These are a few of my favorite pins...

I became a certified (certifiable?) Pinterest groupie from the first day I saw it. Pinterest is pictures + words + links + sharing...finally, a way to organize the Internet! It's such fun to look at the feed and find lots of wonderful stuff to repin and new people to follow. Here are some of my recent pins. This one showing cut cardboard rolls for printing flowers went on my Seeing Symmetry board:

Photo links to original source, Getting Messy with Ms. Jessi

Here is a cloud identifier "weather window" which looks very useful, so I put it on my Kids + STEM board:

Photo links to original source, Nature-Watch.com

This fascinating group of objects are paintings on....

Photo links to original source, Crushed Can Art

...crushed cans, if you can imagine that. Love to pin interesting ideas...or should I say, "pinteresting"? I put this one on my Kids + Arts & Crafts board.

What have you pinned lately? Leave your Pinterest URL in the comments so I can check out your boards. Here is my Pinterest link. 

Here is a Pinterest Linky Party on Diving Into Learning, where you can find posts about more favorite pins!

See you there!

Curiosity has landed!!!

What a thrill to find out that the Mars Science Laboratory rover, nicknamed Curiosity landed safely this morning! This short animation shows the landing sequence:

My husband Andy is a scientist whose research centers around simulating Martian conditions, so naturally we have been monitoring this mission closely. Some of his work is about how Earth microorganisms fare in his Mars chamber…many of them die very quickly, but do they all? Stay tuned!

We wrote a picture book together about Mars a few years ago that introduces quite a bit of info about the Red Planet. If your young readers love space, please check it out at your local library. Preview the book on this page of my web site and see Andy's lab here. 

Happy reading!

Sea turtle resource roundup

From Tour de Turtles site

To help celebrate the new digital edition of Tracks in the Sand, I dug around online for some resources to help primary kids learn about our flippered friends. :

• Tour de Turtles shows actual migration tracks of individual turtles, downloadable Flash presentations, and much more.

• SEE Turtles classroom resources include species fact sheets, food webs, and threats that turtles face.
• The Ocean Conservancy Sea Turtle coloring book has 34 pages with many nice images plus a text in both English and Spanish. Click here to start download of the PDF.
• Save the Turtles has interactive online games, plus many other resources. 

• Seaturtles.org has a fun activity on this page about making a loggerhead from a paper plate.
• Deep Space Sparkle has a foil collage art project featuring turtles, including a step-by-step drawing.

•  A sea turtle painting can be found on Art Projects for Kids.

• This coloring page is adapted from the artwork in Tracks:

Click image to download PDF

• Click for the preview page and a free sample of Tracks in the Sand (the sample has to be downloaded via the iBooks app.)

•  The original edition of Tracks is out of print but is still widely available in libraries.

Hope this list is helpful. If you know of other good resources, please leave a link or other info in the comments.

How Andy Went to Mars

Today’s post is in celebration of Share a Story ~ Shape a Future week. For more links to similar posts, please visit Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s blog.







Once upon a time, 
there was a little boy in the 4th grade who had loads of fun at school every day. He loved to sit in the last row of the classroom making his friends giggle and folding paper airplanes. Andy was reading well below grade level, but he thought:

One day his mom gave him four quarters for book club day. On the way to school, he saw a pretzel vendor and bought one. Mmmm…Andy loved pretzels!

After polishing off the salty snack, Andy sat at his desk studying the order form. With 50¢ left, he searched for a book that was cheap enough. A book called Mission to Mars looked okay and cost 49¢, so he ordered it. Then he folded a paper airplane and aimed it at a kid in the front of the room. The boys in the back row giggled as usual.

A week or two later, the brand new book arrived. The story was about a family that moved to a Mars colony (wow!) The two children played hooky from school, snuck outside and got lost, wandered into a cave, and then met some (previously unknown) native Martians!

Andy was amazed at how much fun a book could be and that it could bring a story to life in his mind. When that adventure was over, he had to have more. Books, books, books, he wanted to read more books. After a few months, Andy was reading at 6th grade level. He went on to attend collage, then graduate school, and earned his Ph.D.

Nowadays, Andy is a research scientist whose lab is at the Kennedy Space Center. He investigates a variety of topics in astrobiology, which is: the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. (Quote is from NASA.) He even has a Mars chamber in his lab that simulates the conditions on the Red Planet.

After Andy and I met and eventually married, one topic that often came up was “Why don’t we do a book together?” and “...about what?” One day the obvious solution occurred to us…Andy began downloading incredibly detailed NASA photographs taken on Mars and I started drawing characters to populate the barren landscape. The end result was our picture book Messages from Mars:

The story takes place one hundred years in the future and stars a group of students that get to visit Mars. They explore the historic sites of the Viking, Pathfinder, and Spirit and Opportunity missions, and fly over many of the planet’s spectacular features such as the largest volcano in the solar system and a canyon as long as the United States is wide.

So, because Andy read a book in the 4th grade that captured his imagination, not only did he get to go to Mars, so did I! You never know which book a child will fall in love with so it only makes sense to keep offering kids as many diverse options as there are stars in the sky.

Happy Reading!

Free trilobite coloring page!

This is adapted from the illustrations in My Teacher is a Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles, & Amazing Facts. I’d love to see one colored in, so please send me a photo!

 

Handy list #2: my science books

These are my books in print that have a science theme. The titles are linked to each book’s page on my web site:

Blast Off to Earth: A Look at Geography

When a group of robots travel though our solar system, they stop at an intriguing spot: Earth! After wondering why the planet isn’t called Ocean, they locate the poles and equator, then visit on each continent to see what is located thereabouts.

The Edible Pyramid: Good Eating Every Day

A feline waiter shows hungry diners what their options are by exploring all the sections of the updated USDA Food Pyramid. Vivid illustrations show the grains, veggies, fruits, nuts, and proteins that make up a varied, healthy diet. A spread about exercise in this revised edition encourages kids to get moving in their favorite ways.

The Great Trash Bash

What can the residents of Beaston do about having too much trash? After visiting the landfill, they reduce their trash in various ways such as buying less stuff, fixing things, and recycling.

Messages from Mars (coauthored by Andrew Schuerger)

A hundred years in the future, a group of lucky students travel to Mars to see the largest volcano in the solar system, visit historic landing sites, fly through vast canyons, walk around huge craters, and much more.

My Teacher is a Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles, & Amazing Facts

Starting 4.5 billion years ago, readers are taken on a whirlwind tour to see early cyanobacteria, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals, and birds. The highlights of life on Earth are described with verses, cinquains, limericks, jokes, and fascinating facts.

Postcards from Pluto: A Tour of the Solar System

A robot named Dr. Quasar takes students from Mercury to the Moon to Pluto (now designated a “dwarf planet”). Each student sends home postcards in his or her own unique writing style to tell family and friends about the amazing adventure.

The Shocking Truth about Energy

Erg is a bolt of lightning that explains the good and bad news about various forms of energy from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and geothermal.

That’s all for now folks, so happy reading!

Poetry Friday: Prehistoric Poems

This book begins with a brand-new, molten Earth 4.5 billion years ago then takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the history of life...much of it conveyed in the form of poems, cinquains, and limericks. Exclusively for today’s Poetry Friday, here a few samples from My Teacher Is a Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles, & Amazing Facts:

©2010 by Loreen Leedy

I had fun writing riddles in the form of limericks such as this one on page 11:

©2010 by Loreen Leedy

The answer to the riddle is...Insects! They were the first creatures on earth that could fly. 

Most spreads have a longer verse, such as this one on page 16:

©2010 by Loreen Leedy

©2010 by Loreen Leedy

Perhaps as a side effect of writing and illustrating quite a few math picture books, I felt compelled to compile some poetic statistics for this book:
Cinquains: 6
Limerick riddles: 14
Verses: 20

Some titles of the longer poems include:
The Bad Old Days
Plant Pioneers
The Fish That Wanted Legs
How to Stay Alive
Did Hadrosaurs Quack?
A Warning from the Mammals


Oh, I almost forgot to mention how many jokes are in the book...zillions! For example:
Q. Why did T. Rex eat the teacher? 
A. He was hungry for knowledge!

To see a full spread from the book plus reviews, please click here.
To see its page on Amazon, click this link: My Teacher Is a Dinosaur: And Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles & Amazing Facts 

Loreen
My Web Site

Blogs about science books for children

It was a pleasant surprise to find this review of The Shocking Truth about Energy on the blog Simply Science: Using books for easy science lessons. I certainly can’t argue with this quote:

“The publisher says the book is for younger audiences, but I loved it and can see it read by older kids, too. It is succinct and complete, and a wonderful resource. I’d love to see it in every library in this energy-conscious age.”

It is funny how publishers put an age range on books that isn’t necessarily that accurate. It may have something to do with how they organize their catalog or some other arcane reason. Guess I should ask one of these days.

Here is an activity page for this book. Enjoy!

My Teacher is a Dinosaur on I.N.K.

The I.N.K. blog (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids) is back after an August hiatus with plenty of interesting articles about nonfiction books. Please visit this link to read my post, Time for prehistory. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of “infographics”... it’s pretty much what it sounds like, just simple graphics that visually convey information. Anyway, I used a few simple ones to help make my point, that while there are a zillion books about dinosaurs, what about the rest of prehistory?

Happy reading!

PW on The Shocking Truth about Energy

I forgot to post this previously, but this book is sure to be a classic, so no worries, right? By the way, take a peek at my fab new favicon. You have to actually be on the blog page to see it up to the left of the URL...it’s a little pile of books and a heart with my initials on top. That’s a lot to fit into a 16 X 16 pixel square(!) In case you’re viewing this in a reader, here it is at 32 X 32 pixels so you can see it:

Anyway, Publishers Weekly included my spring book under the headline Hot Topics!, which highlighted history and science books for young readers.
[excerpt]:
“This lively picture book stars Erg, a lightning bolt of ‘pure energy.’ Erg shares how energy gets transferred into different forms...describes the effects of global warming, and weighs the pros and cons of solar, wind, geothermal....Personified automobiles and appliances communicate via speech balloons, as easy-to-follow flowcharts make a potentially abstract concept tangible.”
Publishers Weekly

Below is a simple diagram from the book showing how water flowing through a dam makes power. (An earlier illustration goes into more detail about how a power plant generates electricity.)

From The Shocking Truth about Energy ©2010 by Loreen Leedy

I always learn a lot when writing and illustrating a book... this one was no exception! An activity/coloring sheet for this book can be found here. To see a spread from this book, please visit this page on my web site.

The Shocking Truth about Energy activity sheet

The Shocking Truth about Energy “...takes readers on a fast-paced journey, explaining what energy is, its various forms, how they are generated, and the ‘good news’ and ‘bad news’ about each one...a welcome addition on an important subject.” School Library Journal 


For more info, reviews, and a math project idea, see this page on my web site. 


Here is an activity/coloring sheet I whipped up this morning, utilizing some artwork from the book:

Just click on the image, then print out the enlarged view for use in the classroom. The idea is that each item will be marked with a letter according to what type of energy it needs to function. Here is the answer key:
Fossil Fuel: jet and truck
Muscle Power: bicycle and skateboard
Solar: calculator and plant
Wind: kite and wind turbine


If you have any comments or questions, please let me know.

Digging Up Prehistoric Reference

[This article is adapted from a post I originally wrote for I.N.K. (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids.]


While working on a My Teacher is a Dinosaur, I went on the hunt for good reference material. Though there are zillions of books on the multitudes of fabulous dinosaurs, it was more difficult to find information about the myriad of other intriguing prehistoric critters from cyanobacteria to giant sea scorpions to Diictodon (“the gopher of the Permian,” a reptile that lived in burrows) to Ambulocetus (“the walking whale”) and many more. In addition to having a more inclusive view of life throughout Earth’s prehistory, there had to be plenty of pictures, naturally. These are a few books I found that include dinosaurs AND equally interesting non-dinos:

Super Little Giant Book of Prehistoric Creatures
by David Lambert and The Diagram Group
2006, 288 pages, 4" X 5".

This small book has clear illustrations, timelines, overviews of the major geologicalperiods, and spotlights a good variety of animals with a description plus a summary of pronunciation of those tongue-twisting names, scientific classification, size, diet, location, and era.

The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life
Tim Haines and Paul Chambers, the makers of the TV trilogy Walking With Dinosaurs/Beasts/Monsters
2005, 216 pages, 8.5" X 11.

This book has stunning digital illustrations with photo-realistic detail that bring the ancient world to frightening life. Presented in chronological order, there’s a written description of each animal and its lifestyle. From Thrinaxodon (a reptile with whiskers), to Giganotosaurus (the largest meat-eating dinosaur), to Entelodon (a rhino-sized pig) these are fascinating creatures to get acquainted with.

National Geographic Prehistoric Mammals
by Alan Turner, paintings by Mauricio Anton
2004, 192 pages, 8.5" X 11.25"


A splendid compendium starting with mammal-like reptiles then covering the major mammal groups such as marsupials, elephant relatives such as Deinotherium (with nice chin tusks), primitive whales, tank-like Glyptodonts, bear-dogs, giant sloths, the largest land mammal (Paraceratherium) and many more, including human ancestors. Many of the painterly illustrations also include a panorama of the habitat that existed at the time, as opposed to showing the animals on a plain white background.

The World Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures
by Dougal Dixon
2007, 512 pages, 7" X 9"

One of the most comprehensive guides available, with about 1,000 animals described and nicely illustrated. After summaries of the geological timescale, habitats, and the process of fossilization, the animals march in. Starting with early tetrapods (4-limbed descendants of fish), there are giant amphibians, early reptiles and mammals, ocean-dwelling reptiles such as plesiosaurs, flying pterosaurs, armored/grazing/meat-eating dinosaurs, almost-birds, early cats, dogs, camels, rhinos, primates... they’re all there and more in a mind-boggling parade of the incredible creatures that existed ages ago.

By the way, I haven't forgotten about prehistoric plants. There aren’t many books devoted to them exclusively, but many references include at least a token section about ancient flora. And not to neglect the wonders of the Internet... you can find recently unearthed discoveries too new to be in books by putting in search terms like “giant prehistoric rodent”...some very cool critters just may pop up, such as this 1 ton wonder that did end up in my book.

When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Long Before Dinosaurs
by Hannah Bonner
2007, 48 pages, 8.5" X 10.5 inches

also When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life before Dinosaurs

These two books are a funny, informative survey of life before the dinosaurs.

Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth
DK Publishing
2009, 512 pages, 11.8 X 10.3 inches


My husband Andy spotted this thick tome at the bookstore, and it was a huge help. In addition to many pictures, the timelines made it much easier to put things in order.


For an incredibly comprehensive list of K-12 books about fossils, dinosaurs, and other prehistoric topics, check out this page compiled by retired science librarian Jack Mount.

My Teacher Is a Dinosaur free coloring page

Yesterday I received copies of my fall picture book and they look great. The full title is My Teacher Is a Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles, & Amazing Facts. It takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the history of life on Earth starting 4 1/2 billion years ago... not bad for only 48 pages, right? For more info including reviews, please check out this page.

These previous blog posts tell a little about the behind-the-scenes activity. I also wrote about doing the research for this book on I.N.K. (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids) here and here. Last but not least, here is my I.N.K. post about how to write jokes and riddles.


I haven’t forgotten about the coloring page... here it is!

Click on the image to enlarge it then print it out with a horizontal orientation and get out your crayons. (Did you know there is a Crayola set with 96 colors!?!) Or drag it off the web page to your desktop. Feel free to send it to any kids you know that love dinosaurs. If anyone sends me a photo of a colored-in page, I’ll post it here. Or, post it on my author page on Facebook!

Thanks, y’all!

[Note: This post also appeared on my studio blog... I’m in the middle of transitioning all my book-related posts to this blog. I’ll be reprinting some I.N.K. posts also in case readers didn’t see them the first time around.]