Annotated Bibliography of Children’s Literature

This interactive picture book follows Ruby and Ned as they collect eggs from their hens and deliver them to various locations in their community, including the farmers' market, bakery, school, grocery store, and café. This narrative goes along with an interactive maze and map that guides readers through the journey, offering opportunities to learn about sequencing, mapping, and the farm-to-table process. The book's vibrant illustrations and interactive activities make it an enjoyable and educational experience for young readers. This book can be used in the classroom to learn about agriculture and encourage students to explore how food systems work and how people interact with their environment. (2.1a,b,d,e,f)

In Me and the Measure of Things, a young girl explores the concept of measurement by examining everyday objects and demonstrating how different units like inches, cups, and pounds are used to quantify them. Through colorful examples and simple text, the book makes abstract measurement concepts tangible for young readers. This book is an excellent resource for introducing students to measurement, offering opportunities for hands-on activities where students can measure objects and compare different units of measurement. This book can also spark curiosity in students for things they can measure while encouraging students to ask questions, plan investigations, analyze data, and use mathematical thinking. (2.1b,e,f)

An Island Scrapbook is a beautifully illustrated nonfiction book that follows a person's observations throughout a day on an island. Using journal-style entries, watercolor sketches, and detailed notes, the book captures the diverse plant and animal life found in coastal habitats. There are observations of tides, weather, and environmental changes. This book can teach students how to record their observations and encourage them to think and work like scientists. Teachers can use this to model how to record observations, ask questions, and investigate ecosystems using sketches and data. (2.1a,c,f)

This book uses fun and exaggerated comparisons to help children understand scale and proportion. There is humor and imagination as the book explores what it would be like if humans could do things similar to animals, like jumping like a frog or being as strong as an ant, using math and science to explain each scenario. The lively illustrations make the comparisons more engaging while sparking curiosity. This book is a great read-aloud tool that encourages inquiry and estimation. Teachers can use it to help students ask scientific questions, make predictions, and compare data, such as human vs. animal abilities. (2.1a,c,d,f)

Green City tells a true story of how the town of Greensburg dealt with the aftermath of a tornado. Through simple illustrations and comprehensible text, Drummond recounts how the community came together to design and construct energy-efficient buildings while reducing waste and using renewable resources. This book highlights real-world applications of environmental engineering and collaborative problem-solving. This book is a great tool for a classroom read-aloud for teaching students how science and engineering can address real-world challenges. It encourages students to think about sustainability, environmental impact, and how people adapt and innovate. This book supports SOL 2.1a,b,d,e,f as it encourages students to ask questions, define problems, design solutions, and communicate ideas which are key elements of the engineering design process.

Real photographs show how various organisms are dependent on trees, showcasing how animals and insects rely on trees for shelter, food, and other resources. This book helps readers understand the importance of trees in an ecosystem and how they contribute to the survival of many species. This book would make a great read-aloud when having a unit on Earth's resources, plants, and animals. (2.5a,b,c) I like that this book explains the uses of trees while teaching about different organisms. (2.8b)

This chapter and picture book introduce young readers to seasonal changes that occur in the fall, focusing on what people wear during fall and the fall equinox, and how to record the days. Through age-appropriate language and colorful and fictional illustrations, it explains how weather changes as seasons change and how living things adapt during the fall season (2.6a,b and 2.7a). This book can be used in September on a unit of weather and seasonal change. Students can record their observations that they learn from the book and record temperature changes. Its clear structure makes it accessible for guided reading and connecting to many seasonal activities and observations. 

This vibrant nonfiction book is packed with fascinating facts and photographs that highlight the unique features of autumn. This book shows what clothes you should be wearing in autumn and explains how the days get shorter due to the equinox. From falling leaves to harvesting foods and animal behaviors, the book covers a wide range of science relating to seasons. With engaging visuals and simple-to-understand text, it helps readers explore how animals and plants adapt to seasonal changes. This book is a great tool for students to use to learn more about what and who are affected by autumn. It can support lessons on weather changes and how these seasonal changes affect the growth and behavior of living things (2.6a and 2.7a,b,c). There are examples of holidays in autumn as well as fun activities for students like leaf rubbings, hand turkeys, and pressed leaves. This book is great for teaching students about seasons while providing many hands-on activities. 

With simple language and vivid photographs, this nonfiction book shows the coral reef and the animals that live there. There are descriptions of the images with definitions of vocabulary. The book includes informative facts on the food chain in the coral reef, explaining which animals eat what. There are charts that show examples of producers, predators, consumers, and decomposers. The real-life examples help students understand the roles in a food chain. This book is great for a read-aloud or when doing activities that include organisms in a food chain. (2.4a,b and 2.5a,b)

With creative zoo metaphors, the colorful and fun illustrations display that each animal represents a different feeling, such as an angry roaring lion, an embarrassed lizard, and a scared lemur. This book shows how animals respond to their environment in a simple and fun way for readers to understand and relate to. This book can be used for incorporating social-emotional learning in science instruction. Teachers can use it to spark discussions on how emotions influence behavior and how humans and animals respond to their environment. There can be an activity where students create their own "emotional animal" and explore what that animal eats and lives on. This book offers a more personal and meaningful approach to understanding life systems and cycles by helping students make emotional connections to the behaviors and responses of living things, including themselves.

In Rosa's Big Sunflower Experiment, Rosa guides readers through the steps of planting, observing, and caring for sunflowers as they grow. Told in a friendly voice with cheerful illustrations, the book introduces scientific vocabulary and observational skills while following the sunflower's life cycle from seed to bloom (2.4b). Rosa records changes, makes predictions, and asks questions. This book can be used as a read-aloud, and then implemented as a sunflower experiment where students plant their seeds and track their growth. 

A colorful and fun nonfiction book investigating motion through questions and providing hands-on activities students can do while illustrating a figure acting out the experiment, and the materials needed. The book helps students explore concepts such as push, pull, force, and friction using easy-to-understand language. This book is ideal when covering motion in class, and students can do the hands-on activities in stations. Motion supports VA Science SOL 2.2a,b,c by focusing on the different types of forces that cause motion to change and 2.1b by providing experiments and questions for students to plan and carry out investigations. 

This nonfiction book engages students by starting with a question about experiencing wind. There are examples of what wind does to humans and objects. This connects to force and how it pushes people, even though we cannot see the wind. There are multiple questions throughout the book where students can infer and test out experiments. I Face the Wind can be used for a read-aloud during a unit on force and motion, as wind is a force that moves many things. (2.2a,c) This book can also be used when teaching weather while building a foundational understanding of wind through inquiry-based learning. (2.1e,f) (2.7b)

Playful illustrations depict kids using different forms of matter. There is a dog that teaches the readers about the matter, the four forms, what each is, and how you can classify them. The nonfiction book explains how matter can change forms through changing temperature. (2.3c) There are multiple moments throughout the book that highlight how matter is everywhere, and even looking at air means looking through matter.  Anything that takes up space and has weight is matter. There is a glossary at the end defining key vocabulary words like gas, liquid, matter, plasma, and more. This book is perfect when teaching a unit on matter, and it pairs well with hands-on experiments where students can identify and categorize materials by their state. (2.3a,b)