A Review - Download N' Go: Expedition Australia

If you are a homeschooler that frequents other homeschooling blogs, you may have have heard of the "TOS Homeschool Crew". The Old Schoolhouse Magazine recruits bloggers who desire to test and review homeschool products on their blogs - what a fun idea! I filled out the application to join the Crew for this upcoming year, and as part of the process of selection, they sent me a product to review: "Expedition Australia", one of TOS' "Download N' Go" e-books.

This was perfect for us, because we were supposed to start studying Australia in about 2 weeks or so in our geography, so with a little modification, I went ahead and made this week the week we'd study Australia. Sorry, Russia, we'll get to you soon! (I love the flexibility of homeschooling!)

We've used the e-book all week in place of our normally scheduled activities, and I've been very impressed at how many interesting things we've all learned that we wouldn't have learned otherwise. From neat Australian terms (the boys especially like "lollies") to fascinating facts about Australian creatures (did you know how beautiful Nudibranches could be?!), we have found Expedition Australia to be very enriching to our otherwise sometimes rather dry geography studies.

Here are some things I appreciated about the Download N' Go e-book:

• It provided a thorough and in-depth study without being too weighty or dry.


• Many interesting websites and videos linked within the e-book.


• Easily customizable - can do as-is, and learn a ton! You can add to it, and draw it out into a longer unit study. Or, you can use it as a suppliment to another curriculum, to which it will add depth and interest.
  


• Download N' Go e-books would definitely save on time and work, as there is no need to try to search out and pull together resources on your own. This is wonderful for moms like me who wish they could supplement but get discouraged just thinking of all the prep work that would be needed - these e-books eliminate the need for prep work! The title of the series is appropriate - just download and go!
  


• It can be used with a wide age-span. My older boys (9 and 7.5) did all of the notebooking pages, while my younger ones joined in on the drawing and coloring pages. One afternoon, after talking about Koalas in the morning, my 3 year old, who had been in and out of the room during that time, came to me with a book of Koalas and said "Look mama! Just what we learned about today!"
  


• Perfect for making cool mini-notebooks about specific areas of interest or study - great for those who like notebooking, lapbooking, Unit Studies, or the delight-directed approach.


• Also included is a book list to help select library books to add informational reading - as I've mentioned before, we love reading aloud, so I appreciated this very much!
  

Areas which I felt could be improved:

• I'll admit, this was my first experience with an e-book and I wasn't exactly sure how I was supposed to use it - should I print out all the pages? Ask questions orally? Do all the pages and the lapbook books, as well? (I ended up printing out the notebooking pages, but not doing the lapbooks at all). They do provide helpful hints on how to lapbook in general, but that didn't encompass the overall e-book. After going through all of these quandaries in my mind and finally making my decision, I did run across this helpful page: http://downloadngo.com/faq.php. I would suggest that the section on "How Do I Use These Units" actually be included within the e-book itself for those who might not be so quick to figure things out sometimes! Like, ummm... me!
  


• Since I did decide to print out all of the notebook pages, there was alot of printing to do for two children, plus a few extra pages for the little ones. However, some pages were mostly links with just one or two questions on them, so it seemed sort of strange to print out one whole page for it. I did, but I think in the future, I would just leave those pages of questions to be done orally instead to save on ink and paper.

So, those are my opinions. But wait! What about the ones who actually have to DO the work? Well, as I mentioned, we primarily did it with my oldest two boys, ages 9 and 7.5. The first two days, they were a little skeptical - mostly, I think, because it was a change from what they were used to. However, by the third day, when I said "Let's do our geography!" both boys yelled "Yesss!" and ran into the computer room to get their pages and watch the day's videos. They asked me why we hadn't done any of these before and if we can do more! So I'd give that two, ooops, I mean, four thumbs up from them. And two more from me for making school even more enjoyable and interesting - gotta love that!

Isaac (9) says "I like that we get to go deeper into the countries, instead of just learning the basic information"

Ezra (7.5) says "I like drawing the pictures, that's fun"

All in all, we really enjoyed using the e-book! Being able to give it a try and see what it was all about made me wish I had used the ones they have available for some of countries we've already studied. I will definitely be keeping Download N' Go books in mind for future topics, since they offer a good variety on various themes, and are reasonably priced at $7.95 each (less if you buy a bundle), and can be reused for more children. I want to thank The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew for giving me the opportunity to try it out and offer my opinion!