With a moo moo here, And a moo moo there, Here a moo, there a moo, Everywhere a moo moo. “Mom, will there be cows and pigs and chickens on the farm?” Home gardening isn’t quite as interesting to
Melody as the anticipation of getting up close and personal to cows and chickens and pigs. Her seven-year-old twin brother feels the same way. Waiting patiently for seeds to become yummy vegetables is not part of Mallory’s nature, and even waiting for lettuce seedlings to grow into salad material is too long. Better to dream about an adventure that’s only a week away. With an oink oink here, and an oink oink there, Here an oink…
We’re in the process of updating each book’s topic reference tables. These tables show the breadth of each book’s content, identified by chapter. Subjects and topics of the middle column appear in bold, followed by abbreviated versions of their Knowledge Gateway(s) in parentheses. You can use this information to select books for your children if you decide to take the BioFables Challenge. Follow the links for further investigation. Child-friendly sites appear in orange.
| CHAPTER | SUBJECTS/TOPICS | RESOURCE LINKS |
| Helpful Hints | Family relationships (Social); Car pollution (Earth) | |
| Chapter 1 And Lettuce Seeds All in a Row |
Family relationships (Social); Gardening (Life Skills); Farming (Earth); Symbols (Math) | Equal, Less than, Greater than, Symbols |
| Chapter 2 A Car of the Future? |
Hydrogen fuel; Water (Chemistry); Environment (Earth) | |
| Chapter 3 Down to Earth |
Generosity, graciousness (Values); Cow milking time; soil bacteria, use in antibiotics(Biology); pH (Chemistry) | How Fuzzy Logic Rice Cookers Work Testing pH of Soil Using Kitchen Ingredients |
| Chapter 4 Brrr! |
Skin sticking to cold objects (Physics); Calm reasoning; Gardening (Life Skills); Sibling loyalty (Values); Sausage ingredients; Cow eyes (Biology) | Why Does Skin Stick to Cold Things? |
| Chapter 5 A Chicken in Every Pot |
Catching, preparing chicken for cooking (Biology, Life Skills); Making a campfire (Life Skills); Hand water pump (Physics); Groundwater; Geysers; Climate zones (Earth); Aquifer – word derivation (Language) | What Is the Water Table? How Does a Hand Pump Work? Plant Hardiness Zones How to Pluck a Chicken |
| Chapter 6 A Farm Chore Turns Fun |
Farming life, sharing household chores (Social); Sunrise, sky color transition (Earth); Cow milking techniques (Biology); Software engineering (Work) | How to Milk a Cow |
| Chapter 7 Dark! |
Night sky; Big Dipper (Earth); Taking care of tools; Telling time by stars (Life Skills); Writing Poetry; Telling stories (Arts) | Finding the North Star in the Sky |
| Chapter 8 Back to Familiar Life |
Traditions (Social); Extremophile; Aging eyesight (Biology); Dry ice, temperature (Physics, Chemistry); Chemical composition (Chemistry); Airplane pilot; Retirement (Work); Play on words (Language); Clean fuel (Earth) | What Is Dry Ice? (Links, including child-friendly) |
| Next Adventure | Gardening (Like Skills); Nutritious meals; healthy aging (Health); Reducing pollution (Earth); Generosity, gratitude (Values); Play on words (Language); Creating star map (Art) |
