Why I Picked Them Up: I first picked up Now and Ben because it’s a biography on Benjamin Franklin, who I think is the most interesting man in the world! Not to mention he is in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for elementary social studies. After I fell in love with the book, I […]
Biography
Book Review: Page by Paige, by Laura Lee Gulledge
Why I Picked It Up: To be completely honest, Jessica actually picked this one up. We were looking for graphic novels to incorporate into a session we’re working on, and Page by Paige was one that we’d seen in a few places. The play on words in the title made me happy, so even though […]
App Review: ChatterPix Kids
I am a firm believer that, when it comes to your toolbox of apps for the classroom, less is more. I’ll spare you the soapbox this time (you can read about it in this blog post if you are really interested!) and just tell you that this is one of the apps on my shortlist. ChatterPix lets […]
Book Review: Popular by Maya Van Wagenen
Why I Picked It Up: As this year’s Battle of the Books gets closer (next week!!!), I decided to start looking ahead to the 2015 Lone Star List and the 2016 Battle of the Books. As I scrolled down the list, this one stood out to me: Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek. It sounded […]
Roundup: Favorite Social Studies Posts (Plus a Few New Biographies!)
We had a wonderful weekend in Galveston this past weekend. We celebrated Halloween with our families AND made a lot of new social studies friends at the Texas Council for the Social Studies Conference! During our sessions, we mentioned several of our favorite books and we thought we might round them all up in one […]
Book Review: On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein, by Jennifer Berne
Why I picked it up I am always looking for strong, engaging biographies to be used with students. I have noticed that my children have been interested in Einstein lately, perhaps because they have been learning about his inventions in science and hearing about his intriguing life has caught their attention. However, the one thing […]
