Seymour Simon's Blog, page 10

Black Kitten for Halloween

I know that I have many cat lovers among the readers of my blog, so I’ve been saving this adorable photograph to share today!If you and your friends are planning to trick or treat later, please remember these simple rules:1. Wear bright costumes and put reflective tape on your costume or trick or treat bag, so that it is easy for drivers to see you if you are out at dusk or after dark.2. Only trick or treat at houses that have their porch lights on, signalling that they are welcoming trick or treaters.3. Never go into a stranger’s house - stay on the front porch.4. Travel in a group - there is safety in numbers.5. Don’t eat any candy or treats that are not wrapped and sealed.6. Be a helper for younger children who might be scared of the dark or the scary costumes. Little kids might be feeling shy or nervous and you can help them make their way up to the door and let them know that you are kind, not scary, no matter what your big kid’s costume looks like!That’s it - simple rules that make the evening fun for everyone. Happy Halloween to all my readers!- Seymour

A Ghostly Writing Wednesday

Good morning and welcome to a special Halloween Writing Wednesday (which includes a ghostly Halloween treat at the end of this post)! Today, we would like you to read a part of Seymour Simon’s book GHOSTS. As you read the page below, notice shades of meaning in the vocabulary. How does Seymour’s use of the adjectives "cold" and "damp" instead of just writing "castle" affect the mental image you create? As you read, look for other examples of vivid words that Seymour Simon uses, and tell us about how it enhances the selection. Write two or three sentences and tell us about which adjectives and word choices he makes to create a spooky feeling as he tells this story. When you have finished writing, click on the yellow "Comments" link below to post your writing for others to read. Calvados Castle is a gloomy-looking castle in France. It was built hundreds of years ago in the Middle Ages. Cold and damp, the castle hardly looks like a place in which anybody would want to live. If you saw it, you might think it was a perfect place for a ghost. And you would be right. Calvados Castle is haunted. The first record of ghostly happenings came in 1875. The family and the servants that lived in the castle were disturbed night after night by mysterious sounds. They decided to place threads across the open doors. They hoped that the threads would be broken so that they could learn where the intruders came in. The sounds continued, but the threads were never broken. The owner began keeping a diary of the strange events. The diary tells that on the night of October 13, 1875, a teacher employed by the family was alone in his room.Halloween Treat! Seymour Simon had this book recorded by a narrator who has a famous "haunted" voice (he used to be a narrator forThe Twilight Zone television series).Click below if you would like to hear this selection read aloud. But we warn you, if you are someone who is easily scared, you might not want to press play!

Cool Halloween Photo of the Week

This ghostly sight is known as the dB 141 Nebula. It is composed of the gassy remains of a supernova - the gigantic explosion that occurred when a huge star blew up.And since it kind of looks like a bunch of ghosts, it reminds me to wish all my readers a Happy, Out of This World, Halloween! Photo: Credit: T.A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage, H. Schweiker/WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF

Writing Wednesday: Lonely Planet

Today’s Writing Wednesday is about a newly discovered planet far from our solar system, and it is different than any other we have ever seen. We want you to read this science news story and then come up with a better name for this new planet based on what you have learned from the story. The Facts: Eighty light-years from Earth, astronomers have discovered a planet that is six times bigger than Jupiter, floating all alone without asun to keep it warm. Scientists have seen free-floaters like this before, but we have never been sure whether they were planets or stars that had died. This time, we have enough information to be sure it is a planet similar to the "gas giants" in our solar system - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. These planets are very low in density and consist mostly of hydrogen and helium gases. If you tried to land a spacecraft on Jupiter, for example, it would keep sinking down through the gas, until it would be crushed by Jupiter’s gravity. The new planet is named PSO J318.5-22, and it is near a group of young stars called the Beta Pictoris moving group, which formed about 12 million years ago. One of the stars in that group is circled by its own gas-giant planet that’s about eight times bigger than Jupiter. "We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that that looks like this," team leader Michael Liu said. "It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone. I had often wondered if such solitary objects exist, and now we know they do." Your Assignment: I don’t think that PSO J318.5-22 is a very good name for a planet, do you? Write a paragraph telling your readers what you would name this planet, and why. Support your idea with information from the news story (above). When you are finished writing, you may post your writing for others to read by clicking on the yellow "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog post. Happy Writing! Image: An artist’s rendering of PSO J318.5-22 by V. Ch. Quetz / MPIA

Cool Photo: Penguin-Cam!

Do you ever watch the great wildlife documentaries on Discovery Channel and wonder how they get their amazing footage of animals living in the wild? I know I do. There is a new Discovery documentary called PENGUINS: WADDLE ALL THE WAY coming up on November 23 here in the U.S. And to get the footage of the penguins, Discovery used robotic "penguins," fitted with cameras, who lived among the real birds! More than 50 of these remote control cameras lived with penguins - some disguised as adults, some as chicks, and some even camouflaged as eggs. Producer John Downer, who developed the "penguin-cams," says that the robot cameras can "swim, toboggan, waddle, jump and even lay fake eggs. In fact, they appear so lifelike that some of the penguins try to befriend them." And for all these reasons, the penguin-cam is our Cool Photo of the Week!Photo: John Downer / Discovery Channel

Writing Wednesday: CROC!

Jim Arnosky’s exciting story about running into a dangerous crocodile while paddling in the Florida mangroves is the focus of today’s Writing Wednesday.Jim is a wonderful science writer - a true naturalist who writes and paints from what he experiences in nature. In the excerpt below, from his new bookWATER STORIES: ADVENTURES AFLOAT, Jim tells about a day spent exploring in a kayak with his wife, Deanna. He describes the boat as sitting very low in the water - just a couple of inches off the surface - which makes it ideal for sliding under branches hanging over the water. It is not so ideal, however, if there is a dangerous animal in the water. Here’s how Jim Arnosky describes the moment when they came upon what appeared to be a floating, rough-barked log:For your Writing Wednesday activity, I want you to imagine that you are in that kayak and come upon a dangerous croc. What are you thinking? How would you feel? What would you DO? Look closely at all the details in Jim’s painting, and describe the scene as powerfully as you can. When you are finished, you can click on the yellow "comments" button below to post your writing for others to read. Happy (scary!) writing!Note to Educators: Jim Arnosky and I have been friends and colleagues for a long time, and I am so pleased that he has written this new book,WATER STORIES: ADVENTURES AFLOATfor my digital publishing company,StarWalk Kids Media. If you have not checked out our exceptionally high quality and very affordable streaming eBook collection, I hope that you will soon.

Cool Photo: A Beautiful Relationship!

I love the fact that these tiny yellow-billed oxpeckers and the huge Cape buffalo live their whole lives together - so I made them our Cool Photo of the Week. The Cape buffalo and the oxpeckers live together in what is called a "symbiotic relationship," meaning that each of them benefits from being with the other. These birds live their entire lives on their hosts, except when they are nesting in the cavities of trees. The birds keep the Cape buffalo clean, removing ticks and other insects that are burrowing into its hide. Oxpeckers also hiss when something frightens them, a useful warning to the buffalo, who is prey to other African animals. The birds have a constant source of food in the insects they eat off the buffalo, and they are also relatively safe from predators when they are on their host animal. Photographer Marsha Williams, who snapped these shots while on a photo safari in Kenya (Africa), told us: "I love that they are bold enough to go inside his ear and his nose. Kinda gross, but funny!"

Writing Wednesday: My Dog Nova

It’s Writing Wednesday and today we would like to hear from readers about what they named their pets, and why. My first dog was a Springer Spaniel named Nova. Nova means "a new star" and that’s what NOVA was: a new star in our family. I loved her so much that years ago, when I did a book called DISCOVERING WHAT PUPPIES DO, I asked the illustrator Susan Bonners to come to my house to use Nova as a model for one of the illustrations in the book! I was looking at the book today for the first time in a long time, and smiled seeing the dedication I wrote back then: "For Nova. Always a Puppy." She was a great dog and faithful friend. My stepdaughter Jules had a Golden Retriever whom she named "Lyra," after the adventurous female character ‘Lyra Silvertongue’ in a book that she like very much, called The Golden Compass. What did you name your pet, and why did your choose that name? Does it refer to something you love, like I love science or like Jules loved that fictional character? Or does it have something to do with the way your pet looks? How it behaves? Write a paragraph or two about your pet, what its name is, and why you named it that. Include details that will help us understand why you love that name and how you feel about your pet. You can click on the yellow "Comments" link at the bottom of this page if you would like to share your writing for others to read.

The Winners from Altamont Elementary

Thank you to the students and faculty at Altamont Elementary School - I enjoyed my visit to your school yesterday! We talked about everything from paper airplanes to outer space, and lots of animals, too. Congratulations to everyone who entered the Moth or Butterfly?contest. We had many good entries; each of you observed, did research, came to a conclusion and then wrote about it. Nice work!As promised, there are two randomly selected winners - one individual student and one K-2 class. Each one of the winners will receive an autographed copy of my bookBUTTERFLIES. Check with Mrs. Ahearn to pick up your prizes!Here are the winners and what they wrote about which of these animals is a butterfly, and which is a moth: Emily, age ten, from Mr. Whiteman’s Class, is the individual winner. Emily wrote: I believe that insect A is a moth. I think this because a moth’s wings are to the side of his body, and it has very dull colors. On the other hand, I think that insect B is a butterfly because, firstly, a butterflies wings rest upright on its back, and secondly, it has straight, clubbed antennae. Mrs. Critelli’s Kindergarten Class were the classroom winners. They wrote: We think that picture A is a moth because we learned that moths are nocturnal and picture A looks like it was taken at night. We also think it is a moth because it is smaller than the insect in picture B. We learned that moths are smaller than butterflies. We also learned that moths don’t have knobs on the ends of their feelers and in this picture we do not see any knobs. These are the reasons we think picture A is a moth. We think that picture B is a butterfly because we learned that butterflies have knobs at the ends of their feelers and in this picture we see knobs. We also learned that butterflies are larger than moths and the insect in picture B looks larger than the insect in picture A. Picture B looks like it was taken during the day so we think it must be a butterfly because butterflies are out during the daytime. These are the reasons we think picture B is a butterfly. Thanks we had so much fun learning about butterflies and moths. Mrs. Ahearn, Altamont’s school librarian, did a beautiful job of organizing everything for my visit this week. Thank you very much, Betty! Your kids were well-prepared and wonderful to work with.

Contest! Moth or Butterfly?

Seymour Simon is preparing to visit the Altamont Elementary School next week, and we are happy to seecomments from many new readers on the Seymour Science blog. Students in Altamont Elementary - this contest is for you!Two lucky winners are going to receive personally autographed copies of Seymour Simon’sBUTTERFLIES. Here is what you have to do to enter:1. Write a comment on this blog post and tell Seymour whether each of these photographs is a butterfly or a moth.2. Tell him how you identified it. Give at least two reasons for each insect.3. Tell us your name (first name only), age and teacher’s name. Don’t forget your teacher’s name, because that is how we will contact you if you are selected as the winner.4. Be sure to post your entry by midnight, Friday, October 4. The contest ends then.Two winners will be chosen randomly from all the correct entries. Older students may enter individually, and we will pick one winner. Students in grades K-2 may enter as a class and work with their teacher to enter the contest; there will be one classroom winner.What if you don’t know how to tell the difference between a butterfly and a moth? You can find the answer right here on the Seymour Science blog. Look at all the entries under the label "Butterflies." We guarantee you that you will find the answer there!So, get to work and send us your entries today. Your comments will be invisible until everyone has a chance to enter. Once the contest is over, we will post everyone’s writing.Good luck!READERS:Are you wondering how to add your own "comment" to this blog?Click herefor exact directions on how to add a comment so you can become one of our Seymour Science writers! We also want you to be safe and not share too much information when you write on this blog, so please take a minute toread abouthow to stay safe on the Internet. We love to hear from you, so give "comments" a try!