For grown-ups

what it teaches, how to play it, and a card for every expedition

What it teaches

Curious Kea is an interactive story about how we know things: what do I think, where did that come from, how sure am I, how would I find out, and what would change my mind. Not a list of facts to remember, though children pick up plenty along the way (why seasons happen, how a footprint can be a witness, how a boulder ends up under the wrong mountain). The facts are the scenery, and the habit is the point.

Each expedition walks the same loop in story: claim, where-from, Sure-o-Meter, predict-then-check, update, Wonder Log. Kea's theories are wrong in entertaining ways, Rock keeps records and only ever reports what it saw, and your child adjudicates. Nobody in the story is an oracle. Every character has a source, not an authority, and the crew compares sources ("she saw it; he was told; I guessed") rather than status.

These are the five patches a child can earn, and the whole reward system:

• Said "I'm Not Sure"
• Asked a Great Question
• Checked It Myself
• Caught a Mistake
• Changed My Mind

They reward the moves rather than being right first, and changing your answer after the evidence actually earns more than being right straight away. Sticking to your theory after the evidence is allowed too:

How to play it with a child

• Ages. It is written for 7 to 10, and it holds up fine above that. Two trails, chosen in the app's settings: the main trail (the whole story) and the high route (the same story with a few extra beats for careful older thinkers: layers in mud, a direction from a scratch, saying a rough number honestly). Nothing in the app mentions ages.
• Time. Twelve to twenty minutes an expedition, in three or four scenes. The app saves at every scene break, so stopping halfway is fine: every episode has a deliberate pause in the middle, a natural "more tomorrow".
• Reading. The words write themselves out at reading pace and wait for the reader; a tap finishes a line early, and holding a finger on the page hurries the writing along. A confident six-year-old manages the main trail; a slower reader will want you beside them for the first one.
• Together or alone. Both work, though together is better the first time. It is closer to an interactive book than a video game: read it together the way you would a chapter book, and the choices are made to be talked about, and the best moments are when a child argues with Kea.
• Afterwards. Every card below ends with a home experiment (nothing you need to buy) and two or three questions to talk about. The Wonder Log in the app keeps a page from every finished expedition, in the child's own choices.

What it will never do

• no ads
• no accounts
• nothing collected
• no chat
• works offline

Progress, patches and the Wonder Log live on your device and never leave it. Moving to a new device is a "pack up" and "unpack" of one file, and the file goes only where you put it. The privacy page says the rest in plain words.

The expeditions

One card per expedition: what happens (with spoilers), the thinking your child practised, words they may come home saying, the home experiment, and what to talk about afterwards. Printable.

Questions, corrections, ideas

Write to [email protected]. If a card gets a fact wrong, that is exactly the kind of thing the crew would want to know.