Book Review: This is How a Ball Rolls

August 8, 2025 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

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]

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Shark Week Learning for Kids

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

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