January 23, 2012
Happy Chinese New Year! 2012 is the Year of the Dragon.
Were there dragons in the old days? We’ve never found any bones of dragons, or dragon eggs, or anything else that leads scientists to believe that dragons once existed. So where did the idea for dragons come about? Probably from discoveries of skeletons of huge animals such as whales, and from fossils (bones turned into stone) of dinosaurs and mammoths. These may have been mistakenly thought to be the bones of dragons, unicorns and other mythological beasts. In China, the shapes of dragons look like huge snakes; in other cultures, dragon shapes vary and they look more like other kinds of reptiles such as crocodiles. Many fictional fantasy worlds include dragons as characters.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
January 21, 2012
One of our readers, 11-year-old Cassidy, uploaded this photo of her puppy this week. Cassidy wrote: "My puppy GiGi was an amazing puppy and was soo lovable!" Knowing how many dog lovers there are among my readers, I suspect others of you are going to agree!
Have you tried Seymour’s FREE eBook, FUN FACTS ABOUT PETS? Barnes & Noble asked Seymour to create it for everyone who buys either a Nook Color, Nook Tablet, and anyone who downloads the "Nook Kids for iPad" app. If you love pets, we guarantee you will LOVE this book!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
January 20, 2012
Put on your best black and white outfit - it’s PENGUIN AWARENESS DAY!
Here are some fascinating facts about penguins, from my book of the same name.1. Although they walk awkwardly on land, Penguins are champion swimmers and divers.Most penguins can swim five or six miles per hour, and some can put on a blazing burst of speed of as much as 15 miles (24 km) per hour! (the fastest a person has ever run is a little over 13 miles per hour).
2. An adult penguin can recognize its own chick’s distinctive call from among thousands huddled together against the cold.
3. The father penguin balances its egg on his feet for approximately 65 days, covering it with his brood patch to keep the egg warm through blinding storms and below-freezing temperatures.
Click on this link to read other stories that I’ve written here about Penguins, including one about how you can help to ensure that penguins and their habitats are protected.
Enjoy this video from National Geographic Kids about Emperor penguins and how they protect themselves extremely cold conditions that would be too much for humans to survive.
Write and tell me how you celebrate Penguin Awareness Day!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
January 20, 2012
Seymour Simon’s bestselling WHY DO PUPPIES DO THAT? has just been added to the Winter Blowout Sale, marked down from the list price of $4.99 to just $1.99! This original Seymour Simon eBook explores questions that kids love to know about, like "why do puppies tilt their heads in such a cute way?" and "why do puppies bark and yip?"
This book is on the exclusive list of only 78 eBooks (children’s and adult) published in 2011 to win the QED (Quality-Excellence-Design) Award from Digital Book World.
Here’s what North Caroline Fifth Grade teacher Jeff Barger wrote about WHY DO PUPPIES DO THAT? on his NC Teacher Stuff blog:
Accessing this on an iPad would be very easy for a preschooler to accomplish. Paw prints serve as the page turns and there is a menu at the bottom so you can go to any page. The photographs will engage beginning readers and prompt them to continue turning the pages. Why Do Puppies Do That? would be a good primer for a child that is about to receive a puppy. After reading this, you could ask children to list the positive and challenging parts of owning a puppy or talk about the character traits of a good dog owner. Why Do Puppies Do That? would also be an excellent resource for showing children how you don’t need to start at the beginning of an informational text. You can show all the pages on the screen and just pick one section. This is an e-book that will be read several times by a young dog lover.
(click here to read Jeff’s entire review)
This award-winning eBook is currently 60% off, and the sale continues for another week. If you haven’t yet tried a Seymour Simon eBook, this could be the one!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
January 19, 2012
Snowman looks at the city. He is happy because friends are being created!
The cities and towns around Seattle, Washington received up to 8 inches of snow yesterday, officially making the winter storm one of Seattle’s 10 worst since the early 1940s, when record-keeping began. Schools and businesses are closed again today, as freezing temperatures have turned slushy roads into sheets of ice. I have a feeling there was a shout of joy early this morning from Seattle kids, who don’t often get a snow day. The snowman is happy, indeed!
The caption for the photograph above was written by Will from Ohio. He submitted this lovely piece of writing as part of yesterday’s “Writing Wednesday.” Nice job, Will!
Photo: Sam Jennings
Note to Teachers and Library Media Specialists: I have created a Guide called “Writing Exciting Nonfiction,” which you can download by clicking on this link. It outlines different techniques that I use in my writing, and includes many examples from my books. I have posted it so that you can use it with your students. Please let me know if it is helpful, and share any other feedback about how we can make this blog a productive tool for you to use in exploring and encouraging nonfiction writing with your students.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
January 18, 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! Today, we would like you to read the news story below, and then write a caption for the photograph. We will publish the best caption on the Seymour Science blog.
NEWS STORY: Schools are closed this morning in Seattle and flights into the city are cancelled in anticipation of a second major snowstorm in four days. The city was already hit with a snowstorm on Sunday night, and a potentially historic winter storm is bearing down on the city today.
Seattle is a Pacific coast city that is not used to dealing with heavy snow - their average snowfall is just 5.9 inches per year. By the time today’s storm is finished, the city may have received up to three times that much - in a single week!
Here is the photograph. Write a caption that will capture readers’ attention and draw them into reading more of the story. Your writing could be serious, or it could be funny. Either approach is fine, as long as what you write makes the reader want to know more! Write your caption and submit it by clicking on the "Comments" below. Happy writing!
Photo: Sam Jennings
Posted by: Seymour Simon
January 17, 2012
The cool photo of the week is….a white penguin! This unusual white Chinstrap penguin was spotted by a naturalist onboard a ship off Antarctica’s Aitcho Islands. This is a leucistic (pronounced lew-SIS-tic) penguin, which means that it has less than the normal amount of pigment, or coloration, in its skin and feathers.
It is a fairly rare sight, since the penguin’s black and white coloring serves as camouflage. When it is fishing, a penguin’s black back makes it blend in with the dark waters below, protecting it from predators avove. Similarly, its white belly makes it blend in with the sky when viewed by predators from below. That is a common survival mechanism among many animals (think about birds in the sky, or fish with light-colored bellies and darker colors on top). And that is why it is so rare to see a leucistic penguin. Since their coloration does not protect them, fewer survive to breed, resulting in very few among the general population.
Photo: David Stephens / Lindblad Expeditions
Read more about Penguins in Seymour Simon’s book, now out in paperback.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
January 12, 2012
Educators who are considering inviting Seymour Simon to speak in their school district may be interested in this note that we received from elementary school media specialist Donna McAndrews following his weeklong visit to schools in Niskayuna, New York.
Last week Seymour Simon visited our elementary school to speak about his science writing. Our students were thrilled to meet him, and I was so proud of their enthusiasm and intelligence during his presentations.
To prepare the students for this visit, we spent a few weeks looking at as many of his books as we could. The students noticed the story-quality of Seymour’s books, and they found that learning a new science concept was easier when Seymour made a comparison to something they already knew. So much like their own classroom teachers would do!
In one fourth grade class we needed a model for writing our nonfiction paragraphs on the Iroquois. Even though our subject was not science-related, each student was able to find a page in one of Seymour’s books that illustrated a good nonfiction paragraph with an introductory sentence and supporting examples, as well as other details like using comparisons to explain new concepts. Not only did these students write really solid paragraphs, but they checked out the books they used because they wanted to read more!
In addition to looking at the books, all of our third, fourth and fifth grade classes explored the Seymour Science Blog on the website. They had a blast learning about science topics from each blog post. We asked them to respond by posting a thoughtful comment that included something they learned from the post as well as something they wonder about after reading that blog. This was a really good first step in learning how to use blogs in an educational setting to further your own learning, not just to react to something some else posts.
More excitement was generated when Seymour and Liz created the "Butterfly or Moth?" contest for our students. Classes in grades K - 2 and individual students in grades 3 - 5 all participated in this endeavor! Again, the expectation was that their online comments should reflect their learning and should be clear and easy-to-understand. The students worked hard to research the differences between moths and butterflies, and they articulated their answers clearly in their blog comments. I think they would have worked hard even if there wasn’t a prize at the end. They really enjoy learning something new and sharing what they know. It’s as simple as that!
I am hopeful that in the near future we will find a way to add Seymour’s many digital books to our library’s catalog so our students can borrow them for use on their own devices.
Thanks, Seymour, for bringing science and writing to life for our Niskayuna students!
Thank you, Donna, for your very kind words. Your students were indeed well-prepared for Seymour’s visit, and when educators like you and your colleagues do advance preparation, it is always a more successful experience for both the children and the author!
When Seymour Simon visits a school district we try to maximize the payoff for the students by showcasing their research, writing and artwork on SeymourSimon.com. These interactions are designed to create an opportunity for each student to have a personal, relevant and satisfying experience reading, analyzing and writing nonfiction text (very important in these early days of implementing the Common Core Standards).
We encourage educators who use this site to give us feedback on how you are using the materials we create with your students, and in particular, how we can do it better. We love to hear from you!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
January 12, 2012
Have you ever imagined fun things you would like to do in a weightless environment? Here’s a good idea.
Today’s very cool VIDEO OF THE WEEK is of Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa playing baseball with himself onboard the International Space Station. He pitches, hits, and even manages to get himself out!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
January 11, 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! Today, we want you to describe one of the amazing-looking animals found living under the sea as part of the Census of Marine Life. Scientists have spent the past ten years searching for and cataloguing the huge diversity of life found in Earth’s oceans.This is one of the new species they found. It is called a VAMPIRE SQUID, and it lives in Monterey Bay, off the coast of Northern California. Click the "Comments" button below and take five minutes to write about what you see in this photograph. Use descriptive words and strong verbs to describe the animal and the dark waters where it lives. You could use a comparison to help your reader imagine this creature….or appeal to the reader’s emotions to set the scene (how does it make you feel when you look at a Vampire Squid?).
What you write is up to you. Have fun with it!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
