moving beyond the page

[momsuz123]

I am having fun looking around for new ideas for different curriculum. I have been looking at Moving Beyond the Page and that looks pretty cool. Any ideas? Thoughts?

[shell0830]

We love it here. My dd has done the 7-9 lit units, 8-10 lit units, and 9-11 Poetry and 50 States. My younger dd is doing 5-7 full year. It's expensive so I try to find it used. I love love the projects at the end of each unit.

[Jilly]

My youngest used the 7-9 and 8-10 curriculum. He loved the literature curriculum, but was not as crazy with the science/social studies units. Some people find the work to be busy work, but I felt it was more than that. There is a good deal of writing expected of the student, and there are some fun projects to do at the end of every unit. I would look at the examples on the site and see if it would be a good match for your children.

[km123175]

I've been using the 5-7 level with my 6 year old (will do all but concept 2 for her K year), and I've been using Concept 1 of the 7-9 level with my oldest daughter.

 

My 6 year old LOVES the projects and activities. I think it is too easy for her content wise (that's why we'll skip Concept 2 and move straight to Concept 3 - which I think will still be too easy, but she loves patterns; so, I think she'll enjoy it), but she's still working on developing independent reading skills . This level does not require independent reading skills, but offers activities that encourage reading and some beginning writing. It has ideas like have your child dictate to you, then read it back. In that regard it feels like a WTM approach. :)

 

My 8 year old thinks it's too much writing. It does have a lot of "creative" writing compared to the WTM approach. For my daughter writing a full paragraph on her own is not easy - and she hates to hold a pencil let alone figuring out how to write it all down. It was much more writing than I expected for that age range; however, it is typically not "busy work" writing. The writing takes thought and planning. She is an advanced reader; so, these beginning units are way too easy in terms of the reading level, but too hard in terms of writing. I actually think the writing expected is more advanced than the reading expected, even if my daughter weren't a reluctant writer. That's probably based more on my own style of mentoring/teaching my children than is typical because I have not encouraged/required much independent writing before using this program. My daughter has been writing more willingly since begining the Concept because the writing assignments are engaging.

 

All of that said, what I've learned is that the parent really has to "buy into" it for the curriculum to work well. I love the concept of the hands on activities, and I like that the subjects integrate with one another. At the same time, I realize that I'm not a project person and for the most part I feel that projects are just a waste of school time and should be enrichment activities that occur as natural by products of the "lessons." I don't know if that really makes sense. I don't mean that children should not do projects, but I personally prefer reading and narration good starting points for the "school work" and I want to see how else the children use that knowledge/information throughout their day/life without me telling them exactly what to do (for example, I don't want to use our limited school time making paper turtles - I want to let them do that later during craft time). I don't want to sound like a downer, but when I want to move on to the next thing I feel like some activities just take away from what we could be "learning."

 

I realize that play and exploration and acting, etc. are learning and I want my children to do that. I just don't want to spend time during "school hours" doing that kind of thing. I'd rather leave those activity ideas and options for non-school time. I also realize that I really like chronological history. This doesn't occur until the older levels with MBtP.

 

I also like to have my schedule/daily rhythm kind of "set." This helps everyone know what to expect. I've found with the lessons that it's very difficult to predict the amount of time an activity will take, and while their website says you can work with a younger child while the older one does their independent reading. I find this not a very effective solution for us right now. Sometimes the 5-7 level lesson for that day can take us anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour - depending on how much my daughter wants to really get into the activities - granted that's the good thing; she wants to really work a long time on some of them. My older daughter reads her book chapter in about 10 minutes because the books are so easy for her. Then I'm hopping back and forth between the two of them trying to do discussion questions, guide the next activity, and check in with how they're doing. In this way, I'm frustrated at not being able to spend directed time with my children on their work when they need me and I feel like neither gets what they want from me. If I were able to use one level with both of them, or if the older were in the 9-11 level this would be less of a problem (and if I didn't have a 4 year old running around).

 

Related to the earlier point about the activities, their website says that they're a literature rich program. I think that is true when compared to some other curricula available, but whenI compare it to SL or even how we do science, history, and Language arts around here, it seems like a project rich curriculum with a few good books to supplement instead of activities supplementing the reading. For example, for the "citizenship" unit in 5-7 we only read 1 assigned book so far.

 

With all that said, I don't want it to sound like I don't think it's a good program. I think it is a great program for the right combination of teacher and student. :) I'm not the right teacher for that approach at this time of my life. I work full-time and homeschool my children who are on very different academic levels. If we were able to share a level or one were working more independently then it would work better. I will probably let the 6 year old choose some of the concepts/units to do for fun if she's intersted after we finish up this year of 5-7.

 

I really do like how all of the materials/topics mesh together within the Concept and how those things build upon each other througout the year. Their topics just don't fit with the history and science plans I've laid out for us. :)

 

I hope that helps.

[PachiSusan]

We love it here. My dd has done the 7-9 lit units, 8-10 lit units, and 9-11 Poetry and 50 States. My younger dd is doing 5-7 full year. It's expensive so I try to find it used. I love love the projects at the end of each unit.

 

 

Ears pricking up. Tell me about it!!

[Mandy in TN]

There is a lot of output required by MBtP. I like that the output requires the student to really think about what they have read. Right now ds is using the 10-12 poetry until that uses The Tree That Time Built. Last summer he used the 8-10 unit that covered Akimbo and Sadako and did the coordinating social studies. It was a lot of work. He began the unit that used Holes, but summer got in the way and he really just read the book and did the science kits. When he was younger, he did the patterns unit mentioned by another poster.

 

This summer he has chosen to do the 9-11 unit that using A Wrinkle in Time along with the coordinating space science. We will start it at the end of May.

 

I really like MBtP, but can not bring myself to use it for our full curriculum during the school year for a couple of reasons. First, amount of output is time consuming and makes it difficult to plan your day. Second, I know that it supposedly covers everything required, but it is in no way linear and that makes me crazy. After using it last summer as fun summer work (and indeed we did have fun), I decided to use it during the summers. So, ds has already chosen for this summer and we will see how it goes. :)

 

Mandy

[sewingmama]

We are using the 5-7 level. My kids like it... I'm so so. I agree that the books seem like a supplement. Maybe it gets better in the older levels.

 

I intend to keep using it but now that they are selling it all in bits and pieces I will just choose only those I want to use.

 

They have a new preschool curriculum coming out in July. It uses a book a week. I looked at the sample...it seems kind of schooly to me. Anyway I may consider it for my DS who turns 4 in July depending on the price.

 

The owners are great people and give excellent customer service. Don't be afraid to ask them anything.

[BugsMama]

We use the lit units and love them :)

[BatmansWife]

We used it for awhile when dd was younger, and it was ok. But, I moved away from it because it's sooo expensive and I felt that I was constantly skipping tons of it and only doing what I wanted. It didn't seem like that was worth the money. Buuut....dd is older now and we will be using the lit units (found at Rainbow Resource). We will be starting the level that the lit units begin; 7-9. There are 12 literature selections for the year. That's too much for us. We'd rather take the books a bit slower and enjoy them instead of pushing through. So, we looked through the list and looked at samples and settled on half of those. Possibly we'll add in one more, not sure. We are both really looking forward to it.

[Jilly]

If anyone is planning on purchasing MBTP for next year their sale ends today. They only have a sale a few times a year, so I thought I would mention it. :001_smile:

 

ETA - The code is BUMBLEBEE for the discount.

[tagglelim]

I've been wondering this for a long time....Do the MBtP literature units discuss literary elements and terms or are they based more on comprehension?

[km123175]

The Literature units do discuss/explain and work with literary elements and terms. There are comprehension/discussion questions for each chapter read (for the 7-9 level it's typically one chapter per day).

 

For example, when doing the first lit unit we learned about plot and the parts of plot (with proper names of each part). The activities for that section included reading your own books (picture books with obvious plots) and discussing the different parts of the plot (problem/conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, etc.). The next activity of that lesson has the child outline (on a plot graphic) the plot of the book, Tornado. We actually did those activities in reverse order because I thought using the example with sentences already laid out for us with the right number of boxes would be an easier way to introduce the topic. Then, we talked about other books (and we didn't limit it to picture books). Anywho, the final activity of that lesson was to write your own story that includes a plot.

 

The lit units are well done, and I expect we may do more with a few of them that are scheduled in our SL schedule for next year.

[tagglelim]

The Literature units do discuss/explain and work with literary elements and terms. There are comprehension/discussion questions for each chapter read (for the 7-9 level it's typically one chapter per day).

 

For example, when doing the first lit unit we learned about plot and the parts of plot (with proper names of each part). The activities for that section included reading your own books (picture books with obvious plots) and discussing the different parts of the plot (problem/conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, etc.). The next activity of that lesson has the child outline (on a plot graphic) the plot of the book, Tornado. We actually did those activities in reverse order because I thought using the example with sentences already laid out for us with the right number of boxes would be an easier way to introduce the topic. Then, we talked about other books (and we didn't limit it to picture books). Anywho, the final activity of that lesson was to write your own story that includes a plot.

 

The lit units are well done, and I expect we may do more with a few of them that are scheduled in our SL schedule for next year.

 

 

Thanks! That's really helpful! I might just have to give them a try next year....