Navigating Through Nature - by Charis Mather (Paperback)

About the Book

"While on a camping trip, Tobias and his friends get lost and try to find their way back though the wilderness. Readers can practice their map skills by solving puzzles alongside the characters. Includes an answer key"--

Book Synopsis

Four friends and their sidekicks create a SMART (Sidekicks, Maya, Arthur, Rita, Tobias) adventuring team. Working together, each of the kids uses their unique skills--from creative thinking to wilderness survival--to solve the mystery presented in each story. Readers can solve the puzzles along with the characters while learning map skills that support geography standards. Humorous dialogue will engage readers. Includes an answer key. Four friends and their sidekicks create a SMART (Sidekicks, Maya, Arthur, Rita, Tobias) adventuring team. Working together, each of the kids uses their unique skills--from creative thinking to math--to find their way in nature. Readers will learn map skills that support geography standards. While on a summer camping trip, Tobias and his friends launch a drone. The drone gets lost and the kids need to use both math and navigation skills to find it. Readers can practice their map skills by solving puzzles alongside the characters. Includes an answer key.

Review Quotes

Each Smart Adventure serves as an exploratory mission with extra educational value. Each basic story offers an interactive element, training young readers in specific skills in order to progress the tale. The Mars adventure teaches interpretation of graphs and charts. The one about navigating nature presents topography and calculating data, two skills that make the math-adverse totally nervous but is presented clearly. The books cover a wide range of skills--not just math and geography, but word clues, map decoding, and critical thinking. Each one has the adorable adventure team assisted by -sidekicks, from friendly dogs to helpful robots. The illustrations also integrate notebooks and phone screens to give information in realistic ways. VERDICT An educational delight, teaching basic interpretation of information. This would be fun to use in small class groups, or to entertain any data-minded kiddo.