As my children are growing, my thoughts towards screens and digital consumption are changing. Just as with physical books and learning activities, I do expect their time to not be spent on twaddle, or what I call brain candy. We were so pleased to see that the multi-media titles we received to review from Weigl Publishers definitely does not fall into that category. Each of the books we reviewed was educational and well-done.
After looking at their online catalog, I have some selections in mind for us to use. We did not get to pick our books, but we were not disappointed. We received pdf/digital copies of A Lion’s World, There Once Was a Cowpoke Who Swallowed an Ant, and Glaciers. Many of these are geared toward lower-elementary age children. The Glaciers book, from the Earth’s Water series, is good for older-elementary age children. There are fiction and non-fiction titles. You’ll even find some in Spanish and/or Arabic. Those would be a great resource to go along with foreign language studies for any age.
Our youngest son, 8 years old, chose to read A Lion’s World first. We clicked the link within the pdf that brought us to the webpage to enter the code from inside the book. This brought us to a question that could only be answered by information from within the book itself. These steps my son needed my help for. After that, he took over. The words were simple; a single sentence to a page. Just perfect for him to read by himself. Of course, he preferred it when the book was read to him.
There Once Was a Cowpoke Who Swallowed an Ant is a delightful fiction story. Our older son helped his younger brother get started with this one. He found it quite easy to click the link and enter the code. By the time they were on page 4, we all had come into the room to enjoy the story, too. The text was highlighted page by page as it was read. I like to think this helps my young readers to read along, but this might be wishful thinking. With this story especially, they were just entertained. Then, one of my older daughters pulled out our copy of a classic that this story reminded them of. These younger children had not heard the classic (I’ve failed them!). This title has been repeated more than the other two; it’s just so fun!
Do you see the scale in that cover photo? Those are people in a small boat in front of a glacier. Yes, they are huge. That is only one of the things my middle children learned about glaciers. Glaciers, from the Earth’s Water series is from Lightbox, an imprint of Weigl Publishers. These are tied to core standards for research and learning. There are several interactive features throughout the book. The videos, which opened in a small pop-up style window (I did not have to turn on pop-ups for this feature to work – yay!), were short and interesting. We did experience some troubles with them continuing to play (or play again) when we tried to access a different feature on the same page. Each of this opens in its own window from the book. This made it easy to close what was not needed. We first read through the book with no additional features, just me reading from the screen. We discussed the photos and illustrations a little. Then, I turned them loose with all the features. Then, I showed them printouts. This made things a little less fun, but I let them work together.
All in all, this was a fun short unit for science. We will probably do the others in the Earth’s Water series. There are other titles that I could see us using, too. My only concern is how much is taught against what we believe. We come to expect – and teach about the differences, in science. And there were some. But not enough to keep from using the rest of this series with my older elementary children. Of all the titles I saw when exploring the Weigl Publishing website, the science (and geography – which is science, right?) are the ones I am most excited to explore.
To read the other reviews, simply click the image below.
