The Science Teacher's ACTIVITY-A-DAY

I want to own every book in this "ACTIVITY-A-DAY" series. Yes, I do.

Jossey-Bass, an Imprint of Wiley, offers these "activity-a-day" books in a variety of topics. The most recent edition is The Science Teacher's ACTIVITY-A-DAY by Pam Walker and Elaine Wood. The title and book cover say it all -there are "over 180 reproducible pages of quick, fun projects that illustrate basic concepts" inside that fit into what Jossey-Bass describes as "5-minute fundamentals".

I see quite a few uses for this book, from public school settings, and especially homeschool and co-op settings, with "gen-ed" students and students with special needs alike.

My homeschooler has a shorter attention span than a lot of 11-year-olds, and she learns more when she is active and doing. We don't sit around and do a lot of seat-work and worksheets at my house; my student does not learn that way. This book gives me short, simple hands-on activities and experiments to do with my kid that illustrate a concept in a fun way, that lead to more questions, more learning, more interaction, which for a kidlet on the autism spectrum, is exactly what we want! I can pick and choose activities based on interest at my house, based on what fits into our current studies, and based on difficulty. We'll get new vocab and can photograph and write about what we did and what we learned together, too, and get a language arts piece in the back door.

We need simple. These activities can be simple for us. Some situations don't require simple. A teacher can add as much information and complexity as appropriate for the student, or use the activities to enhance and illustrate existing curriculum.

A lot of the activities use items we have around the house or items that are easy to obtain.

The book is geared for students in grades 5-10, although there are activities you can use with younger children, in my opinion.

*FYI: There are sections about evolution in this book.* Some families teach it; some don't. There are plenty of non-evolution-related activities in the book to keep us busy.

Jossey-Bass Teacher sent me The Science Teacher's ACTIVITY-A-DAY to use at home and review for you. I am not paid for reviews and am not obligated to provide a positive review.