Field Trip: My Trip to the Science Museum by Mercer Mayer

IT WAS SCIENCE DAY AND MY CLASS TOOK THE BUS TO THE SCIENCE MUSEUM.

A science museum, with its exciting exhibits and its happy hands-on science activities is like an educational theme park, and Little Critter and his crew are full of curiosity about what they can see and do.

And they are in luck. Their tour will be hosted by none other than Dr. Neil DaBison, the famous television science celebrity. Their teacher Miss Kitty and Dr. DaBison treat them to activities like making a potato battery, touching a glop of plasma. Then Miss Kitty and Dr. DaBison bravely touch the Van de Graaff generator, which makes their hair stand straight up.

THEY LOOKED SO SILLY!

But there's more! There is the planetarium show, where they feel as if they are flying through space and circling the planets themselves and see what must be billions of stars. Then the kids have lunch aboard a model of the Space Shuttle.

Finally it is time to tell Dr. DaBison goodbye and get in line up to climb back on the bus for what now seems like a very slow and short trip through space back to their school. But Little Critter is inspired.

"I WANT TO GROW UP TO BE YOU, DR. DA BISON. YOU HAVE THE BEST TOYS IN THE UNIVERSE!"

Mercer Mayer's latest Little Critter tale, Little Critter: My Trip to the Science Museum (Harper Festival, 2017) is the perfect book to prepare preschoolers and lower primary students for a museum field trip. Mercer Mayer's illustrations of "Dr. DaBison" (a.k.a the real Neil deGrasse Tyson) are quite skilled caricatures, making the famous PBS star scientist easily recognizable to savvy youngsters, and this adventure featuring Mayer's famous character gives kids a realistic look at what they can see and do at a science museum.

Strange Sights! My Weird School Goes to the Museum by Dan Gutman

"

"My name is Andrea and I love school.

I love tests. I love homework. I love teachers, and teachers love me.

Who wouldn't want to be teacher's pet?"

A. J. wouldn't. His ambition is to be class clown, and in that he's already been notably successful.

Andrea doesn't understand how A.J. qualified as "Talented and Gifted," but there he is, paired with her for a special tour of the art museum.

Ugh. It's bad enough to have to put up with A.J.'s silly shenanigans, but to make it worse, the rest of the class say they must be in LOVE! (Andrea thinks they are, but A.J. just doesn't know it--yet!)

At the museum, their personal guide Mr. Meezer has been informed that one of them may not be the well behaved. When A.J. persists in calling their guide "Mr. Geezer," Andrea is sure he'll know which one of them is the one prone to mischief.

But it doesn't work out that way. In the sculpture section, A.J. reacts to a nude statue.

"I can see his butt!" A. J. whispers.

"We're looking at fine art and all you can see is a BUTT?" Andrea protests.

"YOUNG LADY!" says Mr. Meezer. "You are being very immature!"

Andrea tries to explain.

"But...but... but..." she stammers.

"I TOLD you not to say that!" says Mr. Meezer.

Mr. Meezer's got it all wrong. Clearly he thinks Andrea is the misbehaving one of the pair, and as the tour goes on, it only gets worse, and finally it is Andrea who gets sent back early to Ella Mentary School in disgrace. She is humiliated. Will she lose her status as teacher's pet?

But luckily, A. J. is more worried about losing his status as class clown and cheerfully takes the rap for her, in Dan Gutman's latest in series, My Weird School Goes to the Museum (I Can Read Level 2) (HarperCollins, 2016). There's some witty wordplay and a bit of boy-girl humor in this independent reader, with Jim Paillot's jolly digital illustrations of funny field trip doings to elaborate Gutman's narrative. This more advanced easy reader is good for individualized independent reading practice and also serves as an introduction to Gutman's beginning chapter books in his My Weird School Daze 12-Book Box Set: Books 1-12. Dan Gutman is also the notable author of two very popular middle reader series, his time-traveling Baseball Card Adventures and his science fiction series, the Genius Files, page-turning novels that will take readers right into young adult status.