, Black Bear, Sleep by Jane Yolen

How ridiculous would it be if an animal who was supposed to hibernate, didn’t? You can enjoy finding the answer to that question by reading Ridiculous!

The book by Jane Yolen reveals what animals besides Black Bear are hibernating.

For additional activities, try http://www.preschool-plan-it.com/hibernation.html or http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/hibernation.html

Nuts About Squirrels

Frisky Brisky Hippety Hop by Susan Lurie

Ol’ Mama Squirrel by David Ezra Stein

Susan Lurie’s book shows photographs of a real squirrel doing everyday squirrel tasks, including dodging a predator and building a nest.

Ol’ Mama Squirrel shows the protective side of a mother squirrel when potential predators show up at her tree. Since the emphasis is on the sounds the mother squirrel makes, you could play a recording of real squirrel noises if you click on the sound bars here: http://www.wired.com/2014/06/squirrel-alarm-calls-are-surprisingly-complex/. You could also talk about what baby squirrels are called (kits or just babies according to various sources).

Turtle Time

Scoot by Cathryn Falwell

Turtle Day by Douglas Florian

Scoot shows turtles and the other inhabitants of their environment, accompanied by catchy repetition and all kinds of descriptive animal movement words. Turtle Day shows how a turtle spends its day in its habitat. To enhance the science in these books, there is a list of Ten Turtle Facts here: http://www.brighthubeducation.com/preschool-lesson-plans/63926-teaching-about-turtles-for-preschool/

Eight Shoes and Eight Socks?

What Has Eight Legs and …? by J. Jean Robertson

Spiders Spin Webs by Yvonne Winer

Be Nice to Spiders by Margaret Bloy Graham

Spider facts, spider identification and a sweet classic can be found in these books. There is a great explanation about how a spider constructs its web at http://ednieuw.home.xs4all.nl/Spiders/Info/Construction_of_a_web.html.

This is For the Birds!

Have You Heard the Nesting Bird? by Rita Gray

Bring on the Birds by Susan Stockdale

The first book has a great Q and A section at the end conducted between a bird and the questioner, called “A Word with the Bird.”

The second book places birds into simple (and rhyming) categories, concluding with a who’s who of the birds pictured earlier in the book.

This would be a great opportunity to listen to bird calls online! Children might enjoy trying to imitate the sounds.