Sun and Water Cycle Books and Some General Weather Books

 I'll be posting a little bit about our Adventures With Weather soon, but in the meantime, here are the books we've read so far.  We started with the sun and the water cycle.  The best book we've read about the water cycle for little kids is Once There Was a Raindrop by Judith Anderson and Mike Gordon.  Loved it.  Great length, good info, good illustrations.  Solid choice.

 I Call It Sky said Will C. Howell is a pretty, short, and well-done picture book with little verses about all the different kinds of winds; breezes, gusts, etc.  We all liked it but it was a "fun" book, not particularly educational.

 Sun and Us by Jillian Powell was excellent.  It has a bunch of good facts about the sun with good illustrations that kept my kids' interests.  Great overview about the sun.

 Weather Detectives by Mark Eubank jumped around too much for me, so I've used it as a reference for experiment ideas but haven't read it to the kids.  It has a lot of great experiments!

 Miss Mingo Weathers the Storm by Jamie Harper is really cute.  The shy little groundhog gets put on the spot and tries to predict the weather for the hike to uphold groundhogs' reputations as weather-predictors.  Of course, he gets it wrong, and snippy little alligator continues to remind him of his error.  There is a lot of weather information throughout, mostly about how animals deal with the weather.  We all really liked it.

 Weather by Seymour Simon is one of my very favorite weather books that I've read for this unit.  However, it was too advanced for my kids.  I tried to read a little of it to them and lost their interest pretty quickly.  However, if you are doing a weather unit with older elementary kids, check this out!

 GOLD STAR BOOK!  This book is so fabulous.  The photography alone would sell the book, but the information is presented equally well and in just the right amounts for kids.  Several properties of water are explained and the general ideas of condensation and evaporation are illustrated.  The kids and I had a great discussion prompted by reading this book, and because of that, it took about twice the amount of time to read it than I had expected.  I didn't mind.  :)

You can tell from the title what this book is about.  A Drop Around the World by Barbara Shaw McKinney follows a drop of water through evaporation and condensation and purification, from being rain to being snow, to getting drank.  Very nice.

 Learning Ladders: Weather by World Book is a great overview for little kids.  It briefly explains what weather is and how it affects the seasons.  We read it very first and it was a great place to start.

Rain by Kay Davies and Wendy Oldfield was another great book for little kids.  Good pics and good information.  We read it on the day I introduced the water cycle and it was perfect.

Wild About Weather by Ed Brotak is our major text.  We've been reading it aloud and it is interesting and engaging, organized well, and packed with fun experiments.  Love it.  Gold Star Book!