With our book recommendations, we want to help you spark a conversation that leads children to discover STEM in their everyday lives. Have the courage to go beyond the obvious STEM connections and embrace all questions that may come out of your discussion with the children.
STEM literacy links can also be viewed using the Visual book browser.
When a thirsty crow can’t get its beak inside a pitcher to drink the water, it collects pebbles and drops them into the pitcher. Once the water level has risen to the top, the clever crow finally manages to quench its thirst, proving that necessity is indeed the mother of invention…
Mr Archimedes’ bath overflows when he and his friends hop in, so he starts taking measurements and doing experiments to try and understand why. When Mr Archimedes and the animals finally work out that they all together cause the overflow, instead of fixing the problem, they revel in their power and keep hopping in and out to make the water levels rise and fall again and again.
Use this book as a starting point for your next compost project in your service. If you don’t have the possibility to make a compost in your service let the children draw their own compost stew. What ingredients can and can’t they put into a compost? Why? What do they think happens…
‘The day the crayons quit’ is a wonderful starting point to talk about colours and what they mean to the children. Take out a box of crayons and ask the children about their favourite colour. Are there any rules about which colour should be used for certain things? Which colour would they use for something hot? Which for something cold? Can animals see colours, too?
A gentle story about friendship and how differences and abilities enrich our lives. The author Aura Parker, takes young readers to a busy bug school where we meet Heidi, a stick insect who is long and tall and camouflages very well with the trees, almost too well, as no one else notices her at first…
In the face of the stresses and uncertainties of the current world, educators and carers can help children to learn about techniques and strategies to release stress and to calm the body and mind.
Mr Bear Branches is a thinker, Lintfrey Longfellow is a dreamer and they are the very best of friends. Mr Bear Branches explains Lintfrey all about condensation and evaporation. But then he realises that exploring the wonders of the natural world can be magical, too…
This lovely story offers a great opportunity to explore relationships, family, love and being different alongside an abundance of STEM topics, such as shapes and sizes, engineering, design and sustainability. We don’t usually think of engineering as an expression of love, do we? What if everything in the world was built to make others happy? Can you love…
Play a little guessing game as you’re shown just the tails of a number of insects alongside descriptions of their attributes, behaviours, habitats and movements. How many insects can the children recognise…
This lovely story about finding the balance of trying to fit in while accepting your differences is a great starting point for discussing animal and human behaviours. Do cats and dogs like being in the water? Which animals like being in water? Which animals climb trees? Do you like being in the water? Do you sometimes feel different from…
