This is another quality product from Pacific Edge Publishing, a tiny little Canadian company that actually specializes in products for the public school market, but whose materials are equally at home in any homeschool family! This series, called "Nature Detectives - The Living World Science Series" consists of five children's texts written by Victoria author Diane Swanson. Each text tells the story of a group of eco-detectives that explore a location in the Pacific Northwest - forest, wetland, grassland, seashore, river - to observe and discover life in an ecosystem. The student's texts are written in story form, telling the story of a group of nature detectives on a field trip to explore a particular site. The book I reviewed is called The Kingfisher Camp River Detectives. The students explore a river ecosystem. While located in Canada, the ecosystem could, in reality, be anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, making this series equally appealing to Americans and Canadians alike! The story also contains Field Guide notes, which are factual information related to the discoveries the children make. The Teacher's guide that goes along with the book extends the learning over all the curriculum. The book covers necessary learning points that are found in the K to 7 Integrated Resource Packages for British Columbia Schools, so if you are worried about making sure your child learns what they are learning in public school, this will do the trick! The activities included in the teacher's guide are fun and very educational. The student learns about the Rolling River, but also about the plants and animals along the riverbank and in the river. The students study plant life cycles, rocks, and earth's layers, as well as food chains and salmon life cycles. This is a great introduction to science for the primary grades, and a book that I'm sure will be well enjoyed by all the family. It also extends itself into a co-op situation extremely well, as all the worksheets in the teacher's guides are black line masters and are allowed to be photocopied for classroom use! This would be a great way to get out of the house after a long winter and enjoy spring while learning about an ecosystem at the same time!



-- Product Review by: Holly Cameron, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine