Picture book about animals. This book is a great visual example of the true sizes they are (Actual sizes). Even has the dimensions of the animal portrayed.

Theres illustrations of insects, birds, and animals drawn to life size. Explains how young readers see animlas in different sizes and how they can measure up to each animal.

"All of the animals in this book are shown at actual size, so you can see how you measure up to creatures both large and small." (page 2)

"This is too close to a great white shark!", "length:21 feet, weight: 6,000 pounds, teeth: 4 inches long." (Page 19) ( )

Actual Size, written and illustrated by Steve Jenkins, is an informational picture book for elementary-age students. When I first saw this book many years ago, I knew it had to be a part of my classroom library. Its physical size is striking and doesn't fit on most classroom bookshelves as it is exceptionally long for compared to other picture books. There's a reason for this. Just like the title suggests, the book is filled with the actual size of animals' hands, wings, eyes and bodies. There are even folded pages that students can unfold to see the true size of the animal. The purpose of this book is to engage the reader in comparing their actual size with that of many different animals, from a Siberian tiger to a goliath beetle or a giant walking stick. In addition to the unique artwork in this book, there's informational text that details facts about the various animals and sea creatures. The artwork in this book is made of collages of various papers. Steve Jenkins creates this first through a sketch and then by cutting shapes from colored paper to create the final shape of the animal. He uses paper, a simple glue stick, and scissors to make the collage.

5/5

This book is awesome for introducing and talking about mathematical concepts like scale. The art is really cool and helpful for understanding, you guessed it, the actual size of things. It includes a huge eyeball (of a squid), a tiny fish, and the tongue of an anteater. The way the author/illustrator uses the art to depict the actual size of things makes the book very educational, approachable, and engaging. I purchased this book for my nephew and he enjoyed reading it and learning about the different animals, but especially enjoyed the illustrations.
For my own use, as a middle school teacher of English to multilingual students, I can see this being very useful to put together comparative and superlative sentence frames for students to compare the length and weight of different animals and practice the terms of measurement. The animals and art help this become.a more engaging practice task that they can do in partners or small groups. ( )

Steve Jenkins! His informational books always bring high interest and amazing facts that captivate readers. This book is another great one. Actual Size is filled with animals and illustrations of their actual size, some it is the entire animal, like the atlas moth, with the fact "so large that it is often mistaken for a bird." Or some animals Jenkins focuses on one aspect of the animal like the length of the giant anteater's two-foot-long tongue. The book also has great additional information about each animal for the reader at the back of the book. ( )

Another great book for a measurement lesson in 5th grade. Rather dull, but I know children would love the pictures and it could be used to create other lifesize models that we measure ourselves.

Summary: It is a fun book to use to teach children about the measurements of eighteen different animals.

I liked the perspective shown through this book's images. I think this could lead into a measurement activity, and is great practice for reading EVERYTHING on the page in a nonfiction book. This would make for some important explicit directions. ( )

How big is a crocodile? What about a tiger, or the world’s largest spider? Can you imagine a tongue that is two feet long or an eye that’s bigger than your head? Sometimes facts and figures don’t tell the whole story. Sometimes you need to see things for yourself—at their actual size.

This is an informational non- fiction, that shows students the actual size of different animals and insects. With the pictures there are also facts about the living things through out the book. I would use this book as a read aloud in my math classroom to show students the actual sizes of the animals. It teaches them about measurement and scale. I could use this to teach them about proportions as well, by having them measure them and measure other pictures in other books. I believe that can I use this in upper level grades, not only K- 5th. Middle school students would love the pictures! They are able to interact with the book because it has pages that open up to extend the page in order to show the actual size of an animal. This book can also be related to Science which makes it awesome to use. ( )

Steve Jenkins invites the reader into the world of animals where he provides simplistic yet intriguing illustrations that show in part or whole true representations of the animals and their actual size. This gives the readers the opportunity to see how they compare to the creatures both small and large. The book provides in text and illustration the actual sizes of each of the animals along with some extra facts: weight, length, and what the animal eats. Through these pages, you can see how big the great white shark teeth are, compare the hand of a gorilla with your own, and see the giant squid’s enormous eye, to name just a few.

This is a really cool book! It shows the actual size of each of the creatures it talks about. For example theres a page that pulls out for readers to see how long a crocodiles mouth and head is. I like that students get to physically see how big the different animals are because there aren't many opportunities in real life for students to experience that. I think this book would be great to use with Kindergarteners because they would be fascinated by how big and small certain animals are. I would pair this book with an activity where we measure kids and compare them to certain animal sizes. ( )

This story has illustrations in reference to real animals around the world drawn to scale. It is a fun book that references things students have seen before or can relate to. It touches on the concepts of units of measurement, comparing and ordering, and scale. I love that all of the illustrations are drawn to actual size, I think students would love that and it puts size and measurement into perspective for them. ( )

This is a cool book that could have multiple functions. It is filled with pictures to put the sizes of different things into perspective. It could be used in a science or math class, by either using it to go over different creatures or by making comparisons numerically. It was overall a pretty cool read. ( )

Actual Size shows different small animals at actual size in the book and gives information on their weight, height, and even their paw lengths. I gave the book a 5 star rating because it was wonderfully illustrated and would be great for read-alouds. The information in the book could be used in a variety of different ways, like when working with scale factors, the students could compare the small animals in the book to larger species. ( )

I really enjoyed the premise of the book and how all the animals were shown at actual size on the page. The language was very information but the author uses short sentences to present the information. The illustrations are an essential part of the story because they contribute to the awe children have when comparing sizes. I enjoyed reading the story very much and I learned a lot of new information! The purpose of the story is to show the reader the difference in size of objects compared that they might see daily or often. ( )

Children would love this book! This is a rather large picture book and a couple of times pages fold out so there is more space to see the actual size of an animal or part of an animal. Biggest, heaviest, occasionally smallest animals of their type are the most featured. Often, just a part of an animal is shown.

This book shows a wide variety of different animals, while describing the actual size of these animals. Giving information on height, weight, hand/foot/paw size, etc. This can be such a fun, interactive, and interesting for students of all ages. This gives illustrations, pictures for reference, most of them being the actual size of the animal and/or, a feature of said animals. It also talks about a wide-variety of animals, including animals that are not commonly taught about or discussed, as well as animals from a wide variety of ecosystems and parts of the world. ( )

Talk about a fun book. With animals of all sizes children can make connects of animals they have never seen and maybe shouldn't up close in the wild. Great book for making comparisons and learning facts.

Top 100 pick because:

-Cut paper collage illustrations perfect for the simple highlighting of each animal's prominent feature.
-White background aids in focusing the eye on the single animal body part on a page, along with a short sentence about what animal is being described.
-Clever idea and well executed
-Love it -makes me wish I had this kind of book growing up. I might have been more interested in science then.
-Good for read aloud for school age children
-Back matter with more in depth animal descriptions. ( )

idea- enhancing, Estimation, measurement, Grade 1-3

This book is an informational book that shows the actual sizes of parts of animals, such as the tooth of a great white shark, the palm of a gorilla, and the head of a saltwater crocodile.

This book gives students a real life application of the actual sizes of animals. Students are able to compare and contrast the sizes of each animal in the story. The book extends the pages for certain animals. Students learn important facts about each animal. This book is for ages 3-12 yeas old. I believe most students will be engaged in this book. ( )

This stunning book contains a fun range of animals presented in "actual size," as the title suggests. In paper-cut illustrations, Steve Jenkins illustrates the incredibly big size of some creatures and the surprisingly small size of others.

This is great for a read aloud to attract students to the natural world. The scale of the animals (almost always just parts of their bodies, particularly for the really big ones like the giant squid) makes this book impressive. As teachers we sometimes need to rely on a "wow factor" to lure our students into learning about scientific concepts. This book definitely includes that element of incredulity. ( )

This is an informational text that shows the actual size of animals, insects, and fish. This is a really engaging and interactive book for young students.