Best children chemistry books according to redditors
We found 22 Reddit comments discussing the best children chemistry books. We ranked the 13 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 22 Reddit comments discussing the best children chemistry books. We ranked the 13 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
For pleasure:
Undergraduate
Organic Chemistry as a Second Language, The art of writing reasonable organic reaction mechanisms
Graduate
Bill Bryson wrote a shorter version of his book that is aimed at kids. I did not read it, but I read his other work and it is fantastic, and the amazon reviews are very positive.
[A Really Short History of Nearly Everything](http://www.amazon.com/Really-Short-History-Nearly Everything/dp/0385738102/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1290524524&sr=1-1)
I would also recommend a simple children's encyclopedia like:
DK's First Encyclopedia
Scholastic Children's Encyclopedia
Although what I recommend is you get a nice little experiments book, and do experiments with him, that is simply the best and the most fun way to get a kid hooked on science. I suggest a chem kit, and you help him out and do experiments with him. Examples:
The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science
Theo Gray's Mad Science(WARNING:SERIOUSLY dangerous but really cool)
You can also look at this website and do experiments with him. I highly recommend this:
The Naked Scientists Kitchen Science
I would recommend any of the Horrible Histories or Horrible Science series. They are a very entertaining way to get to the juicy bits of knowledge.
Also, tey might enjoy How to make a Universe with 92 Ingredients
I have "Baby Loves Quarks!" for my 1 year old. amazon
For her it's mostly fun pictures. It doesn't really matter what the words are for her.
The wording is like, "Everything in the world is made of molecules, even baby" and it has a pictures of random stuff (tree, dog, car, balloon, etc.)
The fun for her is looking at the pictures. The fun for me is thinking about something, even if it is super simplified, more interesting than "The cat drinks milk."
Some of the target ages of those books are higher than what you're potentially looking for, but hopefully something in there could be what you need!
> Is that what they're making 4th graders do book reports on nowadays? That's pretty astounding. In 4th grade I was lucky if I could understand White Fang.
Nah, you're just an imbecile who thinks that just because something happened for you that it must mean the entire nation is like that.
But yes. /u/poiumty just learned how to read in 4th grade, so other kids around the country must be just as uneducated as him.
Nice. The Elements, by Theodore Gray is such a pretty book. Hoping to get my hands on a copy of Molecules someday.
A lot of good recommendations already. Hopefully this is another, How To Read A French Fry
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-French-Fry-Intriguing/dp/0618379436
Covers the "physics" of deep frying, beans and some other things. Pretty cheap to obtain.
How to Read a French Fry
Cheaper and eligible for Prime shipping on Amazon
How formally dressed are your teachers? Are ties still expected wear?
http://www.tiesforteachers.co.uk/science.htm
Or baby loves books. Something he can do with his child?
Beyond that maybe try etsy.
I like Theodore Gray's books, such as this one: https://www.amazon.com/Molecules-Architecture-Everything-Theodore-Gray/dp/1579129714
He also has books on elements and reactions.
Under my Stuff I Actually Need Wish List, you'll find, well, stuff I actually need now that I've moved away for my first year at my new university (Today's my second day of classes! Super excited!)
I need (any pf these would be wonderful):
Thanks for the contest! This was a great way to spend a study break! Oy, where's the asprin?
During this time of year when kids collect lots of candies, one very productive thing to do with the kids is performing some science experiments, and there are many just like this one all about candies. Check out "candy experiments" http://www.amazon.com/Candy-Experiments-ebook/dp/B009YYFBQQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382808039&sr=8-1&keywords=candy+experiments
Was it this book?
You absolutely want to get ahold of a copy of "How to Read a French Fry by Russ Parsons
It talks about the science of food and cooking in a very readable way. There's some chemistry and whatnot in there, but it is very approachable. I found after reading it, I had a much better understanding of WHY fond has flavor, or why as the title would suggest, old oil makes darker french fries or why, if you're cooking fries correctly, the potato doesn't actually have that much contact with the oil, despite being submerged (it cooks by steaming from the inside).
These are just basic examples, but like I said: my cooking as a whole really benefitted from knowing what was going on in the background.
i like this one: How to Read a French Fry
https://smile.amazon.com/How-Read-French-Fry-Intriguing/dp/0618379436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512065814&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+french+fry+food+science+book
My most work-packed subjects were definitely HL Math and HL Chem. I took computer science as an SL and that involved a lot of work, but I actually enjoyed that, so I wasn't that stressed out about it. Chem just seemed frustrating but I used a guide that the teacher recommended - I don't remember exactly what it was but it looked something similar to this. That being said, the teacher was great and now I'm actually a graduate student in chemistry. Math was frustrating because of the teacher and the book he used. In the end, I learned a decent amount, but definitely put a lot of work into it. It helped a lot with math classes in college though.
As far as languages go, it just depends on your school. Our school offered both Spanish and French, I took Spanish. If you do have questions about stuff like that, talk to your IB coordinator. At one point I decided that I would take English as my secondary language (English is not my native language), so the IB coordinator drew up a plan that took her like a week of how I was going to do independent studies of my native language, we were going to order books that covered the literature topics, etc. Eventually, she said, "Look, we can do this, and it'll take a lot of work or you can take English as your primary language and Spanish as your secondary and it'll be easier on both of us." I agreed with her and that's what happened - IB is stressful at that age as it is. If you have other questions, let me know, I'm glad to help as much as I can, though some of my information might be dated.
Having worked with five year olds, I can say that a lot of them would have understood this if you walked them through it slowly and made a few more analogies. I probably would have compared grains to stained glass or the outlined area of coloring books, depending on what the kid was familiar with. And I would have started with hardness, because a kid does understand that paper and noodles are bendy and knives and scissors are not. And the bonds between molecules are like kids holding hands in Red Rover, Red Rover. If the kid "coming over" is strong enough to break the hand holding, the line is cut.
But I just bought this book for a friend's toddler for Christmas.
Children's big problem with understanding things like this is connecting it to things they already know so it makes sense. We all get the original Niels Bohr description of an atom as looking like a solar system only because we've seen pictures of a solar system. But children can learn all kinds of things you'd normally allocate to older people.
I have a distinct memory of explaining to my sister that the Earth moved in four ways: it turns on its access and orbits the Sun, the Sun is in a turning galaxy, and the galaxy is moving through space. We were lying in our beds in our shared bedroom, and we each got our own room when I turned five, so I was that age or younger. Obviously I left off precession and Hubble expansion, but also obviously someone had explained that to me and I'd gotten it.