Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Curiosity Files {A Homeschool Product Review}


I recently had the opportunity to review a great science unit study from The Old Schoolhouse - The Curiosity Files - Snow Rollers & Other Snow Phenomena.

Our Experience:

Though the weather around here is definitely Spring we enjoyed learning all about Snow Rollers - something the kids and I had never heard of, or experienced, being from the Deep South. This unit study arrived just in time for us as it also discusses hail and we had a horrible hail storm just last week. It really put our unit study into perspective especially the understanding of the different states of liquid and how hailstones are formed.
{Pictured above hailstones we gathered after the storm to study later}

Some of the activities we completed from this eBook were tracking our weather on a weather chart,
making a rain gauge,

and creating rain.


And, while I read to my 8 and 6 year old daughters from The Curiosity Files, my son - who is 9, was able to easily read through the unit study on his own.

This Curiosity File contained the following activities - which gave us so much to pick from.
  • Bible study, discussion ideas, and memory verses
  • Math, history, and geography investigations
  • Literature and suggested book list
  • Writing, spelling, and vocabulary activities
  • Beautiful copywork pages (manuscript and cursive)
  • Science observations, projects, and experiments
  • Discussion questions
  • Art, crafts, and drawing and coloring pages
  • Lapbook/notebook pages we call “Curiosity Snippets”
  • Special needs, hands-on discoveries
  • Internet resource and video links
  • Complete answer key
My plan is to revisit this study again in the Winter months and focus more on the "snow" activities.

My Thoughts:

With our bookshelves around here beginning to fill up with lots of school books I have come to really love eBooks. We have a laptop at our school table which makes it easy to read sections from the Curiosity Files. I only print the pages we need for the kids to complete.

I also love that The Curiosity Files series really appeals to all learning styles. My son is a "check it off" style learner and enjoys filling out worksheets - while my girls are "hands on" learners and loved all the activities we had to pick from.

My kids enjoyed this study so much we will definitely be investing in more of these science unit studies. Plus, with this unit study there are so many activities we will be able to use it more than once with new activities each time.

The Product Details:

Vendor: The Old Schoolhouse
Price: $6.95 - though watch for deals as many times these unit studies go on sale
Ages: 8 - 13 - our six year old participated in all of the study times and had no problem understanding the concepts
Want to check out a sample of this unit study just click here.

The product featured in this review was provided to me free of cost by The Old Schoolhouse. The opinions expressed are my own and are not influenced by monetary compensation.

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