Moving Beyond The Page

 

Moving Beyond the Page is a company that I had heard of but I had never really looked into their products.

I am lucky enough that I was able to review 2 curriculum packages from them. 

The Social Studies Package- World Wars I and II, we received in physical format along with the required reading books. This package is recommended for ages 10-12 with a price of $42.89.  It is yours to own and you may take as long as you wish to complete it. However the copyright laws state that you may not copy it at all.

The Language Arts Package- Great American Poets came to us in an online format as well as we received the physical book required.  This package is recommended for ages 12-14 and is priced at $19.99.  You may print off as many copies as you need of the activity sheets, but you only have access to this for 90 days.

There truly is so much to say about this company that it is going to be hard to put it all into one blog post.  I do plan on continuing with Moving Beyond the Page curriculum and I am sure you will see it in other blog posts as well. It really is that great. 
 

About The Company:

Moving Beyond the Page is a curriculum that allows children to see connections between science, social studies and language arts, by using Interdisciplinary Instruction. The educational philosophy behind Moving Beyond the Page is most closely aligned with the Constructivist theory of Learning. Which indicates that understanding, application and competency cannot be achieved without actively engaging the learner.

About The Product:

The two curriculum packages that we reviewed were set up very similar. 

Each package comes with a workbook/ parent overview book. Our Great American Poets one was online and our World Wars I and II was in physical form.  They both provide the same set up as far as structure.  The physical one was just that in a spiral bound workbook.  That includes the lesson, the questions as well as the activities. The online version has all of those same things, just in link format, like this.

The prices and age ranges vary depending on the unit you purchase.  Currently they have units that range from ages 4-14.

 

A day/week in our life:

The very first thing I noticed about the physical version is that the beginning of the book has a list of all materials you will need for the entire unit. Each lesson begins with a getting started section that gives you an overview of what you will be learning about. Then a stuff you need.  The activity sheets are either in the book or can be printed from the online version. There are Ideas to Think About.  Which gets you thinking while you are reading. Then Things to Know which often has your Vocabulary words and some basic facts. The Reading and Questions section lets you know what you will be reading as well as either essay or discussion questions at the end.  Then comes the fun!  The Activities.

The activities is where the engaging learning comes in. Just to give some examples of the activities we did in WWI and II.  You can read a poem written by a solider and memorize a stanza.  You also dissect the stanza to what you think the author meant by it. You have a ration sheet and use rations in your family for certain things like gas for a few days. You write a letter to President Roosevelt letting him know your thoughts on US involvement during WWII.  You create a poster to try and convince people on the home front to join the war effort. You learn to write in Navajo Code. You become an TV Reporter and do a report on the war. You learn about some of the WII monuments. You create your very own World War Trivia Board Game! 

To keep the excitement up, I want to show you how neat the Great American Poets Package is.  Emily had to recite the same poem using different techniques. She had to make a Ven Diagram. She had to write her own poems using her senses. She learned and made trading cards about many famous American Poets. She had to dissect a poem’s literal and symbolic meaning. Emily’s very favorite was learning about lyrical poems.  She loves music and this was right up her alley.

If you are working on a unit 5 days a week, it should take you about 3ish weeks to complete. The World War I and II unit often took us over an hour each day.

Each lesson is laid out for you and tell you what you need to do that day.  Some lessons are even expected to take more than one day and the book lets you know that. 

Our thoughts and feelings:

We thoroughly enjoyed both of these unit packages. We did prefer the physical one to the online one.  However, I wished I was able to copy some things like the game card pieces onto cardstock.  We did just glue ours onto some cardstock and then laminate them. I also wished that we could have personal home copyrights, since I do have 4 children, and a limited budget.  Even with this, this curriculum has been wonderful for our family.  We didn’t get as much schoolwork done last school year as I wanted us to and my children didn’t complain once about doing these lessons through the summer.  They often wanted to do them with out my saying it is time.  My history loving daughter has fallen in love with the WWII time period and is still learning more about it and reading some books written about that time period.

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.