Skip to Content

It's Science Fair Time, 2008! More Books to Save Your Sanity

Schools have traditionally sought to beat the mid-winter blahs with school-wide science fairs, and the deadline for those outlines sets off the annual search for do-able projects that don't require a parental graduate degree.

Janice VanCleave's Great Science Project Ideas from Real Kids (Janice VanCleave Presents) (Wiley and Son, 2007) is an example of a book which meets the criteria for a good science project guide. VanCleave first defines the "science project."

"A science project is an investigation designed to find the answer to one specific question or proposal called a project problem."
VanCleave follows with an easy-to-read section titled "How to Use This Book" in which she advises students on how to set up and keep a project log as they research a category, topic, and specific project problem, and determine their hypothesis, methodology, design, presentation, and evaluation to execute the project. In this section VanCleave also offers a good description of the useful terms independent variable, dependent variable, controlled variable, and controls.

Each of the forty projects is based upon real student exhibits and provides lists of materials, sources and supplies, clear directions, illustrations and diagrams, and suggested methods of analysis, evaluation of the data, and presentation. Project problems include examples such as "What type of container increases the shelf life of bread?" and "How does density affect the buoyancy of an object?" These projects are just right for students in the middle grades and are grounded in scientific principles which reinforce curriculum objectives in Grades 4-7.

VanCleave's book also includes excellent appendices, including Appendix A with 100 project problems and Appendix B which provides an extensive bibliography titled Science Project and Reference Books, broken down into categories such as astronomy, biology, chemistry, etc., as well as a seven-page Glossary and four-page Index.

Other very useful guides by Janice VanCleave are Janice VanCleave's Guide to the Best Science Fair Projects (Janice VanCleave's Guide to the Best Science Fair Projects), Janice VanCleave's Guide to More of the Best Science Fair Projects, and Janice VanCleave's A+ Science Fair Projects.

For those students with specific subject area interests or requirements VanCleave has added Janice VanCleave's A+ Projects in Biology: Winning Experiments for Science Fairs and Extra Credit (VanCleave A+ Science Projects Series), Janice VanCleave's A+ Projects in Earth Science: Winning Experiments for Science Fairs and Extra Credit, Janice VanCleave's A+ Projects in Physics: Winning Experiments for Science Fairs and Extra Credit (VanCleave A+ Science Projects Series), and Janice VanCleave's A+ Projects in Chemistry: Winning Experiments for Science Fairs and Extra Credit (VanCleave A+ Science Projects Series)

For a more exhibit-oriented approach, students looking for experiments which involve showpiece constructions can't go wrong with Neil Ardley's 101 Great Science Experiments. Using DK Publishing's trademark color-popping spot art to good advantage, veteran science writer Ardley provides everything needed to create working models exhibiting project outcomes, with titles such as "Build a Turbine," "Build a Water Wheel," or "Lift a Load with Water."

For a discussion of what to look for in a science project guide and additional book recommendations from my post of January 27, 2007, here is the link.

Similar entries
  • Physics for First Graders: Amazing Science Series by Sally Hewitt

    As an elementary librarian one of my challenges was finding nonfiction trade books to support the curriculum, and one of the more difficult areas was in Kindergarten and Grade 1 science, particularly in the areas of physics and biology.

    The terminology required to describe, for example, the physics of light, sounds like something from a high school textbook--reflection, refraction, spectrum, shadow--and such complex concepts require good supportive materials for their initial introduction to young children.

  • Cursed with Verse for Better or Worse: Science Verse by Jon Scieszka

    After twisting the tail of the traditional tale in The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Frog Prince, Continued (Picture Puffin), and messing with our minds in Math Curse,

  • Just Another School Day : Science Fair Day by Lynn Plourde

    Everyone in Mrs. Shepherd's class was loaded down with posters and potions,
    Gizmos and gadgets,
    Chemicals and contraptions.

  • Nonfiction Books That Make the Grade: Big Science Ideas

    Crabtree, one of the stalwarts in quality nonfiction publishing for the elementary grades, has a new primary zoology series titled Big Science Ideas, written and edited by the noted Bobbie Kalman.

  • Happy Chinese New Year: The Year of the Rat by Grace Lin

    Few new books get hailed as the next series in the classic tradition of Betsy-Tacy or "B" Is for Betsy , but Grace Lin's first novel, the The Year of the Dog,

  • Both Ways Now: I Love You More by Laura Duksta

    I Love You More (a flip-sided book), like Sam McBratney's classic Guess How Much I Love You works a similar theme in a different format. In this one, the author gives the mother and child equal time to plead their case.

    "I love you mightier than the mightiest wind ever blew.

  • Sign Here! A Picture Book of John Hancock by David A. and Michael S. Adler

    With Independence Day just ahead on July 4, this is a good time to remember those founders who dared to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor as they signed the Declaration of Independence.

    John Hancock literally put his money where his mouth (and famous signature) was. Hancock drew deeply upon his personal fortune to fund the resistance to the Crown in Massachusetts. Indeed, Hancock, with his fellow revolutionary Sam Adams, was part of the reason for the dispatching of armed British troops to Lexington and Concord, where their arrest and the seizure of the patriots' weapons Hancock had helped purchase were the purpose of the mission.

  • Inconvenient Truth: There Is a Bird on Your Head! by Mo Willems

    Mo Willems, 2008 Caldecott Honor winner for his Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity also received this year's Theodore Seuss Geisel Award for beginning reader books for his There Is a Bird On Your Head!

  • Nonfiction That Makes the Grade: Oceans Alive Series

    Scholastic Press, long a major player in the educational publishing field, has a developing series aimed at the early reader, from emergent to fluent independent levels in the primary grades. Their Oceans Alive series is a part of the five levels of Blastoff Readers which highlights popular marine animals with texts with Accelerated Reader levels ranging from 1.7 to 2.2. Sentence structure is simple and vocabulary is controlled, with new topical words presented in boldface, and also listed in the book's glossary.

  • Under the Christmas Tree: Toys--Educational and, Well, Not!

    There's nothing we give children more valuable than literacy. Literacy begins with learning the sounds of the alphabet, and the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics® Magnetic Set is a inexpensive toy that really delivers the goods.

  • 'S Snow Day Like a Snow Day: Snowy Day by Anne Milbourne

    Author Anna Milbourne takes up the familiar subject of a play day in the snow and manages to carry it off with both charm and factual content in this outing in the Usborne Picture Book series. Illustrator Elena Temporin fits her jaunty, bright illustrations to her subject, laying out each page in a circular design which subliminally suggests snowmen, snowballs, and swirling snowflakes as the three kids and dog in her thin-blackline drawings dash and play in the new snowfall.

  • Nonfiction That Makes the Grade: Iraq (Countries of the World) by Charlie Samuels

    In his foreword to National Geographic Countries of the World: Iraq (NG Countries of the World), Shakir Mustafa gives credit to the land which gave us the first system of writing, code of law, and even the first cookbook. In contrast, author Charlie Samuels aptly terms Iraq a country "living on the edge," pointing to the long succession of empires--the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, and British--which have flowed over this land, destroying and creating new cultures--with new forms of writing, new laws, and, indeed, new foods--for millennia.

  • Extreme Machines: Wild Wheels Series

    Motos, ape hangers, full dressers, raked forks, hogs, and lots more colorful lingo are defined and described in Enslow Publishing's 2008 title Hottest Motorcycles (Wild Wheels!), the latest in their Wild Wheels! series. Author Bob Woods includes ample motorcycle history and technical description in his short and snappy book on the coolest cycles out there.

  • Nonfiction That Makes the Grade: Downsized--Pluto from Planet to Dwarf by Elaine Landau

    In lieu of an Introduction, Elaine Landau's new Pluto: From Planet to Dwarf (True Books) offers a FIND THE TRUTH! page which begins

    Everything you are about to read is true except for one of the sentences on this page.

    Which one is true?

    T or F Pluto was named by an 11-year-old girl.

    T or F Pluto is a planet.

    FIND THE ANSWER IN THIS BOOK.

  • Pop Art! Extreme Balloon Tying by Shar Levine and Michael Ouchi

    If you or someone you know has always yearned to thrill and delight your friends and family with your prestidigitational skills, here's a book worth a look!

  • First Flight: Three Books about the Wright Brothers

    It has been 104 years today since Orville and Wilbur Wright's famous flyer got off the ground for what is now known as the first flight. From a short hop into the North Carolina sky to a landing on the moon spanned only 65 years, a fact which seems amazing as we look back on the history of our time in the air.

    Here are three books which pass on the wonder of that first moment of manned flight.

  • 'S No Day Like a Snow Day: Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams

    As an introduction to the wonders of winter snowfall, Carl Sams' and Jean Stoick's Stranger in the Woods: A Photographic Fantasy (Nature) is a lyrical experience for young children.

  • Nonfiction That Makes the Grade: Life-Size Reptiles by Hannah Wilson

    Life-Size Reptiles (Life-Size Series), the latest title in Sterling Publishing's series of super-sized nature nonfiction books, provides solid science in as eye-catching a format as can be designed into a traditional book. Billed as the "deadliest, weirdest, most ferocious" reptiles known in nature, it offers information wedded to illustrative content which is sure to entrance elementary readers.

  • Hot Topic: The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming by Laurie David and Cambria Gordon

    An entertaining but serious book for kids on climate change is already generating its share of praise and controversy.

  • Going Softly: Behind You by Jacqueline Woodson

    Author Jacqueline Woodson, whose novel Feathers received a Newbery Honor Award recently, is one who writes for all ages and whose books have earned Newbery, Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, and other notable awards. Reminded of her work by her recent awards, I've recently read some of her earlier work. Here are two related books for young adult readers.

  • Bucking the Trend: Purplicious by Victoria and Elizabeth Kann

    Fans of Elizabeth and Victoria Kann's Pinkalicious and Jane O'Connor's Fancy Nancy,

  • Winsome Winners: Newbery, Caldecott, and Other Awards

    The 2008 Newbery Award winner, Laura Amy Schlitz's Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village, seems to have been somewhat of a dark horse, not numbered in many of the usual "Best of..." lists.

  • Blast from the Past: Encyclopedia Brown Cracks the Case by Donald Sobel

    Two generations of mystery fans have cut their literary teeth on the cases of Encyclopedia (Leroy) Brown of Idaville. The young disciple of Sherlock Holmes' detection style made his debut in 1963 with Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective (Encyclopedia Brown), which introduced the ten-year-old small town sleuth with a mind like an encyclopedia.

  • Fancy Flutterby: Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly by Jane O'Connor

    The latest of Jane O'Connor's tales of that fabulous, frilly femme, Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly (Fancy Nancy), features a bit of gritty, if girlie, conflict in the plot which most families will recognize immediately.

    Fancy Nancy and her best friend Bree are ga-ga for butterflies, pronouncing them exquisite (that's French for beautiful). Better still, Bree's birthday is coming up and she's planning an exquisite butterfly-themed bash to celebrate. Nancy is already planning her glitzy garb for the celebration, modeled on her favorite, the rare azure butterfly, and complete with iridescent (that's fancy for sparkly) wings.

  • The Foxiest Elves of the Season: Zelda and Ivy: One Christmas by Laura McGee Kvasnosky

    In Zelda and Ivy: One Christmas (Candlewick, 2006), Zelda and little sister Ivy, the fabulous fox sisters, can't wait to get their presents on Christmas Day.

  • Baddest Guy In Cretaceous Town: I'm Bad! by Kate and Jim McMullan

    Are you bad?

    I'm REALLY bad. Scare-the-tails-off-all-the-other-dinosaurs BAD!

    Got rip-'em-up CLAWS. Got bite-'em-up FANGS!

    Bad breath? Y-E-A-A-A-H-H-H-H-H!
    This T. Rex isn't afraid to boast like Pecos Bill and romp and stomp like Paul Bunyan's blue ox Babe. After all, he's got all the right stuff to scare the hair right off all the "fuzzies" he aims to prey upon. As he brags, he's got "a swivel neck, got broad-jump legs, and triple digit kick-a-whomper STOMPERS."

    And don't you dare make sport of his BABY ARMS either. He'll set you straight in a hurry!

    "Did you just call me BABY ARMS? Longer than YOURS, pal--20 times stronger.

    Think about it. Six-tons-of muscle-on-the-hustle!"
    The only problem is that the feathered tweets fly up just beyond his jaws; critters with bigger drumsticks whoosh and boing away just ahead of his grasp.

  • 'S No Time Like Snow Time: Snowmen at Night by Caralyn and Mark Buehner

    It's not a new story. It's "Frosty the Snowman," and Raymond Brigg's wonderful, wordless The Snowman, and a jillion other snowman stories in which the child witnesses the snowman's nocturnal frolic which presages the ultimate meltdown. Carpe diem!

  • Life Cycle of an Apple Pie: The Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson

    These are the apples, juicy and red,

    that went in the pie,

    warm and sweet,

    that Papa baked...

  • Queen Teen Sleuth (Retro Version): New Enola Holmes Mystery Published

    The third book in Edgar Award winner Nancy Springer's acclaimed Enola Holmes series, The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets: An Enola Holmes Mystery hit the shelves last week to rowsing revues.

  • Nonfiction That Makes the Grade: The Coral Reef by Philip Johansson

    No marine scene on this planet holds more fascinating forms of life, is more threatened by changes in habitat, or is more spellbinding for us air breathers than the coral reefs of the world. Philip Johansson's The Coral Reef: A Colorful Web of Life (Wonderful Water Biomes) takes middle readers along with marine biology researchers for a closer and, shall we say, deeper look at this thrilling and threatened biome of planet Earth.