Bookmaking With Kids

The Interpretative Center at the
new Redwood Shores Public Library opens this week and it makes an already wonderful library
absolutely beyond terrific.

It features a supersized replica of the mud from Belmont Slough, the natural wonderland right behind the library. And at 800 times larger than
life size, the faux mud teems with gigantic animals—Dungeness crab, a bat ray, orange anemones, Japanese littlenecks and other clams, spaghetti worms, snails and more—that are simultaneously fascinating and gross. In short, it’s kid heaven.

Babies and toddlers can crawl through mud tubes and press their noses against a tank with fish from the slough. Older kids can explore more than a dozen hands-on exhibits that encourage discoveries about who eats whom; how animals move through the mud; what advantages arise for birds from different types of feet, beaks and feathers; survival adaptations like camouflage; the tides and salt pond restora-
tion; the microbial life in the slough; and that ever-popular topic—sharks. Adults can get a short course in bird-watching. And then everyone can go outside to keep an eye out for bat rays—because they have been spotted right behind the library—and to see how many birds they can identify.

Does a mini discovery museum belong in a library?

Perhaps not in every library.

But in this one, absolutely. It’s a perfect halfway point between the building’s unique outdoor setting and the rich, indoor resources of its books and online information. The Interpretive Center makes you want to go outside for a closer look. And at the same time, it makes you want to hit the books inside for the pleasure of more information.

Please watch for future posts on kids’ bookmaking projects tied to the Interpretive Center and Belmont Slough in particular and to estuary ecosystems in general. To keep reading about the Interpretative Center—and to see more pictures—please click the link. more…

In December, I wrote a bittersweet post about a British children’s dictionary* deaccessioning a long list of wonderful words to make room for more contemporary but not-nearly-so-wonderful words.

I feel better now that I’ve found this web site. In fact, Save the Words has given me a radicarian glow.

Created by the Malaysian subsidiary of Oxford University Press, Oxford Fajar, Save the Words invites viewers to adopt a forgotten word, take a pledge to use it—I hereby promise to use this word, in conversation and correspondence, as frequently as possible to the best of my ability—and thus increase its chances of survival.

When you arrive at the site you see a screenful of weird words, dressed up for the occasion in different colors, varied typefaces. And as you mouse over them, funny little voices call out to you:

Yes, yes, me! … Over here! … Hellllooooo! … Me, me! … Yo, pick me! … Chose me!

Clicking on a word opens a little window with a definition, a sentence using the word and an ADOPT button that you click if you want to pledge yourself to reviving that particular word. I immediately registered so I could play this game but I haven’t adopted a word yet because I’m having too good a time clicking and reading.

* Such perfect irony that both the offending Junior Dictionary and Save the Words are part of Oxford University Press.

Family Literacy Night drew a big crowd of kids and parents last week at Commodore Sloat Elementary School. Fueled by pizza and the fun of running around the building after dark, kids cycled through activities devised by Bookmaking With Kids that included pop-up whale tails, storybooks tucked into library cards and accordion books with envelopes for covers.

The evening was part of a project designed to foster student writing called It Takes a Community, funded by the San Francisco Education Fund. Kudos to teacher Carol Siddle and her colleagues for pulling off so enjoyable and well-orchestrated an event.

Here’s yet another adaptation of the the Yakety Yak book, a little belatedly for Lincoln’s 200th birthday last week but in time for Presidents’ Day.

Click here to download an 11×17 PDF template. Click here to download the lined pages kids will need to fold and tuck beneath each profile. (Print them double-sided, BTW.) And finally, here’s an instruction sheet.

Click Talking to Mr. Darwin to see the most recent post on this book format. And for earlier posts, click here.

Please add a comment to let me know what your students do with the Talking With President Lincoln book or send me an email; photos would be great, too!

If you’re a 7–12 teacher, consider borrowing the California Academy of Sciences’ Evolution Kit.

Filled with specimens, skulls, activities, books, videos and games, it covers such topics as adaptation, artificial selection, reproductive fitness, gene frequencies, genetic variation, genotype and phenotype, natural selection, predation, and speciation. It includes a teacher guide, activity sheets and articles from scientific journals. You can keep it for three weeks for a $30 fee.

There is a catch, but it’s a good catch!

To qualify, you must attend, or have attended in the past, the appropriate teacher workshop. The last CAS Evolution Workshop was held in December; the next is Saturday, April 25, from 8 a.m.–noon. For more information or to make a reservation, call (415) 379-5816 or send an email.

Here’s the workshop description:

Take part in a workshop that brings the concepts of evolution to life. Engage in hands-on activities that explore reproductive fitness, genetic variation, natural selection, predation, and many more concepts of evolution. Current scientific publications are included to support student learning on each concept. Participants leave with a wealth of activities to enhance student learning about evolution.

Click here for a round-up of all my Darwin posts.

Some of the best suggestions I’ve found for navigating the super-abundance of Darwin material on the web, in museums, on the air and in print come from Becky at the Farm School blog. She rounded up scores of links in her Many Happy Returns post on February 2nd. But since then, she’s had a succession of new posts highlighting yet more resources.

The Dispersal of Darwin blog is another good jumping-off point.

I’ve also been impressed by the depth and variety of of articles in the New York Times. A good starting place is the newspaper’s Times Topics page about Darwin, a round-up of all its Darwin articles, reviews of recently published books, links to useful web resources and more.

• My favorite article, The Origin of Darwin, started this way: “My fellow primates, 200 years ago today, Charles Darwin was born. Please join me in wishing him happy birthday!”
• Another favorite is Darwin at 200: The Ongoing Force of His Unconventional Idea.
• Yet another is Darwin, Ahead of His Time, Is Still Influential.
• And finally, there’s Darwin the Comedian. Now That’s Entertainment! about science historian Richard Milner, who does one-man performances in song and story as Darwin. (He’s performing in San Francisco next month, BTW.)

The many reports served up on National Public Radio have made excellent listening, especially:

• Darwin, Britain’s Hero, Is Still Controversial In U.S.
• Darwin’s Theory: Too Big To Publish
• Death Of Child May Have Influenced Darwin’s Work

Finally, although I mentioned it in a previous post, the Evolve 2009 site is worth mentioning again, and worth visiting and revisiting, for its comprehensive listings of local activities tied to Darwin’s bicentenary.

Click here for a round-up of all my Darwin posts.