推荐"Who Was"少儿系列书
黄敏-2432 06/09 83814.0/1
以下是我于2012年在PCE Club(www.pceclub.org)网上论坛的分享：
Min Huang
Aug 26, 2012
This evening, I turned on my computer and saw the news
Neil Armstrong, 1st man on the moon, dies
Believe it or not, in the past two nights, I have been reading “Who is Neil Armstrong?“ book with my 9 years old son, so when I saw this news, I immediately told my son, he rushed to the computer and read the news(he even read the comments too ). I am sure he did not read the whole story, but he showed the interest to the news because we were in the middle of trying to finish reading book about Neil Armstrong. This evening, we finally finished reading this book.
Through this book, both my son and myself start to learn a lot interesting facts and fascinating journey about Neil Armstrong’s life.
Neil’s childhood:
“Neil was fascinated about airplanes and flying when he was little boy. He read airplane magazines; he drew detailed sketches of his favorite planes.
As a teenager, Neil was determined to fly, in order to pay for flying lesson, he mowed the lawn for the cemetery; he helped bake doughnuts at a doughnut company.
Neil wasn’t a top student, but he was better than average. From the time he learned to read, he loved books. In his first year of elementary school, he read more than a hundred. In high school, his favorite subjects were science and math. He wanted to go on to college; he wanted to learn more about planes and how they flew.”
History figures:
The book has some interesting short diversions about The Wright Brothers and Charles Lindbergh,
History events:
The Korean War had broken out. Neil was sent to Korean as pilot. His job was to bomb enemy’s bridges and railroads.
This book has short diversions about The Korean War, The World War II, The Cold War, the space race between Soviet Union and United States.
Geography:
There are some maps in this book, so we learn the geography of China, North Korean, South Korean, Japan, Pacific Ocean, United States. Houston where NASA located, Florida Cape Canaveral where the spacecraft were launched from.
Science:
This book has detailed how Apollo 11 works, the structures of SATURN V. Command Module, 11 stages to the moon.
Inspiration:
The moment whole world was watching – the first man ever to walk on the moon, and his famous words “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”
I would like to introduce and share my experience and thoughts on reading “Who Was” books series with my son.
“Who Was” books series is about the lives of world’s greatest peoples who had changed the way we live. These illustrated biographies provide a lot of great information about fascinating figures in history (and current figures too!) while still providing entertainment through the short chapters and illustrations. They are great books for young readers, they are also wonderful for parents read with their children together.
From all the “Who Was” series books I have read, I have come to a conclusion that the motivation for children to learn is coming from their strong curiosity and interest. We should cultivate their curiosity and interest with health soil. As Asian parents, sometime we put too much emphasis on the test score, so we push and demand them to get all A’s, and lose the sight of what is the real purpose of learning.
The reason I really like to read “Who Was” series books together with my son is that, from the books, firstly we can learn history, geography, and science together. So that when my son starts to learn these subjects at the school, he would be more interested at these subjects and facts—history is no longer just memorizing event timeline table, geography is no longer just how many continents and how many countries, there are interesting events and fascinating people behind it.
A lot of children lost interest of studying because they are under the perception (more from their parents) that studying = doing homework and get all A’s, no wonder our children feel study are too boring. Through reading these books, I want my son to understand that learning is not limited to doing the homework and getting the good test results, the real meaning of learning is to gain the knowledge and wisdom that would enrich our lives and make our lives more enjoyable and help us to develop our full potential so that we can use our talents to help others. To my view, intellectual curiosity and love of learning is one of the essential elements to have a happy and fulfill life.
Secondly, we try to instill our good values to our children, but too often our kids feel we are lecturing them, so I thought children would learn the best from real people’s story. Children’s maturity is developed through their experience and thinking, when children encountered the obstacles in their lives, they could unconsciously relate their situations to the stories they have been reading and gain the courage and willpower to overcome obstacles.
At beginning, very few kids would voluntarily like to read these type of books(励志书）, so I would read with my son when he is young and would still like me to read with him, once it becomes the habit and he finds it interesting, he will start to read by himself.
Below are some examples about “Who Was” series books
Who Was Amelia Earhart?
Who Is Neil Armstrong?
Who Was Walt Disney?
Who Was Steve Jobs?
Who Was Anne Frank?
Who Was Helen Keller?
Who Was Thomas Alva Edison?
Who Was Leonardo da Vinci?
Who Was Ben Franklin?
Who Was Marco Polo?
Who Was Harry Houdini?
Who Was Franklin Roosevelt?
Who Was Rosa Parks?
and many more, below is the link
I highly recommend these books.
