I received a copy of The Curiosity Files – The Dung Beetle e-book from The Old Schoolhouse Store to review. I had never used one of The Curiosity Files e-books before. I was pleasantly surprised.
The quality of this e-book is exceptional. 78 pages of fun and learning, all on the computer. Included along with all the information about the Dung Beetle are:
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, and experiments
Discussion questions
Art, crafts, drawing, and coloring pages
Lapbook and notebook pages
A physical education activity
Internet resources and video links
Complete answer key
The answer key even includes the answers for the puzzles. No trying to look through the word search to help your child find the word.
If you wanted to, you could print out the whole book. But the beauty of an e-book is you only print what you need. You can customize it to your needs. The Curiosity Files e-books say they are for ages 8-13. I used this one with my 10 and 12 year olds. I think it could also easily be adapted for the under 8 crowd. They wouldn’t be able to do all of the puzzles and activities, but they would certainly learn a lot. These e-books are great for families with multiple ages.
One of the activities that we did from the e-book involved labeling a drawing of the dung beetle. Instead of printing out the sheet, I had them draw the beetle, then label it.
Here’s what they came up with:
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| The 10 year olds drawing |
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| The 12 year olds drawing – She wants me to say that she was rushing to finish so she could go play with her cousins! |
The e-books even included links for websites about the subject. While I had the e-book open, I clicked on the video we wanted to watch, and it opened the webpage. No stopping what were we doing to type in the web address in the browser. We were able to watch a video of dung beetles rolling their dung balls back to their homes. Yes, dung beetles make balls out of dung. Your welcome for that little tidbit of information. In case you want to witness that activity up close, the e-book has directions for building a dung beetle farm in an old ant farm. My son wants to find an old ant farm so he can do that. Let’s just say I’m not as excited as he is to try it.
Did you know that the dung beetles roll the balls by pushing it with their back legs while crawling backwards? One of the activities included was for having the kids use a ball of some sort and roll it with their legs while crawling backwards. My son had fun trying that. He would not let me take any pictures of him doing it, however. lol
I really loved this The Curiosity File e-book. I think these e-books would make a great, fun supplement to your curriculum. These would be awesome for the summer months when you could take your time going through them. I would say there’s enough material and activities to last for 2-3 weeks (or more), depending on how much you do every day. And the best part? Everything is planned out for you! No lessons plans involved! Just pick want to do that day, and go for it.
Keeping the kids entertained and learning during the summer, with very little prep work on your part (just printing the activity pages) is a win-win situation!
You can purchase The Curiosity Files at The Old Schoolhouse Store. I counted 11 different titles at $6.95 each. As of this writing, there are several for $1. each. They are a bargain at $6.95 each. But a $1? What a deal!
Disclosure: I received this e-book for free for the purpose of reviewing it. I received no other compensation. My opinion is my own.
