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If My Mom Were A Platypus Review by Rebecca Collier

Dia L. Michaels
Science Naturally
1-866-SCI-9876 (1-866-724-9876)
725 Eighth Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
https://www.sciencenaturally.com/

My children love science. They love to read anything they can about any type of science. If My Mom Were A Platypus is a sixty-four page, full color paperback book about mammal babies and their mothers. This book is designed for children ages eight through twelve. It covers a variety of different mammals such as the platypus, the giraffe, the polar bear, and the human. In total there are fourteen different mammals covered in the book. Each description of the animal is written from the baby’s point of view. It covers topics such as how the animal was born, how the animal grows after it is born, what the animal eats, and a fascinating fact about the animal. The book costs $12.95 and is also available in Spanish, Hebrew, and Dutch.

Included with this book, are three different types of downloadable PDF files available for free on the website. The activity guide gives the parent or teacher ideas on how to make each story come to life. There are different suggestions for learning through different subjects such as having your child find all of the parts of speech in a section, taking a virtual field trip to Africa, and doing a research project on an animal. There are also things to explore animal by animal such as going on an elephant walk, making a fruit salad, and finding and taking your pulse. The second PDF file is a hands on demonstration file. It gives you everything you need to know how to do an activity or craft that is mentioned in the activity guide. The third file is a one page mammal biodiversity table.

We used this book in our homeschool during our science class. We read one story out loud each day. It took us a little over two weeks to study all of the different mammals. After we read the story, we would discuss anything new that my eight, ten, or twelve year old learned in the story. After we discussed the story, my children and I would look at the activity that matches up to the mammal we just read about. My ten and twelve year old loved doing the hands on activities. Their favorite was the whale blubber activity.

This book is a great little book that can be used in a school or homeschool. I liked that the illustrations were in color. I thought the author did a great job of describing each mammal. She gave many facts on each mammal and it kept my child’s attention. Another thing I liked is that the stories were not long and drawn out. They were short and got right to the point. The activities were fairly simple and used things that we already had or could be bought from the store easily. Being a Christian, we do try to stay away from anything that mentions evolution. There is only one page in the hands on file that mentions evolution. The child is to “create” their own mammal which in turn addresses the concept of evolution.  The book itself does not mention any evolution. There is emphasis on each mammal drinking milk from their mother’s nipple. For my family, this is not a big deal since my children learned about breastfeeding when I had my youngest child.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book to my children. We learned a lot of interesting new facts from the book. My children had fun doing all of the activities. This is a great book to have while studying about mammals during science class.



Product review by Rebecca Collier, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, May, 2014

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