The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses

The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses
                        By: Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen


        Ms. Frizzle thinks that her class is supposed to sing at the parent-teacher meeting tomorrow, but it's tonight!!! Ms. Frizzle's class informs the assistant principal that there was a mix-up and Ms. Frizzle is leaving the school. The assistant principal rushes onto the bus to go after Ms. Frizzle to let her know. The children, knowing that the bus is magical, follows the assistant principal, Mr. Wilde, onto the bus.  As the children yell "don't touch it," Mr. Wilde presses the button to shrink the bus.Mr. Wilde and the students go on a journey, armed with Ms. Frizzles notes, which flew out of her car. They start out in the eye of a police office. They learn about sight. Then they go into a little boys ear and learns about hearing. Next, a dog sniffs them up into his nose, where the students learn about smell. They finally land on Ms. Frizzles tongue to learn about taste. They drop onto her hands to learn about touch. After learning about touch they are finally able to get the bus back on the road and return to a normal size, right behind Ms. Frizzle's car. They got back to the school in time for the meeting and their song.

     With this book, students not only learn about the senses and what  they, the students also learn about each part of the body that relates to the senses. They learn about the parts of the ear, eyes, nose, and parts of the skin.Students start learning about senses in Kindergarten with standard SKCS1 but this book is a lot more advanced and is more appropriate for students starting in third grade through fifth. These standards are S3CS1, S4CS1, and S5CS1. In these standards, students will be aware of the important of curiosity, honesty, openness, and skepticism in science and will exhibit these traits in their own efforts to understand how the world works. Students will be able to investigate and observe the world around them.

2X2=BOO!

2X2=BOO!

by Loreen Leedy

This book turns out is a great read for students whether they are interested in math or not. It follows along with a theme that is designed for a time around Halloween. It’s full of bats, vampires, witches, and skeletons. The book starts off at chapter 0, with the Disappearing Zero, which teaches the student how to multiply by zero in a way they understand.Just by following along with the book, a student can do the problems without realizing they are multiplying. Chapter 1 is correlated to the multiplication of one. This follows along a different story of a mad scientist creating objects by one. It is kind of confusing because it is creating more objects from that one item, but the point comes across. Chapter 2 is called seeing double and as you guessed, it’s by two’s. Chapter three follows along with the same process of multiplying by three. Chapter 4 is by fours and chapter 5 is by fives, where it ends the story. The cool fact is at the end of this book there is a times table for the student to review over, and which will be quite useful for them.

The plot of the story follows along with multiplication up to five and is a great book to introduce multiplication in earlier grades such as Second grade where the standards are an introduction to multiplication (MCC2.OA.3). This is an all around good choice for the beginning of the year, around Halloween. This book will allow teachers to use fun props and allow the students to do a variety of fun activities related to multiplication.

Holes by Louis Sachar

 

Louis Sachar creates a dynamic story with complex characters in Holes. The main character, Stanley Yelnats, gets sent to a youth detention center for a crime he did not commit. His family has always been plagued with bad luck because of his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather." This detention center is a brutal atmosphere where the warden uses the boys to look for treasure that her grandfather wasted his life away, trying to find. The conditions of the center are terrible. The boys live in tents that are located in the middle of a desert. They are treated horribly by their caretakers with minimum food and water. Stanley not only has to come to terms with paying for a crime he did not commit, he also has to deal with bunk mates that are less than enthusiastic about a new kid coming into their group. Stanley ends up breaking the Yelnats history of bad luck by finding out what happened so very long ago. A descendent of the woman who brought bad luck to the Yelnats ended up being on of the boys that Stanley rooms with, Zero. Zero not only has a connection with Stanley through their ancestors but Zero is the one responsible for Stanley being at the detention center. He was the one who committed the crime of stealing shoes and threw them off a bridge when they landed at the feet of Stanley as the police were driving by.

Holes  is a contemporary realistic fiction because it contains characters that could actually exist in today's world. The circumstances surrounding Stanley's conviction does seem a little bizarre but people do go to jail today for crimes they did not commit. Families discover answers and secrets from their ancestors all the time. The answers can also help them overcome things like it did with Stanley and his family. This book does contain some historical fiction when Stanley has "visions or dreams" about his ancestors. The people in these dreams or visions correlate to the time period they were from.