Book Review: This is How a Ball Rolls

Make it a fun-filled ball-rolling and playing day when you read This is How a Ball Rolls by Heather Tekavec, illustrated by Suharu Ogawa.

This book talks about increasing larger balls, starting with marbles and moving on to juggling balls, tennis balls, soccer balls, basketballs, beach balls, balls that people can get inside (known as Zorb balls) and the largest sports ball in the world, the Kin-ball, to name a few. (It’s a Canadian invention that measures about 4 feet/1.2 meters tall but weighs only 2.2 pounds/1 kg. It takes teamwork to throw and catch it, and there are apparently 50 different games you can play with it.)

Each kind of ball is introduced on a two-page spread, with a little rhyme about the ball or the sport that is played with it, a longer text section about the sport and a little lead in to the next bigger ball.

At the back of the book you’ll learn about the science of balls, including elasticity, trajectory, aerodynamics and drag force. Each of these sections has a question you can ask kids as you read (such as which ball has bigger drag force, a marble or a beach ball?).

You’ll also learn about the fastest a ball has ever been thrown (it’s a baseball, thrown at almost 106 miles an hour, or 170 km an hour).

Kids will enjoy the fun illustrations and guessing which kind of ball comes next. You can talk about which balls you play with at school or at home, watch a video of people playing Kin-ball or learn about the history of the Zorb (which is Australian). Then head outside and play a game with a ball. And make sure you watch for the girl in the frog hoodie in every scene as you read.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2025 by Kids Can Press. Suggested retail price $19.99.

[Photo: Kids Can Press]

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?

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