Best Children's Science Education books
LEGO Chain Reactions is packed full of ideas, instructions, and inspiration for 10 LEGO machines that spin, swing, pivot, roll, lift, and drop. Our team of experts worked with educators and 11-year-olds to invent the machines, then wrote a book that teaches the skills (and some of the physics behind the fun) kids need to create their own amazing chain reaction machines. Includes a 80 page instructional book with Klutz certified crystal-clear instructions.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"A lot of thought and effort went into the chain reaction concepts and resulting projects. The chain reaction projects aren't that at all. They are challenging in my view mostly because of the need for precision alignment between the paper parts and the Lego motion actuators the kids assemble to create the Chain the Reaction. The greatest joy my grandson experienced (and it was great joy) was the moment the first project functioned properly for the first time after several complete and partial failures (just as his patience was wearing thin) and then joy again once the chain reaction was rehearsed and easily repeatable so as to show his parents without failure. In summary, it appears that, assuming success along the way, the complicated chain reactions are fun for children to assemble, challenging to make fully, reliably functional and thrilling once they work for that first time."
"The Lego pieces supplied are mainly specialty pieces, to complete the machines. so your choices are - (a) buy the book, if you know the recipient has an extensive supply of excess Lego (b) buy the book, and the additional Lego you need (c) buy the book and get creative around what you can substitute for the additional required pieces - (book stacks are suggested in place of the towers, but I think would be unstable and difficult to get the components to align sufficiently for the machine to work)."
"Wow!"
"The second project requires 4 2x1 bricks, 10 3x1 bricks, 6 4x1 bricks "from your collection"."
The third title in National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book series, this book is for kids 4- to 8-years-old who LOVE dinos! Catherine D. Hughes is the author of several books in the National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book series, including Little Kids First Big Book of Dinosaurs , Little Kids First Big Book of Space , and Little Kids First Big Book of the Ocean .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book was clearly designed for younger kids, because it has large print, pronunciation guides for all the dinosaur names, and imagination style questions associated with each dinosaur, like "if you could have a pet dinosaur, what would you name it?" If you are looking for a dinosaur book for older kids, there is also the "National Geographic Kids First Book of Big Dinosaurs", not to be confused with this book for "Little" kids."
"This book reads like an encyclopedia and not a story; however, they have shortened the information to 1 page per dinosaur which keeps a child's interest and a complete page with a picture illustration of the dinosaur."
"Great photos - my 17 month old daughter loves this book - loves the illustrations of the dinosaurs."
"I got this book for a 3 year that loves Dinosaurs."
"He isn't always easy on his books, but it's a little ridiculous how you can just turn a page and it will fall out."
"Can't wait to give my son this book."
"Good informative dinosaur book."
"Purchased this originally for my son and he loves it!"
• Chapter 2 introduces kids to the other planets in our solar system. CATHERINE D. HUGHES is the author of National Geographic Little Kids First Big. Book of Animals , National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Dinosaurs , and is the science editor for the award-winning National Geographic Kids and National. Geographic Little Kids magazines.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I bought this for my five year old daughter, who was asking for a book about space."
"4 year old son loves space, stars, etc and enjoys this book, I like it to, as it teaches things I didn't know or can't remember from school!"
"Sure isn't as well constructed at the same books I ordered as a teacher 15 years ago."
"Very well done books with great photography/art (what else would you expect from NG?). He got them a year ago when he turned 4."
"Pictures are great and easily interpreted and the book "sections" well, meaning you can read about the planets one night then the next learn about the comets or galaxies, etc."
"Great quality!"
"Bought this for our sons third birthday."
"Fantastic book!!"
Best Children's Anatomy Books
Karen Katz's adorable babies play peekaboo in this delightful interactive book. Karen Katz has written and illustrated more than fifty picture books and novelty books including the bestselling Where Is Baby’s Belly Button?
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book it very helpful for toddlers to learn body parts."
"My son loves this book, but I wish that the pages were thicker."
"pretty fast read, definitely a page turner."
"My son is 11 months old and he loves flipping the each hidden page."
"This adorable little book also teaches toddlers about their body parts."
"My grandson loves this book."
"My 16 month old loves books with flaps- she often rips them on accident, but these are the sturdiest we've experienced."
"My daughter loves this book!!"
Best Children's Astronomy & Space Books
• Chapter 2 introduces kids to the other planets in our solar system. CATHERINE D. HUGHES is the author of National Geographic Little Kids First Big. Book of Animals , National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Dinosaurs , and is the science editor for the award-winning National Geographic Kids and National. Geographic Little Kids magazines.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I bought this for my five year old daughter, who was asking for a book about space."
"4 year old son loves space, stars, etc and enjoys this book, I like it to, as it teaches things I didn't know or can't remember from school!"
"Very simple, understandable concepts even for young kids and the pictures are phenomenal."
"Sure isn't as well constructed at the same books I ordered as a teacher 15 years ago."
"Very well done books with great photography/art (what else would you expect from NG?). He got them a year ago when he turned 4."
"Pictures are great and easily interpreted and the book "sections" well, meaning you can read about the planets one night then the next learn about the comets or galaxies, etc."
"Great quality!"
"Bought this for our sons third birthday."
Best Children's Biology Books
provides the answers—with fun, accurate, comic-book-style artwork and a clear, lively text that reflects the interests of children age seven and up in how things work, while giving them a healthy understanding of their bodies. Created by the author and illustrator of It’s Perfectly Normal, this forthright and funny book has been newly updated for its fifteenth anniversary.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I explained to my child that computers save browsing history so people can see what others have searched/looked at, that there is inappropriate and harmful content online, that computers can get viruses or other issues when inappropriate links are opened, etc."
"I am amazed at how much I enjoyed this book. So here it is: "When a woman and a man want to make a baby, they hug, and cuddle and kiss and feel very loving, and get very close to each other - so close that the man's penis goes inside the woman's vagina."
"My sister recommended leaving it on the bookshelf for the kids to privately pick up when needed. My 13 year old nephew has referred back to it at times when he's too cool to talk to his parents."
"Haven't read it yet, but the initial book, "It's Not the Stork", was so good that I am sure this will be excellent."
"I bought several books for my shy preteen niece to learn the facts about puberty."
"This was just what I was looking for to discuss with 9-year old boy."
"Fully recommend this book to teach your children the birds and the beea."
"Great for teaching sex ed to kids."
Best Children's Botany Books
From perennials to bulbs to tropical exotica, Botanicum is a wonderful feast of botanical knowledge complete with superb cross sections of how plants work.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"A great book."
"Given as gift, individual seems to like it."
"Fabulous, Beautiful and Informative."
"A really lovely book."
"I bought this mainly for the artwork, and it did not disappoint."
"LOVE THIS SO MUCH!"
Best Children's Chemistry Books
In his highly anticipated sequel to The Elements , Theodore Gray demonstrates how the elements of the periodic table combine to form the molecules that make up our world. Nick Mann is the photographer of The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe and Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Well we know how that turned out (the fully interactive Elements app on iOS is breathtaking and undoubtedly many times more popular than the book). But that made it somewhat more abstract since most of us rarely interact directly with more than a handful of elements, and their atomic nature is less a part of every day experience. Amazon's "Look Inside" feature lets you see what most of the book looks like if you want to see examples of the topics covered, but it does a good job of covering (in an interesting and visual way) both the chemistry of how atoms become molecules and then the properties of various molecular species, as well as numerous higher level applications and what sort of molecules we experience through our senses (color, scent, taste, etc.)."
"Very enjoyable overview of how molecules work."
"Contents are five star....book binding is extremely cheap and poor..."
"Stunning visuals in learning about the chemical world!"
"Great product and quick shipment - thank you!"
"It is an attractive book about molecules."
"A witty, fascinating, and entertaining romp through the molecules that make up our world."
"Quality print out, detail descriptions but not in a hard way."
Best Children's Earth Sciences Books
Animal Stories for Kids: Coyote Peterson's Brave Adventures: Wild Animals in a Wild World chronicles some of the wildest encounters Coyote Peterson has had over the course of his travels. Coyote Peterson, host of the Brave Wilderness YouTube Channel and the Emmy Award winning show, Breaking Trail, is an avid adventurer and animal expert.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"With that being said, the pencil illustrations are detailed and lovely and Coyote's descriptive accounts of his adventures kept my son's interest."
"I was worried that the content of this book would be too similar to the Youtube videos, so I thought perhaps it would not excite my child as much as watching the videos."
"My son is loving this book and hearing about Coyote's different adventures."
"The book just arrived and I am already a number of chapters in."
"He is able to read the book at 8 years old (3rd grade), but it's obviously not quite as exciting as the youtube channel."
Best Children's Electricity Books
--Hans Camenzind, inventor of the 555 timer (the world's most successful integrated circuit), and author of Much Ado About Almost Nothing: Man's Encounter with the Electron (Booklocker.com). --Tom Igoe, author of Physical Computing and Making Things Talk. A new shopping guide and a simplified range of components, will minimize your investment in parts for the projects. A completely new section on the Arduino shows you how to write properly structured programs instead of just downloading other people's code. Projects have been reworked to provide additional features, and the book has been restructured to offer a step-by-step learning process that is as clear and visually pleasing on handheld devices as it is on paper. Hans Camenzind, inventor of the 555 Timer (the world's most successful integrated circuit chip), said that "This is teaching at its best!" He is the author of the highly successful introductory hands-on book, Make:Electronics, and is writing a sequel to that book in addition to volumes 2 and 3 of the Encyclopedia of Electronic Components.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I was an engineering student in college (although not electrical engineering) so I was always kind of upset that after spending countless nights of my life doing all sorts of crazy math problems with respect to circuits, I didn't know something as simple as how a relay works, or how to build anything except maybe a simple circuit with a lightbulb and a resistor. This won't make you an expert in electronics, it is definitely on the simple side of things (like algebraic simplifications of mathematical models that are actually rooted in calculus or differential equations), but that's exactly what I was looking for. Seems steep but if you plan on making use of your new-found knowledge for the foreseeable future, you will be using these tools well after you've worked through this book."
"Challenge his tech skills without been overwhelming."
"great book for learning the basics."
"Fun book, I plan on buying a ket to try out the expereiments."
"Of course you need to know electronics!"
"This book's layout kept me turning it's pages to learn more."
"This book is awesome."
Best Children's Engineering Books
Created by an MIT engineer, award winning educators, designers, and homeschooling experts, STEAM Kids will inspire your children to: question like a scientist design like a technologist build like an engineer create like an artist deduce like a mathematician – and, most importantly – play like a kid! If you're an after school teacher, classroom educator, homeschooler, or curious parent, this well organized, beautifully photographed book will delight and inspire you and your kids to create, invent, and tinker."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The back of the book has a great resource to help you plan a week of experiments/activities, printables, and a list of where to find additional project extensions on the web to further an experiment or idea. There are a few things you have to purchase for some of the experiments, like thermochromic pigment for the color changing play doh (I found it here on Amazon for about $18) and 3 volt coin batteries and copper taping."
"I was hoping that this book would do a better job at helping us parents and educators come up with better terminology to use with the kids on how STEAM applies to each of the projects."
"good product and good trade."
"A lot of different ideas, we did one of the project about 4 times."
"Lots of fun activities, not too complicated."
"I'm So excited to start the projects with my little boy."
"Quick delivery and the book has many great ideas for 4-H groups."
Best Children's Environment & Ecology Books
Targeted to rock-crazy kids, this bold book is more energetic, more visually exciting, and more fun than anything else on the market—and with more information, too! Tomecek has served as the associate director of the Science Museum of Long Island and as the science program supervisor for the New York Hall of Science.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I was expecting something completely different, and I have to say, I was a little mislead by the reviews here. Cons: >Book is very thin. >Not set up in a way that would inform your child on a certain rock/gem that they have - I was expecting this book to be sort of a guide. It is more of a collage of information, bursting with images and text boxes scattered through out the pages."
"This is a beautiful book containing plenty of information about different types of rocks and how they are formed over many years."
"My kid was very interested in this."
"It has a lot of pictures for him to compare his rock collection to and it’s easy to read."
"My kids love to look at the pictures of different rocks and minerals."
"great info and pretty pictures."
"This was a great addition to the rock kits that I purchased for my children."
"Grandson loved it."
Best Children's Farming & Agriculture Books
With Total Tractor! "While most books on tractors are aimed at preschool truck-lovers, this one will interest readers of any age."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Great book with lots of pics of old tractors, new tractors and tractors I've never seen."
"My grandson loves all things tractor."
"My tractor crazy boy will LOVE this book."
"Great book-my great grandson wont be without it-carries it everywhere."
"My 5 year old grandson loves this book."
"This is my toddler's favorite book."
"I bought this for my 90 year old former farmer great uncle who has dementia."
"This book is awesome!"
Best Children's Nature Books
With each of six spreads featuring one spectacular, large pop-up as well as booklets of smaller pop-ups and text, ENCYCLOPEDIA PREHISTORICA: DINOSAURS is a magnificent display of paper engineering and creativity — an astonishing book that will be read, admired, and treasured forever.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I am including a video so you can sort of see the depth and involvement this brings. Types of dinos, Carnivores, Herbivores, Feathered, Armored, Biggest etc. He wants it read as a bedtime story but there is so much info you could prob do 1 page per night and extend it out."
"I have to read the book to my four-year-old. It costs more than most 12-page books. We bought the Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs because we like to give each of our boys a good book for Christmas each year. We give them the book on Christmas Eve so we can sit quietly as a family and read the evening before Krampus comes to destroy us all. Bucky just turned four, and as a helicopter parent, I feel like I still need to hover over him when he’s reading the book so he closes all the pop-ups and doesn’t smash them. Anyway, I strongly recommend this book if you have a youngster in your life who is interested in dinosaurs, pop-up books, and the inevitable decline of man."
"I'd say that the reading level is fairly advanced - maybe 4th grade, but even at such a young age, my son gets a kick out of the animals and tries to rip their tail off or whatever."
"He went through every page & opened every flap to tell us all about the dinosaurs he was seeing."
"He is so enthralled with the dynamic of this book and encourages him to be inquisitive and learn about things they aren't teaching in daycare."
"Unfortunately he's a weapon of mass destruction so the book stays out of his reach, but I was amazed at the quality and just how many pop-ups there are in this book!"
"It’s very delicate in some places so it’s a great book for adults to read to smaller kids."
"My two year old son is obsessed with dinosaurs so this is his favorite book."
Best Children's Physics Books
Includes a 80 page instructional book with Klutz certified crystal-clear instructions.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"A lot of thought and effort went into the chain reaction concepts and resulting projects. The chain reaction projects aren't that at all. They are challenging in my view mostly because of the need for precision alignment between the paper parts and the Lego motion actuators the kids assemble to create the Chain the Reaction. The greatest joy my grandson experienced (and it was great joy) was the moment the first project functioned properly for the first time after several complete and partial failures (just as his patience was wearing thin) and then joy again once the chain reaction was rehearsed and easily repeatable so as to show his parents without failure. In summary, it appears that, assuming success along the way, the complicated chain reactions are fun for children to assemble, challenging to make fully, reliably functional and thrilling once they work for that first time."
"The Lego pieces supplied are mainly specialty pieces, to complete the machines. so your choices are - (a) buy the book, if you know the recipient has an extensive supply of excess Lego (b) buy the book, and the additional Lego you need (c) buy the book and get creative around what you can substitute for the additional required pieces - (book stacks are suggested in place of the towers, but I think would be unstable and difficult to get the components to align sufficiently for the machine to work)."
"Wow!"
"The second project requires 4 2x1 bricks, 10 3x1 bricks, 6 4x1 bricks "from your collection"."
Best Children's Zoology Books
The third title in National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book series, this book is for kids 4- to 8-years-old who LOVE dinos! Catherine D. Hughes is the author of several books in the National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book series, including Little Kids First Big Book of Dinosaurs , Little Kids First Big Book of Space , and Little Kids First Big Book of the Ocean .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book was clearly designed for younger kids, because it has large print, pronunciation guides for all the dinosaur names, and imagination style questions associated with each dinosaur, like "if you could have a pet dinosaur, what would you name it?" If you are looking for a dinosaur book for older kids, there is also the "National Geographic Kids First Book of Big Dinosaurs", not to be confused with this book for "Little" kids."
"This book reads like an encyclopedia and not a story; however, they have shortened the information to 1 page per dinosaur which keeps a child's interest and a complete page with a picture illustration of the dinosaur."
"Some of the more commonly known dinosaurs are conspicuously absent or the illustrations don't show you how to tell them apart from other similar species."
"Illustrations are on point and love how they break down the names of each dinosaur."
"Good for younger kids and older...I'd say 3 to 8 ish."
"My daughter and nephew both got a copy of this book and they both LOVE IT!"
"Very cool book!"
"Good informative dinosaur book."