Product Description

Levenson's text, "Teaching Children about Science" has been expanded into two volumes incorporating the latest teaching techniques. These companion guides aim to provide teachers and parents who have little or no science background with the tools to make science come alive for children. Activities tie into real-life experiences, encouraging children to become actively involved in the learning process. Each volume of these guides features: new chapters on animals, plants and ecology; new activities; expanded bibliographies; and complete teaching information with each unit. These editions should be of interest for teachers, parents, scout leaders, camp counsellors and anyone who works with children and wants to stimulate their interest in science. The second volume, "Teaching Children about Life and Earth Science", is also available (ISBN: 0-07-037655-7).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #653690 in Books
• Published on: 1994-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From the Author
A "user-friendly" guidebook for parents and teachers.
This book is written for parents and teachers who may feel somewhat insecure about teaching science content to young children. The book helps to answer the questions "why" and "how come" and assists parents and teachers to enhance critical thinking skills in young children . It is "user friendly" with necessary answers provided. This book can be used by parents with children, aged 4-12 years.

To a young child, the unexplainable is magic. Experiments and activities that help explain physical phenomena, help children understand their environment better and help them to have a sense of mastery over it.

When science ideas are presented to young children, the experiences need to be real, concrete, tangible ones, utilizing real materials. The ideas and experiences need to be presented in a way that will allow children to feel a connection with them.

Through the activities in this book, children will see that learning about and understanding science is simply a matter of looking at the world a bit differently. Science is thinking about the world in terms of "how?" and "why?". It is seeing relationships between common occurrences and looking for patterns in these common occurrences to help make the world make sense.

Science helps young children learn to control their world and to develop a better understanding of natural and physical phenomena. It is exciting for young children to understand that some things are yet to be discovered and understood – and that someday, when they are older, they themselves might be the very ones who find the answers to today’s mysteries.

It is my hope that parents that more parents will begin to take a more active role in the education of their children. Parents do have a great opportunity to spend special "awareness-time" and "story-time" with them.

Customer Reviews

Easy, Inexpensive, fun science for kids and adults.
This book, along with its companion volumn, Teaching Children about Life and Earth Sciences, is a must have for anyone interested in doing hands-on science with kids. The experiments are easy, inexpensive, and don't require a Ph.D in rocket science. Both books are well organized, and have background information and suggested additional resources for further investigation. I have used both books in my own teachng, writing, and with my own children. For great science, you don't need to look any further.

Superb for both children and adults!...Dr. Kain
Elaine Levenson takes teaching of elementary science to a new level. She is a kindergarten teacher who developed experiments and concepts from her own young classroom. Yet I know very few adults who could explain scientific phenomenon as well as Elaine. Each chapter contains a background which clearly explains the science behind the experiments. The experiments themselves are simple and require few materials. Elaine's approach of inquiry includes many questions to ask children during the experiments. In effect, the children learn by themselves. It's an outstanding approach since the science is neither "magic" nor are the explanations too advanced for young children...from The Science Spiders(TM) Newsletter.END