What’s the matter?… a book review

This is a book review.  One of the things I have noticed as I started homeschooling and afterschooling is there are lots of resources for kids, but not all of them are created equal.  I thought I would start a series of posts reviewing some of the resources we have enjoyed or I plan on using.  Today’s post is about an adorable book, What’s the Matter in Mr. Whiskers’ Room? written by Micahel Elsohn Ross and illustrated by Paul Meisel. 

This is one of those books that has sat in my Amazon cart a long time.  A quick trip to the library the other day and guess what I found… What’s the Matter in Mr. Whiskers’ Room?.  We have a small library and sometimes struggle to find the things I want/need , so to be honest I hadn’t even bothered to look for it.  There it was the other day just waiting for me to arrive.  I snatched it up like it was a plate of money with a sign above it screaming FREE.  I heart this book.  Let me give you the lowdown on Mr.Whiskers’ Room.

Pros:

• Written in a narrative format…. think Magic School bus series

• Entertaining and educational

• Pages are not too busy… sometimes I have a hard time figuring out what to read next in other series.  While the pages are beautiful and there are additional factoids, I felt like there was a better flow.  You were constantly stopping to read a fact.

• Main science topics related to narrative are identified as "Big Ideas" and more thoroughly explained

• Lots of hands on experiments.

• Encourages exploration

• Explains the roles of the adult in exploration.

     An excerpt from a note to "big people" from Mr. Whiskers,

" All people are born scientists. We are curious and naturally experiment.  As adults we can nurture exploration in our children, but we need not meddle in their enthusiastic adventures (unless there is a matter of safety involved)." (Ross, 2004)

 Cons:

• The text is long…45 pages.  So it can’t be read in one sitting.  It would be better to read this over the course of the study of matter.
• The experiments are good, but I didn’t see anything really unusual.  It is a nice list if you aren’t familiar with the topic or don’t want to go searching.  They also fit well with the narrative which give the students context.
• Many of the experiments are messy and it suggests doing them outside.  Not a problem in August, but if you plan on studying matter in January this could be an issue.
• There aren’t more books in the series.  I can’t find any more Mr.Whiskers books 🙁 I would love to have more to share with my kids.

Summary

I thought this was a great book to explain the observations students were making about matter.  I would use it to engage the students in the material or help elaborate on the explanations we had made.  I will be using this book in our study of matter.

Linking up to Science Sunday.

Works Cited

Ross, M. E. (2004). What’s the Matter in Mr. Whiskers’ Room. Somerville: Candlewick Press