My 8-year old (E8) is especially drawn to factoids and “amazing but true” type knowledge these days. “Who Knew? Physics” by James Lees is right up his alley. He pours over books about the elements, and writes lengthy letters to his great-uncle (chemist) asking elaborate (and fantastical) questions. He’s one lucky kid that he gets back serious, thought-out answers.
Part of our School-from-home effort has been reading comprehension. There’s only so many times you can read a little story and answer questions about what color lollypop Susie wanted, and what color she got instead. One of the approaches we’ve adopted is reading and reporting from this book. He’ll be assigned a topic (each one one-to-two page sides), and can spend as much time reading it as he feels like he needs to have a good grasp on the topic. When he’s ready, he’ll come to me and talk me through the topic. The expectation is that he can tell me what he read about, and a high-level description of why it is so.
This book is great because it gives a high-level description of the topic-at-hand, but doesn’t require deep background knowledge of physics. It leaves him feeling confident and he’s learned something new. The best part is that he moves on asking questions–he wants to learn more (and teach us 😉 ) as he goes!
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