As my daughter is getting older I am constantly on the lookout for engaging educational books that we can use to supplement our learning activities. It seems like there is a much wider range of interesting educational books for younger kids so I get really excited when I spot something for the older kids (I am talking Secondary school ages or as they would say in the UK KS3 or Ks4 ages).
When I was doing one of my regular searches for books to use I spotted this one Super Simple Biology from DK and I was immediately impressed with the images and the layout, so I contacted DK and asked if they could send me a press copy. They did and my first impression on opening it was just “wow.” This book covers a LOT, the images are stunning and the layout is brilliant – not too wordy with amazing, detailed images which explain the concepts. Perfect for my visual learner.
Okay so when I say this book covers a lot I am not exaggerating (excluding the contents and glossary at the back there are 263 actual pages of biology). This is what it covers.
- Working Scientifically
- What is Life?
- Cells
- Transport and cells
- Respiration
- Enzymes
- Nutrition in plants
- Nutrition in humans
- Transport in plants
- Transport in humans
- Nervous System
- Hormones
- Reproduction
- Genetics and Biotechnology
- Evolution
- Ecology
- Humans and the environment
- Health
That is a lot covered in one powerhouse of a book.
Every concept is summarised onto 1 page and they include a Key Points box and an illustrated diagram which helps to explain the concept.
So how are we using this book? My daughter likes reading good non-fiction books so as soon as she saw the book and saw how inviting the pages were she immediately started paging through looking for interesting sections and straight away read a bunch of pages in one go. And we are also using it with out learning activities. Once we have covered a section in Biology we find the pages in this book that talk about the topic and we read them together. My daughter likes reading and rereading about a topic that she is learning, she likes seeing different ways of explaining it and different diagrams. And boy the diagrams included in this book are amazing. Really stunning.
We have had this book for about a month now and we think it is an excellent addition to our older learning resource collection. It is easy to find the topics that you want, they are explained in a concise manner and the diagrams are perfect for visual learners.
We highly recommend Super Simple Biology: The Ultimate Bitesize Study Guide as a great companion for anyone doing Biology in KS3 (my daughter is not yet in KS4 but I am sure we will still be referring back to it when she gets to KS4).
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