Food Chain Game (put the food chain in order)

Animal Diet Game introduces the terms “herbivores,” “omnivores,” and “carnivores”

Producers, Consumers, Decomposers Game  introduces….well, “producers,” “consumers,” and “decomposers” (I hope you saw that one coming. )

You can see their full list of 2009 winners here: http://societyofschoollibrarians.webs.com/2009bookawards.htm.

I’m lucky; I’ve grown up watching ospreys (and bald eagles) diving for fish on our lake up north. But my favorite osprey moments have to be at our town’s local ballpark. For the last few years, a pair of ospreys have built a nest in the lights–and the roar of the crowds, the brat smoke, the lights, even that goofy announcer and his keyboard don’t seem to bother them one bit. Can you see them in this picture Mr. E took last summer?

SimplyScience blogged about our temperate forest book, saying, “Interactive and entertaining, A Temperate Food Chain provides a fun-filled trek though the forest habitat as it shows specific examples of energy flow.”

A Patchwork of Books read our savanna book and says, “The really cool thing about these books is how the reader gets to control the story, much like those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books we all love so much. You can choose what a particular animal eats next, leading to a new page filled with cool facts and brilliant photographs.”

Practically Paradise writes, “With 64 pages and ample end material, these are useful to my middle schoolers but are written at a fourth grade level intended for grades 3-5. These unusual titles demand reader interaction as you pick which tertiary consumer you will follow through the pages. (Think Choose Your Own Adventure for the food chain).”

And most recently, SimplyScience profiled our coral reef book, “This particular book is especially good because it includes so many invertebrates and other varied species that are not well-known to children within the complex ecosystem of a coral reef. Animals such as fan worms, corals, sawfish, parrotfish, moray eels, nudibranchs, and sea urchins are among the consumers, with the producers and well-explained phytoplankton included in the chain information.” She also includes two fun activities to do with our books:

“Activity 1

Create your own food chain by following one of your choosing from the book. Make a diagram to show the energy flow.

Activity 2

Look through the book and find the invertebrates. Choose one invertebrate and look it up. Find out in which group it is classified according to the phylum, class, or order. Then find other animals in each group.”

And finally, the nudibranchs. I’ll admit it, seeing the mention of the nudibranchs made me smile. We’ve had many an immature, silly joke around our house about nudibranchs since writing that book. (For the record, it’s pronounced “noo-di-braank” and they’re also known as “sea slugs”…which is kinda funny in its own right.) Just don’t get us started on African wild asses…

That’s right, last week a black bear wandered into the Marketplace in Hayward–a place we’ve shopped many a time while at the cabin. He lingered in the liquor section. Here’s the clip.

Of course, the joke around here is that this was the Hamm’s beer bear. Does anyone remember this guy? Or was this just a local commercial?

And now I’ve got that song stuck in my head…