Children's Museum of South Dakota

Streamside

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Explore in and around the banks of this meandering stream.

Step on wading stones or climb around looping logs. Move branches and logs to build a beaver dam and watch what it does to the water.

Wading across logs and stones in the stream, children can estimate distance and speed while testing their balance. Whether you walk across or wheel across, children will gain a sense of accomplishment in finding multiple ways to reach the other side. Building a beaver dam gives hands-on experience in physics for older children while younger kids will test their strength moving branches and logs to dam the stream.

 


Learn more about these topics through the books below.
Many of these books are at the Brookings Public Library.

Infants

Tiny Tadpole, Scholastic Books

Toddlers

Ten Shiny Snails, Ruth Galloway
Baby Beluga, Raffi & Ashley Wolff

Ages 3 - 5

The Brook Book:  Exploring the Smallest Streams, Jim Arnosky
Water Safety, Nancy Loewen & Penny Dann
Deer at the Brook, Jim Arnosky 
The Waterhole, Graeme Base
Oscar Otter, In:  I Can Read Book, Nathaniel Benchley & Arnold Lobel
Hot Hippo, Hadithi Mwenya & Adienne Moore
Tuck in the Pool, Martha Weston
Go Home, River, James Magdanz & Dianne Widom 

Ages 6 - 8

Live Underwater With the Fish?, In: Why Can't …I, Sally Hewitt
Song of the Water Boatman, Joyce Sidman & Beckie Prange
Jim Flying High, Mari Evans & Ashley Bryan
Kogi's Mysterious Journey, Elizabeth Partiridge & Aki Sogabe
The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the White-water Mystery, In: A Merit Badge Mystery Series, Stan Berenstain 
Canoe Days, Gary Paulsen & Ruth Wright Paulsen
River Story, Meredith Hooper & Bee Willey 
The Stream, Naomi Russell
Where the River Begins, Thomas Locker

Ages 9 - 12

Ponds & Rivers, In: DK Eyewitness Books, Steve Parker & Philip Dowell
Rivers and Lakes, In: Eye Wonder, Simon Holland & Anna Lofthouse
The Mississippi, In: Rivers of the World, Nina Morgan & Laurence Fordyce 
The Nile, In: Rivers of the World, Julia Waterlow 
The Ganges, In: Rivers of the World, David Cumming 
The Rhine, In: Rivers of the World, Mark Smalley & David Cumming 
The Amazon, In: Rivers of the World, Julia Waterlow