read-alouds
The Wild Robot Escapes: A Farm Is a System
Put a robot in charge of a dairy farm and every ordinary chore becomes a question about sensing, judgment, and who the farm is built to serve.
THE READING ROOM
One Size Fits One
Useful, honest writing about homeschooling one actual child.
195 articles. Page 3 of 13.
read-alouds
Julie's Wolf Pack: The Family Behind the Alpha
Kapu gets called the new leader. The more interesting question is what leadership means inside a hungry wolf family.
experiential learning
Julie: Wolves, Musk Oxen, and Hard Choices
Wolves need prey. A village needs income. Julie comes home to find that both facts are true, and neither one makes the decision for her.
experiential learning
Brian's Hunt: Read the Evidence Before the Bear
A wounded dog comes out of the dark. Brian has no witness and no explanation, only tracks, injuries, and the feeling that his friends may be in danger.
experiential learning
The River: Survival Is a Systems Problem
Brian knows how to keep himself alive. This time another person's breathing, the shape of a river, and one decision with no safe answer all depend on him.
experiential learning
Magic School Bus at the Waterworks: Before the Faucet
Turn on a faucet and clean water appears. This book takes apart the city-sized system hiding between the raindrop and the sink.
experiential learning
Understanding Photosynthesis: The One That Fits the Format
A comic is a sequence of places. Photosynthesis is a sequence of places. Of the four Max Axiom biology titles on our shelf, this is the one where the format and the topic were made
choosing curriculum
Understanding Global Warming: What the Book Says
You probably decided about this book before you finished reading the title. Here is what is actually in it, stated as plainly as I can manage, so the decision is yours and made on
experiential learning
States of Matter with Max Axiom: Read It in the Kitchen
Take an ice cube out and stand it in a dry glass on the counter before you start reading. By the time your child finishes the book, that glass has proved half of it.
experiential learning
The Shocking World of Electricity: Inside the Wire
Rub a balloon on a jumper and it will lift a scrap of paper off the table. That is the same physics as the current running your refrigerator, and hardly any child is ever told so.
gifted or struggling
The Powerful World of Energy: Start Here in the Series
Every science book in your house uses the word energy on the assumption that somebody already explained it. Almost nobody did. This is the one that does, and it is the one to read
secular homeschool
Volcanoes with Max Axiom: Buy It for the Cutaway
Ask a child to draw a volcano and you get a cone with a hole in the top. Most volcanoes are not that shape, and the shape is not decoration. It is a readout of what came up.
gifted or struggling
Earthquakes with Max Axiom: The Claim Without the Working
You cannot put a planet on a bench. That is the thing that makes earthquakes hard to teach honestly, and it is the thing this book quietly works around instead of admitting.
experiential learning
Chemical Reactions with Max Axiom: Firework, Firefly, Jar
A firework, a firefly and a jar of sauerkraut are the same event running at three different speeds. Once a child holds that, chemistry stops being a list of words and starts being
gifted or struggling
Decoding Genes: Where the Comic Format Runs Out of Room
You were probably taught genetics as a grid. Four boxes, a capital B and a lowercase b, brown eyes and blue, and then it stopped. That grid is half the subject. This book is aimed
choosing curriculum
The Basics of Cell Life: Start the Biology Set Here
A cell is about a hundredth of a millimeter across, and no diagram with eleven labels on it has ever made a child feel that. Shrinking a character down and walking him around insid