The artwork is drawn for ages 4 to 8, so a 9 to 12 year old may find some of it young. The ideas underneath are not. Every chapter maps to a real step of research, from forming a hypothesis to peer review, and older kids can use the pages as a starting point for work that matches their level.
Raise the challenge, not the coloring
Instead of asking an older child to color more carefully, ask them to think harder about what the page shows:
- Explain it. On The Null, ask them to explain in their own words what a null hypothesis is and why it still counts as finding something out.
- Find a real example. After The Control Group or Double Blind, ask how they would set up a fair test of their own.
- Make it real. Pages in Chapter 5, like The Bar Graph and The Outlier, pair well with collecting real data at home and graphing it by hand.
- Write and revise. Chapter 6 covers writing, editing, and presenting. An older child can write a short report on a small experiment and get "peer review" from a sibling.
Let them be the teacher
Many older kids enjoy the book most when they are guiding a younger sibling through it. Reading the "About this page" notes and choosing questions from the "Talk about it while you color" list turns them into the researcher-in-charge, which is a real test of understanding.
Good next steps
The science fair post and the guess vs. hypothesis post both stretch well past the coloring page. If you're teaching kids of different ages together, see Can I teach siblings of different ages together?.