If you are a fan of hands-on learning to help your kids retain information and have fun, listen up! Have you heard of any Ann McCallum Books yet? We were able to review her book Eat Your Science Homework over the past few weeks. It is full of recipes for children that actually double as science homework!
The book is available as a hardcover for $16.95, or you can receive the paperback edition like we got for just $7.95. It is 48 pages and colorfully illustrated by Leeza Hernandez. My kids loved the fun illustrations almost as much as the recipes we made using the book!
While the website lists the ages for the book to be for 7-10 year olds, I would say that it could be used for K-6th grade students with ease. Some of the information will be easier for younger kids to understand, but there are enough challenging tidbits in there that even a tween can learn quite a bit of science through reading and creating.
My kids had several favorites as we worked our way through the book. We haven’t completed every little activity yet as we were out of town for a good bit of the review period, but we did read through everything together.
I let my kids pick their favorite few “experiments” to do together. One picked to learn about sedimentary layers, so we made the Sedimentary Pizza Lasagna to go with our lesson. We made it in a glass dish so they could see it before and after cooking to observe how time and the elements can change the presentation of the different layers.
They thought it was a tasty way to learn more. I enjoyed the mention of various scientists and important concepts that were introduced in a lighthearted and fun way.
I loved that scientific terms were clearly presented for each topic, as well as a glossary at the end of the book for further clarification. It was good to have a reference like that within the book.
Another interesting recipe and experiment was Invisible Ink Snack Pockets. My kids have been interested in secret messages like this since we visited a Sherlock Holmes exhibit several months ago at the Perot Museum. This was a neat way for them to test it out for themselves and even write secret messages to each other. Then they got to see how and why it worked. Brilliant!
Ann McCallum has a terrific way of teaching kids important science lessons without allowing a single person to accuse science of being boring! If you have a child from kindergarten to 6th grade, I highly recommend picking up this book! It is an inexpensive supplement that will make learning easy and encourages kids to get their hands “dirty” trying out different experiments. My kids love to eat, so eating their science homework was A-OK by them!