The Fort on Fourth Street: A Story about the Six Simple Machines

by Lois Spangler, Christina Wald

Overview

When a young child decides to build a fort in the backyard, Grandpa comes forward to help. But they can’t do it alone—they get help from the six simple machines: lever, pulley, inclined plane, wheel and axle, screw, and wedge. Told in cumulative rhyme, similar to The House That Jack Built, readers follow the building process to completion and discover the surprise reason it was built. This fictional story with rhyming text includes a 4-page For Creative Minds section in the back of the book and a 34-page cross-curricular Teaching Activity Guide online. The Fort on Fourth Street is vetted by experts and designed to encourage parental engagement. Its extensive back matter helps teachers with time-saving lesson ideas, provides extensions for science, math, and social studies units, and uses inquiry-based learning to help build critical thinking skills in young readers. The Spanish translation supports ELL and dual-language programs. The enhanced ebook reads aloud in both English and Spanish with word highlighting and audio speed control to promote oral language skills, fluency, pronunciation, text engagement, and reading comprehension.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607186441
Publisher:	Arbordale Publishing
Publication date:	08/10/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	10 MB
Age Range:	4 - 9 Years

About the Author

Lois Spangler is an accomplished author and educator who has received many distinguished awards for her classroom work during her 32-year career. In addition to her personal achievements, she has worked with students to help them earn both state and national awards from numerous organizations including NASA, Toshiba and the NSTA. Although The Fort on Fourth Street is Lois's debut picture book, she has written, edited and managed more than 30 books including 6 ancillary science books for Scott Foresman Science. As an author and education expert, she has served on various committees and boards, including as a judge for the NSTA's ExploraVision National Science Competition and the NSF's Selection Committee for the "PAEMST." Visit her website: http://www.edconnectionsllc.com/Ed_Connections_LLC/Home.html

In addition to Cash Kat, Christina Wald has illustrated Fibonacci Zoo, A Cool Summer Tail, A Warm Winter Tail, Habitat Spy, Little Red Bat, and Henry the Impatient Heron for Arbordale. She also enjoys illustrating a wide variety of toys, games, books, and magazines. From a book that featured hundreds of animals on each page (Look, Find, and Learn: Animals of the World) to games including the Star Wars role playing game series, every assignment covers something new and exciting. In recent years, she has illustrated tons of different animals for books and other publications. Christina enjoys the research aspect of such projects, saying that each new book is a fascinating new learning experience. She often integrates travel to research for her illustrations. She lives in Ohio with her husband and three cats. Visit Christina's website: http://www.christinawald.com/

Editorial Reviews

" It's a short but colorful book, easy to read, and a useful classroom springboard for introducing some basic concepts of mechanics using commonly found tools. - Science Books & Films

From the Publisher

2013-09-01
An introduction to simple machines that goes wrong at "Fort" and just gets worse. Wedging the informational content into uncommonly awful verse ("These are the wheels and axles / that move my wagon without hassles"), a young narrator describes each step in the construction of said "fort" (actually, in the bland illustrations, an elaborately designed playhouse). In doing so, the book demonstrates each of six simple machines, mostly tools, in action, though not always in the right order or with much sense to their use. Grandpa, who furnishes most of the labor, really should be levering up rocks to clear the site before, not after, the project's sawn boards have been assembled, for instance. Moreover, the tools on display include a never-seen-in-use hammer and spirit level, plus a pulley that would be useful for a treehouse but is nonsensical here: "This is the pulley that brings up the treats, / so yummy and sweet that we love to eat." Looking much larger inside than out in final views, the finished building is furnished as a science lab and in a shocking (shocking) denouement, the owner turns out to be a girl. A visual quiz, explanatory notes and other pedagogical backmatter fill the closing pages. Readers will be "plane" inclined to ditch this screw-up. (Informational picture book. 7-9)

Kirkus Reviews