Entering Grade 6

Science

Click on the cover art to order the title from Amazon.
All in a Drop: How Antony van Leeuwenhoek Discovered an Invisible World by Lori Alexander
Using the qualities of curiosity, ingenuity and persistence, Antony van Leeuwenhoek experimented with lenses to create microscopes and discovered a world of tiny creatures that could not be seen with the naked eye. This merchant, with no scientific education, then had to convince the scholars of the day that his amazing discovery was real. (nonfiction)
Junk Drawer Engineering: 25 Construction Challenges That Won't Cost a Thing by Bobby Mercer
Each hands-on project in the book requires the reader to come up with a specific solution to the problem. (nonfiction)
Lab for Kids series by Quarry Books
Animation Lab for Kids: Fun Projects for Visual Storytelling, and Making Art Move by Laura Bellmont and Emily Brink
How to tell stories with a variety of animation techniques, including flipbooks, stop-motion, and more. Includes conceptualizing, designing, and scripting a film to basic tools, supplies, adding sound, and examples from famous animators. (nonfiction)
Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose
The story of one amazing bird, banded in 1995, as part of a study of the endangered rufa red knots, that migrated 9,000 miles twice a year for twenty years. (nonfiction)
More Deadly than War by Kenneth C. Davis
A worldwide pandemic in 1918, influenza impacted the world much as Covid-19 is doing today. This book uses photographs, period documents and interviews with researchers and survivors to show how the virus combined with World War I to cause devastation around the globe. (nonfiction)
Poop Detectives: Working Dogs in the Field by Ginger Wadsworth
Scientists can learn a lot about endangered animals from their scat, located by specially trained dogs, without disturbing or harming the animals. (nonfiction)
Science Comics: Coral Reefs: Cities of the Ocean by Maris Wicks
This absorbing look at ocean science covers the biology of coral reefs as well as their ecological importance. (nonfiction in a graphic novel format)
Scientists in the Field series by various authors, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion
by Loree Griffin Burns
What happens when shipping containers spill thousands of Nike sneakers or rubber ducks into the ocean? Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer decides to investigate how trash travels and how it damages fragile ocean ecosystems on the way. (nonfiction)
Smithsonian Maker Lab series
Tech Lab: Awesome Builds for Smart Makers by Jack Challoner
Keep your siblings out of your room with a brilliant bedroom alarm, power a propellor motorboat, make a thermoelectric phone charger, build a set of speakers, construct a crane and more by following step-by-step instructions and using affordable equipment. (nonfiction)
Strange, Unusual, Gross & Cool Animals by Animal Planet
Includes weird animals like the common potoo, the blobfish and the naked mole rat. (nonfiction)
The Triumphant Tale of the House Sparrow by Jan Thornhill
One of the most adaptable birds on Earth, house sparrows took advantage of humans' love for grains and eventually became such a poacher of human food, bounties were paid to get rid of them. Discover how this bird was involved in Ancient Egyptian rituals, stowed away aboard Roman vessels, and was targeted for elimination in the 1950s by Chairman Mao, leader of China. (nonfiction)