See How It's Made

by Penny Smith, Lorrie Mack

Filled with step-by-step photographs, a start-to-finish look at how everyday objects are made explores the design, technology, and manufacture of more than twenty common household items. 35,000 first printing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, School, Childrens, Education

96 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 2007

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book to introduce children to how every day things are made. It is simplified and yet leaves it open for great discussion. Our Little Munchkin really really liked this book! That's high praise indeed!

[Tricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see the low ratings on this title but really, we liked it. Shows step by step instructions of how to manufacture a number of different things. For a child who loves to see how things work, this is a very cool book.

[JESSICA J · Rating 4 out of 5]

See How It's Made is on my favorites shelf because it is a kid friendly version of an encyclopedia containing everyday stuff they may encounter in daily life. With real life photographs detailing the step by step process of how various clothing, food, toys, etc. items are made. Kind of like the show on tv "How it's Made" but in a book form. I think this non-fiction book would be perfect for primary grades or lower intermediate (3-4th) and students will love looking at the full color photos and reading the descriptive facts about how the items are made.

Immediately when I saw this book I thought: TEXT FEATURES! This book has them all: contents, index, glossary, photos, captions, bold print, etc. This would be fun to have kids do a "text feature" scavenger hunt.

[Cathy Sheetz · Rating 4 out of 5]

DK and Usborne both do a really good job of creating engaging informational texts. This one is about how things are made. There are four pages (usually with steps delineated) for each topic. Topics include oil paint, ice cream, blown glass, pointe shoes, sausages, plastic blocks, compact discs, apple juice, skateboard, honey, cotton t-shirt, chocolate, pencils, electric guitar, ceramic mug, rope, cheese soap, crayons, and glass bottles.

This book would be great for investigating text structure of an informational text for 3rd through 6th grade. Also good classroom library book for 3rd through 6th grade.

[mars · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️ i would’ve loved this a lot more if it’d just been more intuitively organized; even broad categories for groups of chapters would’ve done it, it just sort of felt like a lot of stuff thrown together. aside from that, i enjoyed learning about the items in the book. for better or for worse, i’ll never forget about penny licks.

although, to be fair, i still don’t have a clue how on earth CDs work.

[Devon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun book for kids who love to see the process and materials that go into making certain items. This book includes things like ice cream, skateboards, rope, pointe shoes, sausages and more. Would recommend!

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. My favorite was learning how skateboards were made.

[Sydney Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not counting two small mentions of evolution nonsense, this book is a commendable resource.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a delightful book about how 'things' are made. From guitars to bottles to crayons. It also has lots of little factoids throughout the pages that made it interesting.

Still enjoyable the third time through.

[Kiddo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun book, very like the Sesame Street segments of this ilk. Generally not very much information (thus the loss of one star) on each item: a double page of history and random facts, a double page series of photos with captions of the steps of the process.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

great for sequencing how every day things are made - wonderful photos