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Posted By: Michaela Religion and Digestion (not together) - 03/18/12 03:24 AM
I'm looking for suggestions for books/resources on religion (esp. Judaism, structure and philosophy, not holidays/practices) and also on Digestion and nutrient useage in the body/cell.

DS3 usually does best with non-fiction aimed at 8-10 yr olds, but likes simpler page layouts than most stuff in that age range has, where possible.

Thanks!

Posted By: Beckee Re: Religion and Digestion (not together) - 03/18/12 08:11 AM
Not at all sure you're going to be able to find what you're looking for. I teach middle school, and we don't get too much into the structure and philosophy. Most of the materials published even for that age group are pretty focused on holidays and practices.

That being said, I have a couple of recommendations. Carus publishing has a series called Calliope, about world history, aimed at middle school kids. They devote one issue per year to religion, so there's an issue for Judaism, one for Hinduism, etc. The Taoism is kind of difficult for kids to follow.

Carus also has a social studies magazine aimed at younger kids: Appleseeds. Carus offers an electronic subscription to their entire archive. I think it's about $30 for an individual. I pay more to subscribe for my whole school. The electronic archive does not include illustrations.

Now, when I have a fairly complex electronic text that I want struggling readers to have a shot at, I sometimes use a tool called LiveInk. LiveInk is a program that "parses" text passages.

According
to the Jewish Bible,
God made
a sacred agreement,
or covenant,
with Abraham.

God called Abraham
to leave his native land
near the Euphrates River
and become father
of a new nation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To discover
what
went on
in the human stomach,
Beaumont
tied food samples
to a silk string
and dropped them
through the hole
of St. Martin's stomach.

Then every hour
he pulled
the food out to see what
had happened.

Lost the indents when I pasted into this window, but you get the basic idea.

The theory goes that this not only helps readers get through a more complex text more easily, but that it helps them learn the text structures of sentences and improves their comprehension of passages that they later read in traditional paragraphs.

http://www.liveink.com/demo.php

http://www.cobblestonepub.com/cobbonline.html
Posted By: Michaela Re: Religion and Digestion (not together) - 03/18/12 09:59 PM
thanks! He's not reading yet, so it's still al about content and pitures... but I'll keep those tools in mind for sure!

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