Are they more than just a little CURIOUS?

Once upon a time, Maestro used to have another pet name. It was "Sir Curious". Another friend of mine calls her son, "Mr 'Scuse Me". I loved the younger years with my children. They'd asked SOOooo many questions! (and yes, it sometimes WAS very tiring, also!) There's something in a child's make-up that loves to inquire about everything around them, and fostering that so the desire to keep on learning throughout their lives is one of the beautiful things I enjoy about teaching my children.

The Old Schoolhouse has launched a new product, aimed at facilitating this type of natural inquiry. However, what's different about this product is that they offer some very unusual topics.

The product is called, curiously enough, The Curiosity Files. They are aimed at children in middle primary to early secondary, or ages 8-13 years. This is an interesting age group, as they usually like to learn about something that's a little different from their immediate surroundings. They also enjoy finding out obscure facts (yes, I'm learning all sorts of interesting tid-bits that happen to pop into conversations lately!). 

The current collection of titles are quite enticing. Here's what you'll find is available:

• Blue-Footed Booby
• Blue Diamond
• Cicada Killing Wasp
• Dung Beetle
• MRSA
• Puffer Fish
• Quicksand
• Red Tide
• Zombie Fire Ants

We had the opportunity to use Blue Diamonds. I really like the presentation of this 91 page ebook. The format is very easy to read, with clear pictures and photos. There is a LOT of information, and a great collection of worksheets covering all the learning areas. It wasn't just the children learning, either.  There was a tonne of information I never knew.  Here's what you can expect to find:

* Bible study 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, & experiments
* Discussion questions
* Art, crafts, drawing, and coloring pages
* Lapbook/notebook pages and helpful lapbooking links
* Special needs, hands-on discoveries
* Internet resource and video links
* Complete answer key

This complimented a book we were working through as a read-aloud at the end of last year: "Twenty-One Balloons". When we used one of the suggested links from this Curiosity File, we viewed an animation on the rock cycle. This answered a question that had arisen at the time of our reading, which was a great help to me!

One thing we are yet to do, though, are some experiments on the rock cycle. These do look like a lot of fun, so we won't be missing doing it later. One involves using a crayon, an iceblock, and a few other household items. We'll imitate corroding a rock, then treat parts of it differently to represent the various rock types.

Oh yes, and the craft activities do include jewelry making, even a necklace for a favourite pooch.  (Can you guess who enjoyed that little activity?)

Take a look at the ebooks available in this series. Sample pages are available to download when you visit the web page for the individual books. Here is the sample of Blue Diamonds.

Each ebook costs $6.95US, or you may like to choose all nine ebook titles for $46US.
Or, grab a bargain!  A small number of the titles are currently available for sale at $1 through the TOS dollar specials page.

NB - I received full use of one ebook for the purpose of review. There is no other compensation and the opinions are my own. Thank you to TOS for the use of this product. If you'd like to read further reviews on this product, especially with regard to the other ebook titles, please click HERE.