Synopsis
Investigates science through a variety of activities that can be performed while waiting in restaurants, using such items as eating utensils, straws, salt and pepper, napkins, and place mats.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1996-11-01 | | Illustrator: | Carol Chapin, Charles J. Nappa | | Edition Description: | Illustrated |
| Size | | Length: | 139 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in | | Width: | 7.5 in | | Thickness: | 0.5 in | | Weight: | 9.6 oz |
Publisher's Note
A Smorgasbord of chemistry and physics activities kids can play around mealtime! Ever wish you could give fidgety kids something constructive to do just before mealtime? This ingenious book, filled with entertaining, educational activities, will not only keep them busy, but will teach them about science. In fact, these activities for home, restaurants, school, or anywhere else that food is served, are so captivating, you'll want to join in the fun yourself! Children ages 8 and up will delight in such activities as: Launching straw wrapper rockets; Making drinking glasses sing; Reading tea leaves; competing in fork Olympics. As you and your children have fun with each activity--50 in all--they will be learning the basic concepts of science, such as force and friction; air pressure; gravity; mass, and inertia; sound and vibration; light and optics; thermodynamics; and more. All activities can be done while children wait for meals to be served and require only simple items found on most tables, like straws, napkins, place mats, forks, salt, sugar, drinking glasses and carbonated beverages. Each activity comes with step-by-step instructions, how-to illustrations, helpful hints, and simple explanations of the scientific theory, principle, or law behind it. Intriguing sidebars on science history and invention trivia are sprinkled throughout, making the book a fascinating browse even if it's not mealtime.
Parents and kids can choose from 50 tested-and-proven activities that require only common food-related items. Each activity includes step-by-step instructions and illustrations, helpful hints and a real-world explanation of the relevant theory, principle, or law behind the activity. 100 illustrations.
Industry Reviews
Gr 5-8 Having youngsters learn basic science while they wait for their pizza, pasta, or burger to arrive is an attractive idea. This collection of experiments uses a variety of materials found in restaurants from straws to beverages to spoons, napkins, water glasses, and salt shakers. The projects cover a wide range of possibilities from creating an optical illusion using a rolled-up place mat, to making exploding straws, to extinguishing a candle with carbon dioxide from soda. Brief histories of restaurants and certain foods such as potato chips, Fig Newtons, and ice cream are provided. Although the format is spacious, the illustrations appear to be computer clip art and the same images are repeated several times throughout the text. Unfortunately, the only safety precaution is buried in the section about candles. In addition, some of the materials needed for the projects are poorly chosen (beer and matchboxes). Vickie Cobb's Science Experiments You Can Eat (HarperCollins, 1984) and Nancy Blakey's Lotions, Potions, and Slime (Tricycle, 1996) are better selections for libraries. Kathryn Kosiorek, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brooklyn, OH
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