Margaret Hynes

'The Best Book of' picture book series, brings us 'Early People.' This is an informative picture book helps teach young children how we evolved into what we are today. It is a very detailed book, that if a young child finds interesting, can gain a lot of scientific facts about how and when we came to be. We can see how, through evolution, we used our larger brains to survive better than Homo erectus or Neanderthals ever could. With creative and more complex ways of thinking, the use of fire show more and the creation of tools with our opposable thumbs, we got past the Ice Age, and have grown from a few million to 7 billion people across the globe as Homo Sapiens. show less

This is a very good picture book to explain the prehistory of human life to very young children. A very minor criticism is that it did not keep to chronological order. The pages describing beginning civilizations starting 8,000 years ago should have come after the beginning of farming approximately 11,000 ago and the Bronze Age, 5,500 years ago. Otherwise, the book was very interesting and informative to the children.

interesting book on extreme weather trends and historical occurrences, and just out right crazy things: pink snowstorm?! Book has great pictures, maps and charts for visual stimulation.
Classroom:
Great book for weather patterns and trends, as well as anomalies that have occurred. I think it would be fun to create a "tornado" in the classroom using 2 liter bottles and glitter water.

The Rocks & Fossils book was very interesting. I liked how it explained not only what rocks are, but how they are made and the different kinds. The sections on Erosion and Weathering of rocks was interesting to see how rocks can change over time. Chapter 3 Records in Rocks was interesting to learn about all the different things that have been found preserved in rocks. I never knew plants could be preserved as fossils. The section on humans showed that fossils have helped scientist to date show more the remains of human bones found. Also, footprints made in cooled lava showed early humans walking on two feet. show less