7 Picture Books About Science For Kids Who Love Visual Learning

Take a look at these 7 picture books about science for kids: oversized, fantastic illustrations, and wonderful kid-friendly information.

If you have a kid who learns best with their eyes, who studies every corner of an illustration before they even listen to the words, then big, beautifully illustrated science picture books are pure magic to them.

7 Picture Books About Science For Kids Who Love Visual Learning

One series that does this better than almost anyone else is the Big Book of… series by Yuval Zommer. Each title in this oversized, large-format series pairs whimsical watercolor illustrations with genuinely meaty nonfiction.

They are fun enough for a 4-year-old to flip through on their own, detailed enough that an 8- to 10-year-old will still pull it off the shelf for reference. This range is what makes the series so good for a mixed-age family or co-op situation.

Table of Contents

BOOK BY BOOK-HANDS-ON PROJECTS FOR PICTURE BOOKS ABOUT SCIENCE

Then here are some hands-on activities to add to these science picture books for kids.

BUGS BOOK HANDS-ON IDEAS

Make an Easy Praying Mantis Craft: Awesome Insect Projects for Elementary Students
Set up a backyard pitfall trap or bug hotel, then use the book to identify what you find.
Also, look at my page Free Kids Insect Unit Study for more ideas.
Build an insect out of recycled materials-egg carton body, pipe-cleaner legs; six legs and three body parts required.
Bugs Facts For Kids And Free Paper Bug Bracelets
Graph a week of bug sightings in the yard by type (ants, beetles, spiders, etc.) and compare to the book’s “Bug Families” spread.

BEASTS BOOK HANDS-ON IDEAS

Make plaster salt-dough animal track casts and match them to the “paw print” spotting game in the book.
Sort animal photos or toy figures into the book’s categories: mythical beasts, Ice Age beasts, beasts on your street, endangered beasts.
Design a “backyard beast” habitat diorama for an animal that actually lives near your house (raccoon, possum, squirrel).

THE BLUE BOOK HANDS-ON IDEAS

Build an ocean-layer diorama in a shoebox or flat like this How To Make A Fun Intertidal Zone Diorama.
Make a salt-crystal “sea star” or explore density with a homemade ocean-layers jar (oil, water, food coloring).
Sort toy sea creatures by how they breathe underwater (gills, lungs, skin) using the book’s opening spread as a guide.

BIRD BOOK HANDS-ON IDEAS

Build a simple pinecone-and-peanut-butter bird feeder or other type of simple feeder, then keep a backyard bird-watching log using the species pictured in the book.
Make a bird-beak matching game: cut different “beak” shapes (tweezers, clothespin, spoon) and test which “beak” picks up which pretend food (seeds, worms, nectar).
Start a nest-building challenge: give kids twigs, grass, and mud and see if they can engineer a nest that holds an egg (a small ball) without collapsing.

BLOOMS BOOK HANDS-ON IDEAS

Press flowers from a walk and build a labeled botany journal page; here are directions for How to Easily Make a Simple and Fun Kids DIY Flower Press.
Grow a bean or sunflower seed in a clear cup so kids can watch the life cycle described in the book unfold in real time.
Build a paper Venus flytrap that “snaps shut” to explore how carnivorous plants work.
Do a flower dissection scavenger hunt: find and label petals, stem, stamen, and pistil on a real flower.

NATURE ART BOOK HANDS-ON IDEAS

Just open it; the 22 projects inside are already designed to be five-minute, low-mess, natural-materials crafts, so this book is the hands-on activity list.
Pick one project a week and pair it with a nature walk to gather that week’s materials (twigs, seed pods, leaves) beforehand.

BELONGING BOOK HANDS-ON IDEAS

Have your child sort plastic animals by various traits: those that live in the water, those with spots, those that use camouflage, nocturnal vs. diurnal animals.
Do a fingerprint/pattern lab: take everyone’s fingerprints and compare them to zebra stripes or cowrie shell patterns from the book, and talk about how no two are identical.
Try a “communicate without words” game (like the fava beans’ chemical signals or reef squid’s color changes) using only gestures or colored cards.

The Big Book series is a fantastic anchor, but round out the shelf with a few other visual-learning standouts. These are mostly series books with the same vibe as the Big Book of Series.

5 MORE SCIENCE PICTURE BOOKS WORTH ADDING

Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty (1 of 7 in a series) – A cute rhyming story about a young scientist’s curiosity, great for framing “what does a scientist actually do?”
What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins & Robin Page– Cut-paper collage illustrations turn animal-adaptation facts into a guessing game.
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book series (Space, Animals, Ocean, and more) — shorter and simpler than Zommer’s books, a good bridge for younger visual learners.
Nature Anatomy by Julia Rothman (1 of 6 in the series)- technically this is an art-meets-science reference guide rather than a picture book, but it belongs on the same shelf; older elementary kids will pull it out again and again.
Over and Under the Pond / Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner (1 of a series of 9)- A quieter, more narrative nonfiction with soft illustrations, good for a slower-paced read-aloud on habitat and season.

And look at these other picture books.

Below is the full rundown of the series.

Finally, add the hands-on project ideas that use the physical books themselves (yes, even use as spines) as teaching tools.

7 Picture Books About Science

There are also sticker and activity companions for several titles (Beasts, Bugs, Birds, the Blue, Blooms) if your visual learner wants to interact with the content rather than just read it, and board-book versions (Little Snail's Book of Bugs, Little Bee's Book of Blooms, Little Robin's Book of Birds) for their younger siblings.

7 Picture Books About Science For Kids Who Love Visual Learning