In this post, I will be talking about our class and our experience with picture books in a science class.

Using picture books is a great way to link Science and Literacy. In this class, we learned they can help add context for concepts, more depth of coverage, improved reading and science skills, and opportunities to correct science misconceptions. Additionally, integrating picture books can increase student engagement, attention, and curiosity. We had an opportunity to look at our instructors diverse library of science picture books and pair them with a Big Idea that we were given for different grade levels.

My Example:

Pancakes, Pancakes! (1990) by Eric Carle is a lively farm-to-table tale about a hungry boy named Jack who wants a big pancake for breakfast. His mother agrees, but only if he helps gather every ingredient from scratch.

Jack’s morning adventure includes:

• Cutting wheat in the field and taking it to the miller to be ground into flour
• Collecting an egg from the black hen
• Milking the spotted cow
• Churning cream into butter
• Fetching firewood from the woodshed
• Getting strawberry jam from the cellar

Only after all this hard work does his mother mix the batter, fry the pancake, and serve it warm with butter and jam. This book shows how different materials and ingredients change forms (Solid, Liquid, Gas) through chemical processes.

AHA Moment

While doing this activity, it became apparent to me that there are many books that can weave in science ideas while building literacy skills as well. It allowed us to creatively think of how to pair the books we had access to with the curricular content. I will be using this idea to choose books for my lessons and classrooms as it was a big eye opener.