AD | Gifted
Space is one of those topics that we seem to dip in and out of at various stages across the year; sometimes we do an indepth study and at other times the children just suddenly take a real fascination with it.
I find that this time of year, when the nights start to draw in earlier, the children find a renewed sense of wonder about the world beyond Earth, and I think this is because the moon is much more a regular, visible presence. There is something magical to me as a 30 something to see the moon glowing brightly above and noting its changing shape as the days go by.
We recieved a copy of Dr Maggie’s Grand Tour of the Solar System a few weeks back and I’ve been really impressed. Written by the real life Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock (MBE) it takes children on an awe inpsiring tour of the solar system our planet sits within.
The format of the book
Dr Maggie’s Tour is a sturdy hardback book that is an absolute visual feast. Space is a *really* hard topic to explain and do so in a way that really engages children. We have any number of books about space and I find it’s a really hard topic to keep the children engaged with.
This book is clearly written by someone adept at presenting the subject matter to children and its clever use of a photographs mixed with drawings as well as snippets of facts and figures make is a really accessible book.
How we have used it
The children have been taking a look through this book, and Daniel has been particulalry engaged – the moon landing anniversary and a particulalry excellent children’s biography of Neil Armstrong has kept him interested in the subject the last few months. We looked at this book alongside the learning resources that MOM books have made available and we talked about space travel and how the planets we visit might differ to our own.
The children have recently been learning about the Earth and it’s structure so it was interesting to get them thinking about how Mars and Jupiter might differ; do they too have and inner core and crust or do they think it might something else? What clues could they find?
Overall Thoughts
This is a clever little book and possibly only the second space themed book I have seen that features a non-white character (the other one is Ando Twin’s Astronaut book which is aimed at a much younger audience) so it’s nice to see an excellent resource book like this written by and featuring a non-white lead character.
I like the journey that you take through this book and I really like the page at the back which features details of some of the lesser known pioneers of space; I think we might do a speaking and listening group on ‘usung heroes’ and we might include some of these people in our project.
This post is timely for Space Week next week!