The Earth: Its Structure & Changes student text and Teacher's Guide

The Earth: Its Structure & Changes is an elementary fully illustrated - 88 page, soft color science text for elementary students.  Although marketed as an elementary text for the home schooled market, this book easily fits into the popular non fiction science genre for young pre-teen readers and students. This stand alone book need not be confined to the classroom.  Illustrated with full color photos, diagrams, charts and illustrations, this book is sure to hold the attention of any young reader.  Hands on "Investigation" pages/ experiments are dispersed throughout the text of the book. The Earth: Its Structure & Changes Teacher's Guide and Student Journal accompany the student text for the purpose of offering a complete curriculem.  As with any other teacher's text, the student text/ pages are reproduced in black and white within the teacher's guide. Objectives and study questions are included to guide the parent/ teacher, leading the discusiion.  The second half of this guid makes up a student journal, consisting of work sheets with space for answering the questions for each of the corresponding 20 investigations in the student text.  If there were more than one student, obviously these work sheets would need to be repoduced for multiple students.  Otherwise, the having the student write directly in the book as with any traditional workbook would be appropriate.  One thing to consider is that this dual puspose book- teacher guide and student jouranl would be more appropriate as two seperate books rather than one combined book.  In sum, the student text does not require the teacher's guide/ student journal- as it is complete on its own merits.  But, the Teacher's Guide and Student Journal is not a stand alone book and require the use of the student text book. In my opinion, the students text, The Earth and its Changes fites well into the ever popular, emerging non fictrion science genre as supplimental reading for any young reader.  As for using it as a text, perhaps as a suppliment to a more thorough science text- it is good way to bring to life, the subject of Earth Science.  Unless you are a homeschooling parent, the Teacher's guide/ student journal may be a bit redundant. As a blogger for New Leaf publishers I recieved a copy of these two books by Master Book publishers for the purpose of writing this review.