February 1, 2012
It is easy to tell that another Seymour Simon school visit week is coming up - we have been getting so many comments from new readers on the Seymour Science blog. Students in Wayne, New Jersey, Skillman, New Jersey and Newtown, Pennsylvania - this contest is for you!
Two lucky winners will receive personally autographed copies of Seymour Simon’s OUR SOLAR SYSTEM (grades 3-6) and PLANETS AROUND THE SUN (grades K-2).
Here is what you have to do to enter the 3 Cheers for Pluto Contest:
1. Seymour is thinking about writing a book about Pluto. That means he is starting to research information about the dwarf planet.
2. He would like you to add your own research about Pluto. Click the yellow "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog post, and tell Seymour 3 facts about Pluto.
3. You can find your facts on this blog, in Seymour’s books about the solar system, or using other resources, like the library and the Internet. Any fact is ok (as long as it is true!)
4. Tell us your name (first name only), school and email address. If you do not have an email address, tell us your teacher’s name, so we can contact you if you are the winner.
5. Be sure to post your entry by midnight, Friday, February 10. The contest ends then.
Two winners will be chosen randomly from all the correct entries. Older students may enter individually, and we will pick one winner. Students in grades K-2 may enter as a class and work with their teacher to enter the contest; there will be one classroom winner.
Do you need some help getting started? You can find facts about Pluto right on this blog. Look at all the entries under the label "Solar System." We guarantee you that you will find information there!
So, get to work and send us your entries today. Your comments will be invisible until everyone has a chance to enter. Once the contest is over, we will post everyone’s writing.
Good luck!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
January 31, 2012
Welcome to Writing Wednesday! Every Wednesday you can publish your own creative writing on the Seymour Science blog.
Writing Wednesday has two simple rules:
1. Give us the best you’ve got in 5 minutes. That’s right - five minutes of creative writing. Think of it as a word extravaganza to warm up your brain for the rest of the day!
2. Tell us your first name, the name of your school, and how old you are.
Ready? Let’s go!
The poet Mary Oliver wrote this in one of her poems:
It is the nature of stone
to be satisfied.
It is the nature of water
to want to be somewhere else.*
What do you think she is saying about the difference between stone and water? How would you describe the ways that stone and water are different? What do you like or dislike about each of them?
Click on the yellow "Comments" at the bottom of this post to enter your writing.
Happy Writing Wednesday!
*Excerpted from THE LEAF AND THE CLOUD, by Mary Oliver. Da Capo Press, 2001.
Photo: Russel Wills
Posted by: Liz Nealon
January 31, 2012
The students at James Fallon Elementary in New Jersey have been doing a Seymour Simon Author Study, and they finished it up with a virtual author visit (also known as a Skype session) with Seymour Simon on Monday. These are his interviewers - fourth and fifth graders who had lots of questions for him, especially about his newly re-published and always popular book, STRANGE MYSTERIES.
Some students wondered whether he knew what happened to the "ghost ship" Marie Céleste, found abandoned but steaming ahead in the Atlantic Ocean, even though the weather was good and her crew was experienced. But of course, if he knew the answer, it wouldn’t be a famous mystery!
Their teacher, Lorrie Maggio-Huber, wrote after the session: The students at Fallon had a great time concluding their author study with a super discussion with Mr. Simon!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
January 31, 2012
Have you ever seen a living creature that looks like this? This animal, captured and studied by scientists on an oceanlab in the Mid Atlantic Ocean, is a member of a recently discovered family of acorn worms (Torquaratoridae).
Deep Sea Acorn Worms are delicate animals that have no eyes and no tail. They crawl along the ocean floor, leaving a spiral-shaped trail behind, burrowing into the sediment to find food that has fallen from the surface. Creatures like these used to be thought of as evolutionary "leftovers," because they failed to evolve and develop tails and become competent swimmers, like fish. It turns out, though, that they have evolved in just the right way to live in the distant depths of the ocean. We are discovering that acorn worms are some of the most common animals that live in the deep sea, alongside sea cucumbers, sea stars, shellfish and other fish. They have even been seen making a kind of swimming movement, lifting themselves off the ocean floor so that they can drift into areas where food is more plentiful.
Photo: David Shale
Posted by: Seymour Simon
January 29, 2012
One of Seymour Simon’s first books, THE PAPER AIRPLANE BOOK, is still one of his most popular, with kids AND adults. A few years ago, when we were designing his website, we came up with the idea of making a paper airplane pattern - a piece of paper with folding instructions - for readers to download. "Let me take a picture of you dressed up like an aviator, flying a paper airplane," I said to Seymour. "We can put the photograph on the pattern so that when kids fold it, your photo will be on the wings. It will be a Seymour Plane!"
You have seen the drawing of Snoopy when he’s pretending to pilot a fighter plane, right? I thought that was exactly the right look for the Seymour Plane! I dug through my drawers and pulled out a white silk scarf, and found a pair of swimming goggles on the shelf in the garage. Seymour, always willing to be silly for the sake of science, put it all on, folded his airplane and we snapped this photograph.
When Seymour visits schools, like he did this week, he always talks about paper airplanes and shows kids his silly photo.
After his visit to the elementary school in Center Moriches, NY, we received this letter from a mother named Christine Buff. Christine wrote:
My twin sons, Spencer and Stephen, LOVED your visit. Thank you for making such an amazing impression on two 5-year-old boys. They are in Mrs. Engelhardt’s Kindergarten class. Spencer came home telling us all about your paper airplane book and that we could go onto your dot.com and visit you on FACEBOOK! We made our airplanes last night. We have airplanes flying all over my house and Spencer wanted me to write you to tell you his did a loop-de-loop! He also wanted to know why we did not have your train book!! They are BIG train fans. Off to borrow from the library!
Today was Biography Day and they both wore scarfs, googles and brought their airplanes to school to pretend they were you.Don’t they look just like Seymour?! That is Stephen on the left and Spencer on the right. How great to see them with their paper airplanes, scarves and goggles! We now declare Spencer and Stephen official members of the Paper Airplane Club!
If you’d like to try folding your own "Seymour Plane," with his silly photograph on the wings, you can download the pattern here. Send us your picture with your paper airplane, dressed up like Seymour, and you’ll be in the Paper Airplane Club, too!
Students also often ask where they can see the YouTube video that Seymour loves, of a paper airplane being flown from a skyscraper and traveling down through New York City. You can see that video by clicking here.
Posted by: Liz Nealon
January 27, 2012
This morning, Seymour Simon posted a blog entry in which a student asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
Seymour’s Answer: Since I was a kid I have had two favorite colors, and they are both the colors of nature. One is almost indescribable - the warm, pumpkin-like, mix of orange colors that you see in autumn. My other favorite color is the deep purple that you sometimes see in sunset clouds.
Tonight, we had a spectacular sunset, which featured exactly the two colors he had in mind.
Posted by: Liz Nealon
January 27, 2012
As our regular readers know, there is a new SCIENCE JOKE or RIDDLE every Friday on the homepage of SeymourSimon.com. This week’s joke: How do you catch a gorilla? Click here for the answer!
And since it’s New Joke Friday, we thought we’d let you in on some exciting news. Seymour Simon and his very funny illustration partner, Dennis Kendrick, worked together on an eBook called SILLY DINOSAUR RIDDLES. And it just went on sale - it costs only $0.99 from now through Sunday! You can buy this eBook bestseller for the Nook Color, Nook Tablet or the "Nook Kids for iPad" app.
Have a funny weekend, everybody!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
January 27, 2012
Thank you, Center Moriches students, for all your thank you notes and great comments after my visit this week. I loved meeting you all, too.
Makayla, Claire K., Richie and the kids in Room 30 all wrote to ask the same question, so I thought I would answer it here. The question is: WHAT IS MY FAVORITE OF ALL THE BOOKS THAT I HAVE WRITTEN?
I have written so many books that I am not sure of the exact count….but I know it is getting close to 300! I can never say which is my favorite book - it is like a parent picking his favorite child. If I say which one is my favorite, all the other books will be mad at me!
Actually, whatever book I am working on at the moment is my "favorite," because I get caught up in how fascinating each topic is. I’ve just finished a book on CORAL REEFS, and I learned so much about these busy "cities under the sea" - you would be amazed at the diversity of life that thrives in a coral reef. So at the moment, that is my "favorite book."
If you click on "play" in this photograph, you can see a little bit of video of all the living creatures in a coral reef. Isn’t it magnificent?
Makayla added a few other questions which I will answer for you here, too.
1. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR? Since I was a kid I have had two favorite colors, and they are both the colors of nature. One is almost indescribable - the warm, pumpkin-like, mix of orange colors that you see in autumn. My other favorite color is the deep purple that you sometimes see in sunset clouds.
2. DO YOU HAVE ANY CHILDREN? My two sons are both grown - one is a television director, and one is a college professor, in Computer Sciences. My stepdaughter is still in college, studying Literature and History. And I have four grandchildren whom I try to visit as often as I can.
3. WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO BE AN AUTHOR? I read a book called THE SEA AROUND US, by Rachel Carson. She is a wonderful writer, I absolutely loved the book, and by the time I finished it, I had realized that I wanted to write about the natural world. I started writing for children because that is where my area of expertise was - I was a middle school science teacher for many years.
Thank you to all the book lovers at Clayton Huey Elementary School for your very warm welcome. I loved your caution to "Drive Safely!" when I left. What a warm, caring group of students and teachers. Keep reading, and please click on "Comments" and write to me any time to tell me what you are reading and thinking about.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
January 25, 2012
Welcome to Writing Wednesday! Every Wednesday you can publish your own creative writing on the Seymour Science blog.
Writing Wednesday has two simple rules:
- Give us the best you’ve got in 5 minutes. That’s right - five minutes of creative writing. Think of it as a word extravaganza to warm up your brain for the rest of the day!
- Tell us your first name, the name of your school, and how old you are.
Ready? Let’s go!
As a scientist wrote yesterday, "THE SUN IS WAKING UP." The sun goes through regular cycles, and we have entered a period of high solar activity. Huge solar storms have been sweeping the surface of the sun for the past week, sending bursts of geomagnetic radiation called "solar flares" toward Earth. When this radiation hits Earth’s magnetic field, it causes bursts of light that we call the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights. Sometimes they look like ghostly fingers in the sky; sometimes they look like huge explosions of colored lights.
Here is a photograph of the Northern Lights as seen in Finland this week. Take five minutes and write a list of five words to describe this nighttime sight. Enter your writing by clicking on the yellow "Comments" at the bottom of this blog post.
Happy writing!
Photo: Arnar Bergur Guðjónsson
Posted by: Liz Nealon
January 23, 2012
I’m preparing for my upcoming visit to Clayton Huey Elementary School in Center Moriches, New York this week. I understand that it is W.A.R.M. ("We Are Reading More") Week at your school. What a great time to visit!
Center Moriches Red Devils - click on the yellow "comments" below so that you can write and tell me what you are reading. Which one of my books are you interested in learning more about? I’m looking forward to meeting all of you on Wednesday!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
