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]

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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