Board books

For Stella's first birthday Maria and I are creating an ABC board book for her.  Just this last weekend we began to make a dent in taking a picture for each letter of the alphabet.  Each letter is made out of something that represents the letter, "A" is made out of apples and "B" is made out of books, etc.  We're trying to photograph in different locations to make it interesting.  Right now we have dozens of eggs and I'm wondering where we can recruit some chickens to be in the photo.  For "A" we rearranged the apple display at Hannaford-and then put it back.
I think I'm going to work on it through a website called My Custom Story because Tikatok doesn't offer board books and we want Stella to be able to use it right away.  I haven't begun putting much of the book together yet but here are some of our pictures.  The plan is to have Maria come up with a sentence for each picture or page too.

Ecology

Seventh grade science is in the midst of the last unit of the school year-Ecosystems.  This is a great unit to wrap up life science because many concepts we've talked about all year can fit in some part of the ecosystem.  The kingdoms of life compete for resources in different habitats, carbon and oxygen cycle as animals respire and plants photosynthesize, water passes not only through the environment but through the living organisms as well.  Genetics and natural selection even come back as we talk about the importance of biodiversity.  Today we were talking about the energy in a food web, where it comes from and where it goes next.  I read to the students a book called This is the Sea that Feeds Us by Robert Baldwin and as they listened they wrote down the path of energy through the food chain.  This book is full of great science, great verse and great illustrations which engage my three-year-old daughter and my twelve-year-old students and I look forward to reading it every year.
Getting a sense of publishers and the type of material they print is an important step in knowing where to submit material and also what topics are viable for a book.  Since I love this book so much I checked out Dawn Publications website today.  I'm excited about this publisher for three main reasons. 1) Dawn Publications focuses on books that tie into current science standards so educators can use them in the classroom, perfect for a science teacher 2)  They publish many first time authors 3) Their mission statement: "Dawn Publications is dedicated to inspiring in children a deeper understanding and appreciation for all life on Earth. We aim to help parents and teachers encourage children to bond with the Earth in a relationship of love, respect, and intelligent cooperation, through the books we publish and the educational materials we offer online."
Check out their alphabetical listing to find This is the Sea that Feeds Us as well as Over in the Ocean another of our favorites.  I've ordered a few more books for market research which will do double duty as birthday presents including Amy's Light.
After looking at all the books from Dawn Publications and reading submission information on their website I started scribbling down potential topics on an old envelope that I then shoved in my pocket.  I'm going to brainstorm for awhile and also take a look at science standards for elementary grades for different states and see how they match up/overlap to decide what topic might appeal to a wide range of science teachers.  Then I'm going to see if Dawn has any books published on these topics already and if not consider that as a place to start!