Curiosity Files Review: Quicksand

     Would you say you're the kind of person who heeds warnings so you can avoid disasters? 

       Are you the type of person who will risk anything for the sake of adventure? 

       Or are you somewhere in between?

     I'm not much of a risk-taker.  I'm the kind of learner and decision-maker who learns by watching others and avoiding what some people do if it has brought pain from poor choices into their lives.  I don't have to experience everything in order to know how to make a good or bad decision.  But I realize that not everyone is just like me (thankfully). 

     What about my daughters?  If you know them well, you will probably figure out that one of them makes decisions much like me, and the other one is more of a risk-taker; she tends to learn by "doing" and learning from those experiences, whether good or bad, and that's okay.  This is how God designed my daughters to be!

     However, even though I don't like to take risks, I am very curious - about a lot of things.  I'm a question-asker; I want to know more. I want to learn so I make honorable and godly decisions.  I probably drive people crazy sometimes, but I learn so much from asking questions and listening to others!  And it's kind of funny that when I did career testing and took the California Achievement Tests in high school, the one area in which I always scored lower was researching (or something like that - I don't remember the exact title).  The testing would always mention that searching and finding the answers or the information I needed wasn't one of my strengths.  Ha!  If "they" could only see me now!  

     If we'd had the use of the Internet when I was a child, I would probably have been addicted to looking up information to help answer my many questions.  Surprisingly, though, as a child, I was not a non-fiction kind of girl!  I don't know that I ever read non-fiction books.  Surprise, surprise - I like those kinds of books now as an adult!  But as a child, I only read fiction books.  I did eventually branch out to historical fiction and some biographies, but I don't remember checking out non-fiction books as a child.  That has all changed since we began educating the girls at home.

     Recently, I was asked if the girls and I wanted to use and review one of The Old Schoolhouse's Curiosity Files unit studies.  I'd heard a little bit about them before, a few months ago, but we hadn't bought any of these neat, little unit studies yet to see what they were like.  The hardest part was choosing which Curiosity File eBook we wanted to use. 

Here are the Curiosity Files titles from which we were able to choose:

•Blue Diamond

•Dung Beetle

•MRSA

• Zombie Fire Ants

•Red Tide

•Zombie Fire Ants

•Blue-footed Booby

•Cicada Killing Wasp

•Quicksand

...and Pufferfish

     Tugging, whining, fighting, scratching each other's eyes out...well, that wasn't exactly the scenario at our home, thankfully, but the girls did have a slightly louder than normal discussion about which Curiosity File to select for our family.  Since we have studied birds and other flying creatures for science in the last year or so, we settled on learning more about quicksand.

     Quicksand?  Huh?  I don't know that we have any quicksand in our area.  I doubt it.  But as we began to use our new Quicksand Curiosity File unit study, we began to learn a lot of new things we had never heard before.

     I won't give away all of the secrets about quicksand, but we did learn that it only takes four elements to combine to form quicksand.  And did you know that no one has ever died from drowning in quicksand?  However, people do die from starving to death and dehydration from being stuck in quicksand. 

     The Curiosity Files have been designed as unit studies to use in your home or classroom for a week or two - and just have fun learning many things around one central theme!  The amount of reading in The Curiosity File:  Quicksand was just right - not too much, and not too little.  A suggested reading list showed other books we could check out from the library or purchase to learn more about quicksand. 

     While we didn't complete every activity found in The Curiosity Files:  Quicksand, there are quite a few options from which to choose.  We discovered copywork for handwriting practice, art lessons, math problems and practice, science experiments (these are great ones!), essay writing and other writing practice, and so much more.  All of us agreed that The Curiosity Files are a great way to break up a January or February when sometimes something new is needed to spice up the schooling at home or in the classroom! 

     We'd like to investigate The Curiosity Files further, and we hope to purchase a few of these in the months to come.  "Zombie Fire Ants" sounds weird and bizarre and fascinating to me, and I did hear from a fellow TOS Crew member that the Blue Diamond eBook was really neat.  I can't wait to learn more about these topics...and other new Curiosity Files topics that will be released in the future for us!

     The Curiosity Files are designed for the ages between 8–13, although they can easily be adapted for younger ages.  Older students will still be interested, but the assignment requirements are designed for this range of ages.

     If you'd like to take a look at a sample of one of The Curiosity Files, please click below on the cover of the Puffer Fish Curiosity File:

     To get the best deal onThe Curiosity Files, you have two options: the CD of all nine units is available for $49, or you can get all nine units as downloadable E-Books for $46.  To purchase individually, please refer to The Old Schoolhouse Store website for pricing details. 

     If you'd like to read other reviews from my Crewmates about The Curiosity Files, please go to our TOS Homeschool Crew blog.

     Be prepared to learn some bizarre and fascinating facts about animals and objects in our natural world!  We certainly have in the last week or so!

Disclosure:  The Old Schoolhouse Magazine sent me one downloaded copy of The Curiosity Files:  Quicksand in exchange for our use and review of this product in our family.  No other compensation was provided.

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