Sunshine Makes the Seasons by Franklyn Mansfield Branley

Sunshine Makes the Seasons Reviews

• 
  Karen

  My fourth-grade son read this book for his Science class. The text is easy-to-read, accessible, and interesting, but he did think the illustrations were a bit 'babyish'.
  
  
• 
  Katie Fitzgerald

  This book does a great job of explaining and illustrating how the rotation of the earth and its relationship to the sun create the four seasons of the year. Even without doing the little demonstration suggested in the book, my five-year-old really grasped the concepts because the diagrams were so clear. This book also renewed her interest in learning about eclipses, and she was able to make connections between this book and what she previously read in
  Eclipse: Darkness in Daytime.
• 
  Anthony

  This book covers the topic of the sun, and how it works to provide the different seasons on the earth. Informative and chocked full of examples, and a project to do that provide a hands-on learning experience.
• 
  Kelly

  Excellent for elementary geography/nature study
• 
  Terry

  Read. Not reviewed.
• 
  KaitandMaddie

  I don’t know that the girls entirely understood the explanation. I think I’ll leave it a year or two and then try again, performing the experiment.
• 
  Clive

  More advanced than I wanted to go: eg, tilt of the earth, north and south hemisphere, etc
• 
  Natalie

  This was an easy to understand book about the seasons. I particularly liked using an orange and a pencil to help understand the earth's rotation around the sun.
• 
  Jillian

  What gives us the seasons? This book addresses the fact of the rotation of the Earth around the Sun and the results of this rotation. Featuring diagrams, key vocabulary and hands-on activities, this book brings science to life.
  
  I enjoy this book because of its inclusion of activity and hands-on practices, allows the students to feel involved in the learning process. They are able to see how the earth rotates around the Sun, instead of just seeing it in images. The vocabulary addressed is also defined in an age appropriate manner.
  
  This book it perfect for lessons about the Sun or the Earth. Students start to look at the Earth rather just their family unit and community. Once we start looking at the Earth we start looking at the different seasons. Students are often very curious about the cause of the seasons.
  
  Ages K-Grade 3
  
• 
  Leib Mitchell

  I'm not sure what distinguishes one of these books from the other.
  
  All I can say is that some work and some do not.
  
  This was one of the ones that works.
  
  My son is in 3rd grade and there are just enough unfamiliar words to generate discussion, but not so many that the boy cannot be left alone.
  
  Verdict: Recommended
• 
  Melanie

  Most of this book was taken up with the experiment of simulating the earth's orbit around the sun with the tilt of the axis. We did the experiment but did not find the directions well-written to go with the illustrations (we used another book instead for a similar experiment). My kids did enjoy the juxtaposition of the poles and opposite sides of the earth to show differences in season, day/night, etc.
• 
  Huda Fel

  أحد كتبي المدرسية في مرحلة الاختصاص
• 
  Teri

  Use this book as a jumping off point to do the orange and flashlight activity it describes--this is not a good cuddle up on the couch bedtime story.
• 
  Heather

  44 months - love this series of intro science books. They always have simple hands on ways to grasp the book's concept. This one is especially good.
• 
  Elanor

  All by herself!