New educational books from Carlton Books

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Today I'm sharing with you some fantastic new books from Carlton Books. They would make some great stocking fillers this Christmas!

Discovering Titanic

Harry has been fascinated with the Titanic since he was in Reception, so I knew that he would love this new book - Discovering Titanic, and I wasn't wrong. As soon as he saw it he didn't want to put it down!

The book tells the story the Titanic disaster, her discovery, and a look at the human stories behind the shipwreck through objects found at the site. I'm quite familiar with the story of the Titanic but there was plenty of information that was new to me, and many pictures that I've never seen before including photographs taken aboard Titanic before she sank which I found fascinating. There is also a great section on the legacy of the Titanic - both the lessons learned and the portrayal of the event in popular culture.

It's a really fascinating book, and although aimed at children aged 8+ it's also a really interesting read for adults - a lovely book to look at together with your child.

STEM Activity Books

These four books each take a detailed look at a different STEM subject, and use write-in puzzles and activities to engage and entertain enquiring young minds.

STEM Activity: Sensational Science is all about atoms, genes, gravity, acids, magnets and plenty more. There are lots of different activities, like completing an electric circuit or colouring in shapes to reveal an x-ray, to help children learn about the different aspects.

STEM Activity: Terrific Technology is full of fun activities and puzzles related to mechanisms, robotics, computers, gadgets, space exploration. The technological theories and the discoveries behind them are explained using bite-size fact boxes, and activities like matching the ancient tool to its modern equivalent and helping the plane land at the airport are a great way to help children relate them to their every day life.

STEM Activity: Extreme Engineering contains information and facts related to engineering, for example forces, machines, high-tech buildings, eco-energy, computer coding and so on. Activities range from designing a skyscraper and matching the inventor to the innovention, to bring the book to life.

STEM Activity: Amazing Maths teaches how to do calculations, shapes, trigonometry and lots more. The activities help children to understand how import maths is in the real world, by working out areas and using map co-ordinates among other things.

Harry really loved these books. Some of the activities and puzzles reinforced things that he has been learning at school, as well as plenty of information that was new to him and captured his interest. There's at least one activity to complete on each page, and the activities are really well designed to help children understand concepts and remember what they have read. These books would be brilliant to encourage children to engage with these important subjects.

Minecraft Master Builder: Time Machine

This brilliant book lets you journey through history and create your own amazing Minecraft masterpieces. The builds are inspired by magnificent buildings and inventions from ancient times and through to the future, with easy to follow step-by-step guides to help with your construction.

There are five different sections to the book - Past Power, Awesome Architecture, Marvellous Machines, Timeless Transport and Future Fantastic - and each features three different builds that are graded by difficulty from Easy, through Intermediate, to Master. Each build is plotted on a timeline from the Pyramid in the 24th Century BC to the 23rd Century Space Base. The very first build is your Time Machine, and there are plenty of hints and tips as you work your way through the book. Even though some of the finished builds are quite complex, the step-by-step instructions are easy to follow.

Something that we particularly liked about this book was the way that the builds matched up to the topics that the children have been studying at school. It's a great way to learn about important and famous historic buildings, for example a Roman Temple, Trojan Horse or Tudor Mansion, by taking a close up look at the architecture and building materials used. There's also plenty of scope for customising the designs and coming up with your own interpretations, as well as challenges to encourage children to solve problems and use their imagination. For example building their own eco-friendly home for the future.

I was sent these books in exchange for a review. Amazon links are affiliate.