Review: Animalogy: Animal Analogies

   Teaching critical thinking skills begins early, and Animalogy:  Animal Analogies by Marianne Berkes, illustrated by Cathy Morrison, is a fun way to introduce analogies to young kids.  Sylvan-Dell publishes some of the finest books on the market for both classroom and home reading.  Animalogy will keep kids interested and intrigued as they study the beautifully detailed illustrations of animals, insects, fish, birds, and reptiles in their natural habitats.  Learning analogies will help teach them to think critically, compare and contrast, and classify.

   The back section of the book "For Creative Minds" explores analogies further and provides more practice working with them as well as more activities doing animal classification.  Kids will learn about many animal features such as body parts, size, sounds, actions, and skin coverings.  This book cleverly incorporates language arts, science, and nature study flawlessly.  Lots of new vocabulary is introduced as well.

   One fun part of this book is that it is written in rhyme, which my youngest children really enjoy.  Rhyming helps them memorize text, and this book would be great for dictation or recitation:  "Robin is to wing, as goldfish is to fin.  Beaver is to build as spider is to spin."

   To top it all off, Sylvan Dell offers free online activities at http://www.sylvandellpublishing.com/ to accompany this book and others (a home educator's favorite thing = freebies!)  Sylvan Dell books pack in so much learning, that you will find yourself revisiting them again and again (we do.)  I would have loved to have them for my classroom when I was teaching outside the home.

   Animalogy will be read many times in our homeschool.  A+

{The publisher has generously provided me with a copy of this book for my honest review.}