middle grade Archives - Page 335 of 363

makerlab

Maker Lab: 28 Super Cool Projects: Build * Invent * Create * Discover
by Jack Challoner (Author)

Booktalk: Twenty-eight kid-safe projects and crafts that will get young inventors’ wheels turning and make science pure fun. Each step-by-step activity is appropriate for kids ages 8-12, and ranked easy, medium, or hard, with an estimated time frame for completion. Requiring only household materials, young makers can build an exploding volcano, race balloon rocket cars, construct a solar system, make a lemon battery, and more. Photographs and facts carefully detail the “why” and “how” of each experiment using real-world examples to provide context so kids can gain a deeper understanding of the scientific principles applied.

Snippet:
makerlab-1
makerlab-2
makerlab-3

childrenofexile

Children of Exile
by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Author)

Booktalk: For the past twelve years, adults called “Freds” have raised Rosi, her younger brother Bobo, and the other children of their town, saying it is too dangerous for them to stay with their parents, but now they are all being sent back. Since Rosi is the oldest, all the younger kids are looking to her with questions she doesn’t have the answers to. She’d always trusted the Freds completely, but now she’s not so sure.

Snippet: “Have you seen any kids older than us here?” he asked.

I thought about the people I’d seen on my long walk from the plane to the parents’ house. I thought about the people I’d seen at the cinder-block church that morning.

“No,” I said. “I haven’t.”

Edway turned to face me directly.

“It wouldn’t just be a coincidence for no babies to be born in my ginormous family for thirteen years,” he said. “Or in this entire town. Something happened. What was it? What happened to all the kids who were little kids when we were born?”