#2021top50

NEW ⬆️ Whenever I post educational videos about climate change, I almost always pair it with positive actions, innovative solutions, and problem solving teamwork. There’s a lot of creativity, biomimicry, possibility, postitivity, and imagination mixed in there, too. That’s why I love this new book Beetles For Breakfast by science writer Madeleine Finlay. 

Bold and dynamic illustrations by Jisu Choi fill this book with dozens of fascinating, familiar, and sometimes strange ideas and inventions that are designed to fix our climate issues at the breakfast table, in the bathroom, at school, in cities, in the park, on the farm, at the beach, and more.

There’s so much to look at and lots to scan and read further. It’s got our kids’ imaginations going. Plus, the book ends with some ideas for what they (and we) can do right now. An instant fave. 

Get this at Book Depository

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I love love love Lunch at 10 Pomegranate Street (sometimes titled What's Cooking at 10 Garden Street?) by Felicita Sala. In preparation for a community potluck in an apartment building’s yard, the tenants cook their favorite dishes: Salmorejo, oyako don, guacamole, baba ganoush, black bean soup, coconut dahl, peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, and more. Each page shares a richly-illustrated scene and ingredients, along with a one paragraph recipe that’s really easy to follow.

For kids! But do I want to make these dishes, too? Yesss. Highly recommended.

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Be sure to also get Felicita Sala’s picture book A Year in Fleurville: Recipes from balconies rooftops and gardens, a.k.a. What's Cooking in Flowerville?

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📖🛶 “A discovery in a remote part of the Amazon,” Journey to the Last River is a wonder-filled book that reveals a journal “belonging to an unknown artist and adventurer.” 

An epic picture book, Last River is an appreciation-builder for nature, for wild places, for conservation, and for hidden, essential, fleeting, and sometimes dangerous details on our exquisite planet. 🌿 Lovely color pencil illustrations often provide additional information—maps, labeled inventories, fascinating notes about found items, annotated animal illustrations... 🗺🐍🐜🐸🐆 No doubt that its young readers will want to become resourceful explorers, protectors, problem solvers, and custodians of the natural world. 🌏

I highly recommend this unconventional 128-page picture book from the Unknown Adventurer / Teddy Keen. Kirkus Reviews does, too, calling it “sometimes thrilling, often terrifying, thoroughly immersive.” ⚡️

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Maddie Moate makes wonderful educational videos, so when I heard she was coming out with a children’s book about eco-stories of every day stuff, I was especially thrilled. These are some of TKSST’s favorite topics, from ancient windmills to different kinds of eco-bricks, elephant poo paper, volcano bread, worm bins, fog catchers, and lots more. 

Stuff: Eco-Stories of Everyday Stuff is full of smart, sustainable stories and innovative technologies that demonstrate to kids of all ages how many problem solving possibilities there are in the world. And there’s room for so many more. Moate writes, “We don’t always thing about this story when we make, use, and throw away our stuff. But when we do, when we really think about the way something is made and the effect it could have on our planet, the most ordinary thing can suddenly become... extraordinary.”

A UK-published book, it might be harder to find in local stateside bookshops. Buy it via Moate’s site if you’re in the UK, or...

Alom Shaha’s and Emily Robertson’s new book Mr. Shaha’s Marvellous Machines: Adventure in Making Round the Kitchen Table just arrived in the mail! Making our own toys and learning science along the way? Yes, please! What a fun summer activity book for kids. I really appreciate that all the supplies are likely already in your house. ✂️♻️🧵📦 And I love that the book is filled with suggested questions that can help kids (and their grownups) practice flexible thinking and find different ways to approach challenges. Fun, cheap, and smart. It’s also an awesome follow up to their book Mr. Shaha’s Recipes for Wonder. 📚 Find them both on Book Depository.

NEW ⬆️ Genius Square is both a puzzle and a game. It has over 60,000 solutions yet it’s really simple and easy to learn. Roll the coordinate dice, place the round blockers on the grid, and then figure out how the Tetris-style wood pieces fit. THEY ALWAYS FIT. It just might be a challenge to figure out how.

Race each other or play solo. A problem-solving skill-builder for all ages. Look for it in your local game shop.

⭐️ AWARD-WINNER ⭐️ Proof: The Fast-Paced Game of Mental Math Magic is an award-winner (the 2019 Teacher's Choice Awards) and I saw why within one minute: My kids started playing the card game’s similar online challenges and were immediately hooked. An amazing tool for the classroom. But like doing a crossword puzzle or sudoku, Proof is also a legit game for adults—fun and challenging with kids or without.

Lay 9 cards out in a grid and race to find the hidden equations using addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square roots. Prove the equation? Take the card. The player with the most cards wins.

I love finding fun math games that keep my kids connected with numbers. This is absolutely going under our tree this year.

🔥POPULAR 🔥 This is one of those books that I bought within a minute or two of perusing its pages. Another gem from Wide Eyed Books, The School of Numbers presents key math concepts through the lens of an intergalactic journey. Shapes, fractions, percentages, graphs and charts, temperatures, statistics, time, speed, maps, prime numbers, and more are covered in 40 engaging lessons. A bit of history, practical (space-themed) applications, and activities are mixed in, too.

Clear, smart, and full of play for ages 7+. Also: Sneaky shortcuts, number tricks, and robots. Math = fun. Yes, yes, yes.