February 27, 2011
What a great time I had at Churchville Elementary School last week! The flurry of reading, writing and sharing by the students - which happened before, during and after my visit - was just wonderful!
Look at this great bulletin board done by sixth graders. They read my GLOBAL WARMING book, used a Carbon Footprint Calculator to determine their own impact on Earth’s atmosphere, and then wrote EARTH PLEDGES about their promises to change their own behavior to be better environmental citizens. Wonderful!
A student named Taylor F. wrote today to tell me that she has read almost all of my books that are in her library - FIFTY-SEVEN (57) books. Wow! Taylor!! You must be one of my biggest fans!
The comments and photographs are still coming in, including this one from a teacher and her son (a third-grader in the school).
Hi Mr. Simon!
Thank you so much for visiting Churchville! I am one of the third grade teachers there, and my son is a third grade student at Churchville as well! When we got home, we were so excited to talk about your visit! We love your books and enjoy reading them!
On a side note, yesterday was our dog’s 10th birthday! Ethan wanted to share this picture of our dog, Maveric, with you!
Thank you again,
Tara and Ethan
Maveric is a beautiful dog, isn’t he?
I also received this letter from Mrs. Gorgol. Gail is the librarian at the school, and it is largely due to her efforts, along with Library Assistant Leslie Mulreaney, that the kids and I had such a great time exploring to the ends of the universe and learning about the animals that we each love the most!! Here is the beautiful letter she wrote.Dear Seymour,
Your engaging website has been a rich resource for our students to learn about science. They have been reading your blog posts at school and at home and many have made personal connections to what they read. As a result of those connections, they were inspired to write comments of their own, send you photos, ask you questions and enter your contests. They did research and conducted a survey. They were excited to see their work published so quickly on your website and shared with a wide audience of readers across the country. This experience has been invaluable for our students as readers, writers and learners. We look forward to continuing to use your website to enrich our exploration and understanding of the fascinating world of science.
Sincerely, Gail Gorgol / Librarian / Churchville Elementary School
I think that I am the one who should say "thank you" to everyone at Churchville Elementary. You really know how to make an author feel welcome! I loved spending time with you all.
Seymour Simon
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 25, 2011
I had a great day today at Churchville Elementary School in Pennsylvania. Students there have been VERY engaged with the website and my blog for weeks leading up to this visit, uploading a poll that they conducted about their favorite dog breeds, posting pictures and stories about their favorite animals, doing research and answering questions to enter contests in order to win personally autographed photos and books.
So, I was very pleased to arrive today and discover that the students had continued to write about their favorite animals on this wonderful bulletin board display! Nearly 50 kids used pictures, drawings and their own writing to tell the world about animals that they love. It is great to see a school full of active, confident writers.
When I got back to my hotel tonight there was yet another lovely posting, from a Churchville student named Megan P. Her note is titled simply, MY DOG.
Dear Seymour,
This is my neighbor’s dog. Her name is Nicci. She is a boxer. I love her, it feels like she is my own dog. I loved the presentation that you did today at Churchville.
I was very interested.
Your Friend,
Megan
Thanks, Megan. I loved today, too, and look forward to returning to Churchville Elementary tomorrow!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 23, 2011
Seymour Simon has cats on his mind, and he wants to know if you can find this little known fact: WHAT DO YOU CALL A GROUP OF CATS?
Hint: Seymour has written about this somewhere on the Seymour Science blog.
Prize: Post your comment here, and one person who has given the right answer will be selected in a random drawing to win a personally autographed copy of Seymour Simon’s book, CATS!
Enter today for your chance to win!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
February 23, 2011
Since my new book (coming out in August) is BUTTERFLIES, I was very excited to be able to visit Aruba’s Butterfly Farm. It is a large garden, all enclosed by netting, with cocoons, caterpillars, and thousands of delicate butterflies from all over the world. Have you ever seen a black and white butterfly? This beauty is called a Rice Paper Butterfly (Idea leuconoe), and they were quite curious, fluttering around us the whole time that we were there.
Readers often ask me what my favorite animal is, and I always reply that it is whatever animal I am writing about at the moment. I do a lot of research when I am writing a book, and the more I learn, the more fascinated I become. So, my favorite animal at the moment is the butterfly, and it was SO exciting to be in this relatively small space and surrounded by fluttering creatures!
The one on the right is called a Scarlet Swallowtail (Papilio Rumanzovia) - isn’t it beautiful? Any butterfly that has the two long, trailing pieces at the bottom of their wings is some kind of swallowtail.
Butterflies protect themselves from predators in many ways. For example, when it is a caterpillar, the Monarch butterfly eats a leaf that is poison to many animals. By storing the poison in its body, the adult Monarch butterfly is avoided by predators who would otherwise eat it. Other butterflies protect themselves through an amazing natural phenomenon called "mimicry" - they appear to be something else altogether, like a leaf, a stick, or a piece of bark. While we were there, my wife Liz shot a video of a Dead-Leaf butterfly. Click on this link to play the video and you will see exactly how mimicry works.
The scientific name for the Dead-Leaf butterfly is Kallima inachus. Whomever gave this genus of tropical butterflies the name Kallima must have been looking at the topside of the wings, since it comes from the Greek word for "beautiful"!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 22, 2011
Have you ever heard of a fog bow? A fog bow is similar to a rainbow, but it happens on foggy days. Like a rainbow, the fog bow is caused by sun passing through water, but the water droplets that cause fog are so small (less than 2/100 inch), the fog bow has very little color. Fog bows are sometimes called "white rainbows" or "cloudbows". Sailors call them "sea-dogs."
Check here every Tuesday for Seymour Simon’s "Cool Photo of the Week"!
Photo Credit: Mila Zinkova
Posted by: Liz Nealon
February 20, 2011
This iguana wandered over to see what Seymour was having for lunch on our last afternoon on the island of Aruba. Iguanas are herbivores (which means they eat plants); this one was probably hoping for a bite of salad!
Like all lizards, iguanas are cold-blooded, which means that their body temperature changes according to their surroundings. That is different from mammals - our bodies regulate our temperatures from the inside, and keep it pretty much the same all the time.
Cold-blooded creatures seek the warmth of the sun, so you see iguanas sunbathing on rocks and rooftops all over the island.
There are lizards everywhere in Aruba. According to the official website, half of all the species of lizard on Earth are found only on this small island.
When the sun was out these beautiful, small turquoise lizards (left), called "kododo blauw," were constantly skittering around our feet and on the rocks.
Iguanas, which are bigger, move more slowly. Sometimes on Aruba you have to stop your car and wait for an iguana that is crossing the road in a leisurely way. Drivers are required by law to yield the right of way to iguanas on Aruba!
Iguanas/rooftop photo by Jacob Grygowski
Posted by: Liz Nealon
February 18, 2011
It’s Friday, so that means there is a new Joke or Riddle on SeymourSimon.com. Check it out today to find out what has three wings, three eyes and two bills! Jokes and Riddles are right on the homepage for SeymourSimon.com.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 17, 2011
Cat lover Choulie uploaded this photograph with a note: "I saw this picture of a cat and loved it! I used to have two cats name Domino and Punchy.
I will love and miss them forever."
Who has photographs of their own cats that they want to share?
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 16, 2011
Recently, Mr. K’s fifth grade class in Churchville, Pennsylvania read my book DOGS and created a poll about kids’ favorite dogs. That led to three weeks of students writing about their favorite dogs. We even ran a dog-related contest one snowy day in January.
I think it is time for cat lovers to have their say! Write and tell us about your favorite cat and why you love him or her.
Here’s an interesting, little known fact about cats to get you started: Scientists have discovered that a cat’s purr can coax its owner into giving them what they want by using a special noise that the human brain can’t ignore. According to the study, cats’ subliminal ‘feed me’ messages are disguised as ordinary purrs but have a high-pitched element that makes a human react as if it is an emergency, just like the cry of a baby.
Cats are highly intelligent animals. But you cat-lovers already knew that, didn’t you?
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 15, 2011
A Pennsylvania student named Marissa wrote this week with an unusual question. "I was wondering, what is your favorite fish? Mine is the Blobfish."
I happen to love fish. My favorite fish is known as "The Ram." Its scientific name is Epistograma ramarezi, and it is a dwarf cichlid. Cichlids (pronounced SIH-clid) are freshwater fish found in the tropical Americas, Africa and Asia, somewhat similar to our North American sunfish. The ram is a beautiful little fish that swims around with a great deal of determination. It is gorgeous when it is in breeding condition - a sparkly blue and red. I used to have tropical aquariums and I bred these fish and sold them. So now you know that I really like fish!
If you want to see Marissa’s favorite, the blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus), you can find a photo in my Science Dictionary under the definition of DEEP.....which might tell you something about where these very unusual creatures live!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
