Before the Name Investigator’s Field Manual · A DET & CW Casebook

What was there before anybody named it? Twelve cases about patterns, words, colors, stars and the things we notice when we look before we label. Ages 10–12, grades 4-6.

The smell of rain on dry ground existed for thousands of years before it got a name in 1964. A fish everyone called extinct turned up alive in a net in 1938. The stars of the Big Dipper don’t know they’re a dipper.

In Before the Name, DET investigates the difference between knowing what something is called and actually looking at it. It’s language, science and observation, woven together, and it builds the kind of careful noticing every good investigator needs.

What’s inside (12 cases):

•     How animals learn patterns without words

•     Scientific names, and naming a find of your own

•     Words other languages have that English doesn’t, and inventing your own

•     Where blue ends and green begins

•     Petrichor: a smell journal

•     Constellations and the stories different peoples see in the same stars

•     Animals with the wrong names (a starfish isn’t a fish)

•     Watching before naming, counting before numbers, the story of your own name, and a mystery light some aurora watchers called “Steve”

Every case has three parts:

•     The Case: a short DET & CW story to read aloud, with vocabulary and discussion questions.

•     Field Work: a real hands-on project in science, math, history, geography or language.

•     Your Own File: private pages that turn the case around, so your investigator looks at their own life the same careful way. They decide who reads them.

Good to know:

•     45-page printable PDF, US Letter (8.5 × 11 in), black-and-white line art that prints cleanly at home

•     Stand-alone: no novel or other book needed

•     Ages 10–12 (grades 4–6), great for homeschool, classroom or summer learning

•     Includes a case-file cover sheet, a word search, and a grown-up guide, “Things to Listen For,” with answers to the math and facts

•     Available in a Canadian edition (metric, Canadian examples) and a U.S. edition (US units and spelling, American examples). Please choose the one you need.

•     Print for your own household or one classroom

Part of the Investigator’s Field Manual series from Perspective Detective Studios.

Observe. Investigate. Discover.