Knights: the chivalry, the glory, the intensity, and the hard work
Little boys and even little girls are fascinated by these heroic figures from the past. However, who are the knights really, what is their job, what was it really like in the middle ages. These are questions that will encourage children to dive into a topic and explore all the different avenues and information to be found. Fly Guy creates a world of humor to companion the facts to inform children on history and other nonfiction topics.
Title: Fly Guy Presents Castles
Author: Tedd Arnold
Series: Scholastic Reader, level 2
Publisher: scholastic Inc.
Publication date: January 2017
Call #: 728.81 Arnold
ISBN: 9780545917384
Age range: 5-7 years
This humors and informational story finds the favorite character, Fly Guy, touring castles and discovering medieval times. Fly Guy, the pet fly, and Buzz, the human, discover the purpose of castles and a little about their history.
Tedd Arnold is an amazing author and illustrator for children.
He has combined the art of photography with illustrations to create an engaging tale to educate and inspire.
In Fly Guy presents Castles, the reader is introduced to timelines and photographs of real castles. Arnold also includes humous comments from the sideline cartoon characters as the learn more about castles, drawbridges, dungeons, kings, queens, and knights.
This book is a great introductory work to the topic of castles and medieval times. It will give the reader a starting point to asking more questions. Because this books is a level 2 reader the content is simple and a great read aloud choice for a preschool class desiring to know about castles.
DK Eyewitness: Knights by Christopher Gravett is an excellent companion book to go along with Fly Guy. It is a resource for the children to study the illustrations and photographs on their own. It also provides a resource to ask more questions. Dk Eyewitness: Knights includes maps, charts, photographs, timelines and cutaway illustrations.
I love a good STEM project to go along with a book, giving the information a hands on learning approach. Creating your own catapult or castle are great ways to apply engineering and learning.
Little Bins Little Hands:
An instructional video and blog about making popsicle catapults.
https://littlebinsforlittlehands.com/popsicle-stick-catapult-kids-stem-activity/
Other ideas for activities to encourage preschoolers to apply their learning on castles are creating a coat of arms, lancing with pool noodles, or building a castle out of various objects (brown paper bags, blocks, cereal boxes, magnet tiles). The ideas are endless and this fascinating period with its many different topic avenues, will capture the attention of any child.
Campanion Books:
I love Fly Guy! This series is always my go to when recommending some easy readers titles. I also love your idea about adding a STEM activity along with it. Here are some other great STEM projects books: Steam Kids: 50+ Science / Technology / Engineering / Art / Math Hands-On Projects for Kids by Anne Carey and STEAM Lab for Kids: 52 Creative Hands-On Projects for Exploring Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math by Liz Lee Heinecke.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even know this book existed! I have so many kids that come into the library that love Fly Guy, he's just so popular. Now I have a non-fiction option to give them. This is just great. Castles are always pretty fascinating, at least to me. I think some kids still find them so. I do know that they love to make the catapults, and that was a great addition to adding to reading this book.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that you could do as a STEAM project to go along with it, is CubeeCraft or other paper craft projects. There are some great print outs available online with a quick search. Print it out on card stock and let them build their very own castles!