Book Review: Once in a Blue Moon

Kids all seem to go through a phase of loving trivia, and if you’ve got kids who want to know about the tallest, biggest and weirdest things in nature, they’ll enjoy the book Once in a Blue Moon by Emily Hawkins.

The book explores wonders of astronomy, meteorology, big trees, weird animals, volcanoes and more to show off the rarest events and phenomena in the natural world.

Kids ages 7-10 will learn about the lake (Lake Hillier, on an island off Australia) that has water that’s bubblegum pink, the world’s deepst came (Veryovkina Cave in the country of Georgia) and the world’s biggest tree, a banyan in southeast India with a canopy that covers more than five acres!

Readers will learn what a blue moon is, how supernovas happen and about Haley’s comet and solar eclipses, among other space-related phenomena. Closer to home they’ll learn about stinky flowers, bleeding trees, glowing fungi and pizzly bears.

There’s content about times when it’s rained frogs (and when frogs have exploded en masse), when snow made giant snowballs all by itself and how clouds stack on themselves like pancakes. The book also explores ball lightning, sun dogs, St. Elmo’s fire and more.

I love books like this and I know kids do, too. There’s so much weird and wonderful about our world and even as adults we don’t know about all of these things. I found it fun to learn, for example, that there’s a volcano on the island of Java that not only sends out blue flames from vents near its crater, it’s also home to an acidic lake.

Illustrations by Vlad Stankovic illuminate these weird natural wonders and are sure to get kids interested in learning more about some of these remarkable animals, plants, rock formations and more.

About the book: 80 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail price $30.

It’s the time of the year to start bringing a little Halloween fun into every lesson plan you can, so here are some ideas for witch themed math activities your kids are sure to love.

Practice symmetry skills with this witch hat counting game from Friends Art Lab. Kids can stick stickers of the same type on each side of the hat, then count how many total, how many of each type, etc. And you end up with a cute piece of art to boot.

Frugal Mom Eh has a number of witch themed worksheets including a connect the dots, label the witch and Halloween themed scattergories. But the one that caught my eye was the witch’s leg coloring page, which is a color by the answer to the math problem.

Nurtured Neurons has a cute witch counting came where you match the witch to the number of bubbles coming out of her cauldron. This one requires membership in their community but you might be able to get a free preview.

The witches brew on a ten frame activity from Miniature Masterminds is a cute one to work on one to one correspondence. Use little erasers or buttons if you want to reuse the cards, or add stickers to match the number on the card, which adds a fine motor skill component.

The Teacher Bag has a cute Halloween counting game kids can use to make their own potion in a little cauldron. You could make your own version with all the little Halloween themed bits you have handy, and either make a spinner like theirs or just write out some recipes and have kids go through the bigger cauldron to find all the ingredients they need. Then count them up! This post from Pocket of Preschool has a similar idea you can use with their printable or make your own with whatever items you have on hand.

Have you read?

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