What's New at the Zoo? An Animal Adding Adventure

by Suzanne Slade, Joan Waites (Illustrator)

Overview

Come along on an animal adding adventure. Add baby animals to the adults to see how many there are all together. And while you are at it, learn what some of the zoo animals eat or what the baby animals are called. Follow the lost red balloon as it soars through the zoo. At the end of the day, count up all the animals you have seen. The “For Creative Minds” educational section includes: How many animals do you see?, Tens make friends, Adding by columns, Fact families, Food for thought, Animal matching activity, and Animal classes. This nonfiction picture book with a cuddle factor and rhyming text includes a 4-page For Creative Minds section in the back of the book and a 50-page cross-curricular Teaching Activity Guide online. What's New at the Zoo? 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 interactive 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:	9781607180388
Publisher:	Arbordale Publishing
Publication date:	07/10/2009
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	268,695
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.30(d)
Lexile:	AD530L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Suzanne Slade is the award-winning author of over 80 books for children including The Great Divide, Multiply on the Fly, What's the Difference?, What's New at the Zoo?, and Animals are Sleeping for Arbordale. Her works include picture books, biographies, as well as many non-fiction titles about animals, sports, and nature. One of her favorite parts of the writing process is researching and learning new things. Suzanne lives near Chicago with her husband, Mike, two children, and their tiny dog, Corduroy. She enjoys visiting schools in-person or during her live virtual author visits. Visit Suzanne's website: http://www.suzanneslade.com/suzanneslade/Welcome.html

Joan Waites (What's the Difference? and What's New at the Zoo?) has been a freelance illustrator for the past 18 years. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from DeSales University in 1982. Employment followed for 15 years as a neo-natal intensive care nurse in Philadelphia and Washington DC, while she simultaneously returned to college to study illustration and launch her freelance career. In addition to What's the Difference? and What's New at the Zoo?, Joan has illustrated nearly 40 books for the educational and trade marketplace. She is also an adjunt faculty member of The Corcoran Museum School of Art and Design in Washington, DC, where she teaches various children's classes for the college's "Aspiring Artists" program. Visit Joan's website: http://www.joanwaites.com/

Editorial Reviews

"Educational purpose takes the front seat here, but rests lightly enough on the rhymed text and animal pictures to remain more a game than a chore. - Booklist

From the Publisher

K-Gr 1—An attractive and instructive picture book. On each spread, a rich, full-bleed watercolor painting is accompanied by a rhyming stanza that encourages readers to add up the number of baby and adult zoo animals. The endearing scenes are framed in a bold pattern formed from a detail within the picture itself, to a very pleasing effect. A few zoological terms are deftly slipped into the text. Slade's rhymes are refreshingly successful; they do not succumb to the trap of contrived language, as so often happens with rhyming. An appended section features a composite of all the spreads, allowing kids to review the equations simultaneously; this is followed by further math exercises and an activity for matching facts to the animal babies highlighted in the book. This cheerful package of images and information delivers intellectual nourishment in the guise of a tasty treat for the eyes. It's a fun introduction to early math skills and basic animal facts.—Alyson Low, Fayetteville Public Library, AR

School Library Journal

On a visit to the zoo, a young boy counts the animal babies and parents in each enclosure, the accompanying rhyme encouraging readers to do the math along with him. "Two tiny peachicks / gather round peahen. / Add one papa peacock. / How many in the pen?" Slade slyly sneaks in some great vocabulary, working the animal baby names into each verse. Equations appear on the corner of each page. Waites provides plenty of details-the borders of each spread are elaborately decorated, while the illustrations arrange the animals naturally (if rather stiffly), resulting in some challenges in spotting each critter. A final spread encourages readers to count how many animals they saw in all at the zoo. Backmatter teaches two methods for adding all the numbers, a section about fact families and a matching game wherein readers can test their memories of baby names against some paragraphs of information about each animal's development. The solid math and informative backmatter make this a worthwhile addition to libraries and math programs. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews