Customer Reviews

Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? (Robert E. Wells Science)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fantastic book, despite the nit-picking in one of the editorial reviews above.

This book really helps little kids come to grips with the idea of relative size. My preschool and kindergarten ESL students will founder when asked to understand/believe that a little patch of color on a globe is their country (Taiwan). Heck, kids this age don't even have much idea what a country is, let alone how big it is in relation to anything else. But this book sure set some lightbulbs to poppin' over kid's heads! That's how I measure the success of my classes and the materials I use in them, and by that measure, this book is a clear winner of the Darryl Award for Excellence in Children's Literature in the Field of Science and Mathematics!

The perfect book to partner with this book is the excellent Big Blue Whale by Nicola Davies (see my review of it). The focus Ms. Davies book is the whale itself. I found that using Ms. Davies' book before Mr. Wells' worked very well indeed.

This is one of my favorite books. Every class I've ever used it with, from 1st grade up to 5th, has been fascinated. The illustrations are eye catching and perfectly correspond to the text. Literature should be intergrated across the curriculum. This book can help introduce lessons on big numbers and place value. It can also be used to tie into science lessons, with the size of the solar system or animal species. All elementary classrooms should have a copy of this book. It is both educational and interesting.

I have used this book with several grade levels effectively. I originally purchased the book to give my third grade social studies class in an inner city New York school a concept of how high Mt. Everest is when they were studying China. They became so fascinated that we postponed the Himalaya lesson and ended up reading to the end of the book. They loved it! There are so many ways this book can be used with a classroom. It's a great way to involve children in the concept of estimating and they really get into guessing "how many" or trying to predict the very biggest thing there is. School age children enjoy the challenge of seeing how long it takes to count to 100 and then guessing how long it might take to reach a larger number. The children began asking "how long" to count to millions and billions if you counted 24 hours a day, creating a teachable moment when I helped them use math skills to discover the answer, which led to a discussion about setting up counting 'tag teams', if counting that long was feasible...the educational oportunities are endless, especially if you let the children's curiosity and creative thinking lead the lesson. All this was just from the first page of the book! I plan to purchase more books by this author in the hope they are equally thought-provoking.

Fourth graders find this book amazing when beginning a unit on the solar system. It helps them put the size of the Earth in perspective compared to the sun and other planets. I use an accompanying sheet that asks the children to number all of the objects from the book (a whale, the sun, etc..)in order according to size. Then they check their answers as I read the book aloud. It's a wonderful way to open the unit! Definitely get this book and try it!!

I found this book most interesting. It is amazing the way the "biggest" things are explained.I am giving this book to my 7year old great-grandson, who I am sure will appreciate it and be astonished by it. Thankyou to the Author Robert E. Wells.

I love this book! It really gives a true perspective on how big (and small) we are...and how enormous the universe is...and does it in a way that is relatable to children. I bought this book based on the positive reviews here and I'm so glad I did! Not only does my son learn about Earth, the sun, and the universe, but so do I. I think this book is brilliant! Educational without being stuffy.

t is a slim little book, a nicely illustrated picture on each and every page, and an amount of text appropriate for a preschool attention span. It begins by showing the relative size of a blue whale to other common animals (elephant, lion). With that as a jump point, each page takes us progressively larger relative to the current topic, from whales, to mountains, to planets, to suns, stars, on and on until we reach the size of the galaxy. So a hard to grasp concept of a galaxy's size is broken down into bite-sized pieces. This is a perfect introduction to comparative sizes, concepts of millions and billions (great intro to that on the first page) and brief astronomy for a young child.

This is geared towards ages 4-8. Based on our experiences today, I would say that is pretty accurate. My younger, 5 now, and enjoyed it, getting a lot out of it but not grasping it 100%. The pictures were engaging, and the text was approachable for his understanding level. His attention stayed put through the book. My older son, 8 now, and enjoyed it as well, listening to me read it and then grabbing it for a second read on his own, completely grasping the content and staring in wonder. He has a much firmer grasp on just how unimaginatively big a galaxy is after this book. The astronomy of course was more of a review for him, but that is great too, as we are off to build on that for him later on with more in depth astronomy, while my younger son will stop here for now with just the intro...

We love this book! My 5 and 3 year old boys are just fascinated by the increasing size comparisons. I love books that open their minds to understanding the world (And universe!) we live in and this one does just that in an easy to follow, fun way! Totally recommend it!

This book is about a big blue whale and other things that's bigger than the big blue whale.This book use very big numbers of things to add up to compare them with one really big thing.This book tells about the universe and how big they think it is.our galaxy is the biggest yet.There are other galaxies that are probaly a million times bigger than ours. A blue whale is the biggest animal on earth but what is the biggest galaxy in space?

This is fast-moving book that draws you along as you wonder what size comparison lies on the next page. The comparisons deal with many things...not just whales!