The Story Behind...

We just wrapped up week 1 of Stories of Household Items (The Story of Clothing) and it was a hit! The kids were especially excited about Thursday's topic -- rubber -- and making tiny bouncing balls with real rubber latex.

I don't have a rubber tree, but we looked in the yard for native sources of latex (dandelions, milkweed, and goldenrod). I didn't think of it until this morning, when I was packing up the display, but since Thomas Edison was a big part of the discovery that goldenrod was the best North American plant alternative to natural rubber, I should have put out my book about him too!

The Story Behind Rubber
by Barbara Somervill

Pop! The Invention of Bubble Gum
by Meghan McCarthy
(chicle / sapodilla tree)

Inventing the Future: A Photobiography of Thomas Alva Edison
by Marfé Ferguson Delano
(goldenrod)

We really enjoyed The Story Behind Rubber by Barbara Somervill and it's part of a series! This list of topics is beyond perfect for a Stories of Household Items theme. I'm not going to rush out and buy them all now, but I'd like to collect them for the next time I teach this block. Here are all the titles:

The Story Behind Coal

The Story Behind Glass

The Story Behind Maps

The Story Behind Paper

The Story Behind Plastic

The Story Behind Rubber

The Story Behind Silk

The Story Behind Soap

The Story Behind Water

The Story Behind Wool

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