Science while You Dine

There are times in my life that I feel terminally boring. Thankfully, my children have a high commitment to having fun so I am motivated to join the Fun Team. Well, Curiosity Café is here to help. Their kits offer a fantastic learning opportunity and family activity.

We pulled out Science While You Dine during a quiet afternoon. Suddenly, we were learning about nutrition, calories, the sense of taste, spices, salt, bread, and the history of the spoon. We even made an origami cup. We were able to read amazing facts like "During an average week, Americans eat 350 million hot dogs" and "We eat $3.4 billion worth of candy per year!" YIKES.

This kit works well with many ages. My older children read the pages of information; we all smelled spices and were able to identify them, talked about their uses, and tried to figure out their origin. Our six year-old was able to guess that ginger was a root. Boy, did she feel smart.

Our older children are studying chemistry this year, so the page on salt was a perfect compliment to our discussions on molecules. The kit included 27 Styrofoam balls and 54 toothpicks to build a sodium chloride molecule. The detail of one molecule made us realize how complex the simplest things are, like a shaker full of salt.

Since I am not always prepared to be "Fun Mom," these kits are perfect for me. They include all the supplies that you need for the projects. The origami paper, the vials of spices, the molecule makings, and even a card game of matching were all ready to be used.

Curiosity Café offers several products. Science While You Are Sick is waiting in our science drawer until one of us gets sick. Hopefully, we won't need it this flu and cold season, but it looks great. A model of a virus, charting symptoms, how a virus spreads, and even petri dishes to grow your own germs - what a great way to entertain sick children, or those that are kept home with family members that are ill.

For ordering information, or to see what else they offer, you can visit Curiosity Café on the web at www.CuriosityCafe.com. Their website also gives opportunity to learn more about what is introduced in their kits. Visit their Second Helpings section to find new activities for any products you already have.

So, if you need help with providing some fun for your family, or just like to have a well-organized kit for learning, I highly recommend Science While You Dine and the other products at Curiosity Café. Have fun!
-- Product Review by: Diane Wheeler, Senior Staff Writer, The Old Schoolhouseâ„¢ Magazine

Science with Your Pet

Science with Your Pet is a unit study kit that enables children to learn science using their dog or cat. The kit includes a booklet (10 pages, front and back) containing facts, activities, experiments, and even recipes for animal treats. It supplies approximately half of the items needed to perform the exercises. This curriculum teaches a concept and reinforces it with a related activity or experiment. For example, the study explains that dogs are 40 times more sensitive to scents than humans are. The student then encourages their pet to smell six different items and record their reaction. It also teaches animal senses, calculating the pet's age, reading body language, and incorporates some animal facts and history. I was disappointed to find four areas of this study written from an evolutionary viewpoint. But if learning science with your pet sounds exciting and you can overlook the evolutionary sections, this is a creative unit study to consider.