Do you look for fun ways to add a little science to your school day? We have science in our curriculum but love to add something fun about subjects that the kids find interesting. That was why I loved finding these fun books from Science Alliance. The Nick Navigates Natural Disasters (Science Alliance) book and the Lara Looks at Light and Color (Science Alliance) book by Science Alliance are short, easy to read, and move through science lessons on the condensed subjects. My kids have been really interested in weather so I found the Nick Navigates Natural Disaster book to be really great. And since my son has been interested in volcanoes, and my daughter has been asking a lot of questions about the water cycle, I thought these books would be a great addition (and fun this summer to explore). One of the fun lesson and experiments we did in the Nick Navigates Natural Disasters book was the Soaked to the Bone lessons and the Water Works experiment. This was a fun experiment to learn about evaporation and condensation.

The Nick Navigates Natural Disasters is a 32-page book that covers a brief overview of subjects like earthquakes, hurricanes, and the water cycle. The Lara Looks at Light and Color book is a 32-page book that covers a brief overview of subjects like light, lenses, and reflection. Both books have a glossary of vocabulary words and an answer key in the back. Both books also have science project ideas and a discussion about the scientific method.

The first book we used was the Nick Navigates Natural Disasters book. My son was very interested in Making Waves and Pop Goes the Top! so we decided to work through the book in order of interest. However, the book is nicely setup and you could easily just do a 2 page lesson each week and have fun with it and work in order. If you did one lesson a week, the Nick Navigates Natural Disasters book would provide you with 10 to 12 weeks of science lessons and experiments, which is a fun extra.

The Lara Looks at Light and Color book would provide you with 10 to 12 weeks of lessons at one lesson and experiment per week as well. The experiments work with things like Refraction and Making a Periscope.

Each book has various puzzles, vocabulary words to work with like in crossword puzzles or matching, and even famous scientists. There is also a section in each book about working with in the field of science, defining specific jobs. My older daughter found this interesting. Each 2 page lesson has an experiment or an activity associated with it, making it easy to be a complete science lesson.

Overall, I think these are a very simple way to get some real science learning in a small time segment. Both my older children enjoyed the books and the experiments associated and I think we will use these again in the future.

-Product review by Tawnee Hinton, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, October, 2016