The Curiosity Files-Dung Beetle-Our Lesson & Review

We spent the day learning about, of all things, Dung Beetles. Yes we did. Let me start by telling you that I did not intend to add a unit about Dung Beetles to our learning, but I was given the opportunity to review an E-Book from The Old Schoolhouse, and I was not about to turn down that chance! The Curiosity Files-Dung Beetle Unit has certainly changed my tune from 'why would you want to learn about those' to 'holy cow you have got to learn about those!'

So, if you dont know what a Dung Beetle is, then you are among great company. Never mind, I was probably the only one who missed this as a kid, but yeah I did. Ooops! A Dung Beetle is a beetle that feeds on, well, DUNG! Yep, it eats dung. Nice. And, since the landlords here at the farm just (as in last week) brought cows over to the pasture next to my house, we have plenty of dung to explore!! Who knew the timing would be so perfect? Unfortunately, it was a bit too cold and rainy to go dung hunting (darn the luck), but now we can be looking for Dung Beetles once the rain stops.



For our unit, we read very informative and entertaining information from Professor Ana Lyze who is an Expert in Outlandish Oddities including Dung Beetles.



We made dung balls from play dough, and discussed spheres and circles.





We made and discussed compound eyes. Mustang thought these were really cool!




We also colored our own dung beetles using the nice coloring pages included with the E-Book.



I added a few books from our own library, including our Aladdin book where we identified Jaffar's Dung Beetle-much to Mustang's delight. Anytime you can bring a fairytale into the lesson, she loves it :).



We even played a round of letter bingo thanks to some bug mats I found from Prekinders.

Over all, I really enjoyed this lesson! The ease of preparation was so nice. The content was unique and enjoyable while being extremely informative. The Curiosity Files Dung Beetle Unit is actually geared to ages 8-13, but it was unbelievably easy to tailor it to meet our own needs for a much younger audience. Each of my children enjoyed the lesson, and I love knowing that every year or two I could pull the unit back out and my entire group could learn from the study once again.

The products are E-Books, so you download them right to your computer. You can choose to print any or all of the pages, or allow your older student to read the lesson right on the computer. This unit included activities, copy work, a crossword puzzle, math lesson, literary lesson, a Bible verse and much more. TOS really thought of everything you might want to make a great unit on Dung Beetles.



The Curiosity Files are presented by The Old Schoolhouse and are available online at The Old Schoolhouse Store. Subjects include Puffer Fish, Red Tide, Cicada Killing Wasp, and Platypus to name a few. They start at a great price of just $6.95-though some are on sale right now for just $1.00!!!

So if your curiosity is up, head on over to The Old Schoolhouse store and check them out for yourself. I think you'll be glad you did!

God Bless and happy learning!!

This a Homeschool Crew review. Thank you to The Old Schoolhouse for providing a free copy of The Curiosty Files-Dung Beetle for my review. All opinions expressed are my own.