Revolution

Have you ever found a curriculum that simply blows you away and makes you reconsider everything you’ve ever used for homeschooling? For me that curriculum company is Moving Beyond the Page. Their unit studies are so thorough, so simple to use and yet so much fun!

For this review, we were given access to our choice of products. Trust me, this was NOT an easy decision to make. Since we have been studying the Revolutionary War in relation to our Hometown of Georgetown, SC, I choose two units that I thought we best fit to our current lessons. For our Language Arts Package, I chose Abigail Adams and for our History Package, I chose Revolution.

{Language Arts – Abigail Adams, History – Revolution}

As soon as I saw Moving Beyond the Page listed as one of our vendors, I knew I didn’t want to miss out. I reviewed another set of packaged programs for this company with the Schoolhouse Team last year and we absolutely LOVED it. I wanted to see if we’d feel the same way this year and I’m happy to say we still LOVE them.
Our Language Arts Package provided us with an online guidebook to use and a physical book to read to learn all about the life of Abigail Adams. The book we received is Abigail Adams Witness to a Revolution by Natalie S. Bober. It is filled with information on Mrs. Adams life and the things she saw during this important time in the early beginning of America.

The online guide for Abigail Adams provides a wonderful lesson plan which is simple to follow. You simply log into the website and follow the links. There are activity pages that can be printed out to use with the lessons being learned. There are also bonus suggestions from others to help you extend your lessons even farther. I really enjoy the formatting of the online guide and the extra content that helps to bring the lessons to life.

I must admit though, my children found the book on Mrs. Adams lengthy and slightly boring and so did I since I was reading it to them. I think this book and lesson package would be better suited for a more structured homeschool setting than ours. I was able to find readings from various websites and books from the library to help us make our lessons more interesting. There were some areas where reading the information provided in the book Abigail Adams Witness to a Revolution could not be avoided and we read through and did learn a lot from the reading.

For our History Package, we were sent a physical copy of the Revolution Guidebook, along with the hands-on book Great Colonial America Projects You Can Build Yourself by Kris Bordessa and We Were There, Too! Young People in US History by Phillip Hoose. I will admit this package was immediately a favorite of both myself and the kiddos. Both these books are amazing and they add so much to the lesson itself.

Great Colonial America Projects contains so many interesting facts and super-fun projects to complete! It includes words to know which can be used for Vocabulary exercises and also for copywork. It features different persons from the time period throughout the book, providing a better look at those important historical figures and their influence on American History. This book also gives timeline tidbits would could easily be used to create a physical timeline in your lessons. There are so many things we learned from this one little book!

We Were There, Too! is a beautiful book itself. It’s a glossy covered, hardback book that is sturdily made. It reads like a textbook but the stories are so interesting. They really draw the reader in and the students as well. Beginning with the discovery of America, this book takes you on a long walk through History. One that you won’t soon forget.

We Were There, Too! also contains new words that can be used for Vocabulary, Spelling, Copywork and more. Lessons on the specific people who made History happen can be easily expanded upon though the book is pretty thorough in examining these people and is historically accurate in it’s information. This book is a wonderful addition to our lessons and our homeschooling.

The Revolution Guidebook is approximately 168 pages long. It begins with covering history from the settling of America which did surprise me, as I was expecting it to only cover the actual Revolutionary period and the War itself. I was thrilled to discover it began with America’s settlement and covered some information that we had already been discussing in our homeschooling over the weeks before we began this study.

The guidebooks for both of these packages are written so that the teacher can jump right in and begin right away. The packages come with the books and some packages come with extra activities that may otherwise be hard to locate so that you can easily begin the study. These packages are set up as unit studies and as most unit studies do, they cover the information being learned thoroughly both by providing excellent reading selections with the chosen books and by providing a thorough and completely planned guidebook to direct the teacher through the lesson.

We used these unit studies together in conjuction as much as possible. They fit well together, since Abigail Adams was a witness to the Revolution which we were discussing in the Revolution study. We used these lessons almost daily over the review period and we learned a lot from them. We also learned a lot about the history of our hometown, and nearby Charleston in the process. We enjoyed how the lessons brought so much of our home’s past to life for us.
The guidebooks provide lessons activities, extensions, suggestions for extra books to read and so much more. Best yet, they are so so so easy to follow. We have learned so much with these lesson packages in such a short time because of the simple and easy layout which makes it easy to jump right in and learn. I’m really considering switching other parts of our learning program to Moving Beyond the Page because of the ease of using the program and it’s completeness.

The packaging prices aren’t bad either. The Language Arts Package for Abigail Adams with the Online Guidebook is priced as $26.88 at time of this review. This includes access to the guidebook online and the physical book Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution. This package is designed for use with students ages 12-14 or who have a reading level of 8-9th grade.

The History Package for Revolution with a printed copy of the guidebook is $65.93. It comes with the guidebook in print copy, a copy of Great Colonial American Projects You Can Build Yourself and We Were There, Too!: Young People in US History. This package is designed for use with students age 12-14 or who have a reading level of 8-9th grade.

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When I signed up to review Moving Beyond the Page, I thought it was just going to be the usual, boring old kind of curriculum where the student reads the book and completes the worksheets involved. I had no idea that Moving Beyond the Page was going to be so awesome, so amazing, so wonderful! From the moment, you open the box the package arrives in, the excitement begins and does not stop.

Our curriculum package arrived in the average cardboard box, once again leading me to believe it was nothing more than a box of books. But upon opening the box, my opinion quickly changed. Inside the box was everything needed to learn about the subjects we had chosen to learn, except for common items like pencils and paper.

The package I chose to review from Moving Beyond the Page was something we could easily relate to our hometown in Georgetown, SC and our family interests. I chose to do a Literature and Science/History combination, choosing American Tall Tales and Legends for our Literature portion and Colonization and Revolution for our Science/History portion.

American Tall Tales and Legends interested me because these were my personal favorites to learn about when I was a child, as well as Josh’s. It is often something we find ourselves discussing and I had been looking for a way to introduce more of these wonderful stories and legends to our children in our homeschooling lessons. As usual, God provided a way to make this happen through our Moving Beyond the Page review.

I’ve also been looking for ways to get my children involved more in our local history. There’s no better way then to take them straight back to the foundation of our town, by teaching them more about how our area was colonized and the Revolutionary War that led to our nations founding. Being able to take these ideas even further by showing them things that relate to our readings makes it even better.

Back to our curriculum package. Upon opening our box, I discovered our Colonization and Revolution lesson book. This spiral bound book contains everything needed to complete the Science/History portion of our program. The box also contained the books we needed to read to learn more about our lessons. The New Americans: Colonial Times 1620-1689, The American Revolution for Kids: A History with 21 Activities and You Wouldn’t Want To Be An American Colonist!: A Settlement You’d Rather Not Start were all included to use with our Colonization and Revolution study.

Our lesson book for American Tall Tales and Legends was available for use online through the Moving Beyond the Page website. This program allowed me to read through the guidebook straight from the website and print copies of the activity pages needed to complete our lessons. This was wonderful since it allowed me to print copies of lesson activities for each child, as needed. In the box for this part of our lessons, I received an American Tall Tales reader and Cut From The Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend, and Tall Tale. Both these books came together to provide the wonderful stories needed to teach my children about the legends and tales of the United States.

One additional item came in the box for use with our curriculum. A kit to create our own dream catcher was provided as an activity to be used with our Moving Beyond the Page American Tall Tales and Legends package. This was a fun addition to the program and something that the kids really enjoyed creating.

The online version of our American Tall Tales and Legends lesson book was a bit different than our printed version of our Colonization and Revolution lesson book. The printed version laid out how to use our Moving Beyond the Page lessons in the front of our book, then provided a list of required books and materials for the unit study by lesson. This made getting everything together very easy.

Following the materials list is a list of vocabulary taught throughout the unit, listing words and definitions for each new vocabulary word. A Unit Review sheet follows the vocabulary list, allowing for a look ahead at each lesson taught through the unit.

Lessons themselves are broken down, beginning with a Getting Started section that shares stuff you will need for the lesson, ideas to keep in mind during the lessons and things to know about the lessons. A list of questions for the lesson is provided next, followed by lesson activities to complete. Activities are simple but thorough and get the child thinking about things they have learned, allowing them to absorb the lessons, not just hear them.

Each lesson in a unit builds in preparing the student for a final project to be completed at the end of the unit study. The students are asked to complete five of the eight final project suggestions for the study but could do more or less depending upon your schedule. Some of the projects will require assistance and supervision from the parent to complete.

Much like the print lesson book for Colonization and Revolution, the online lesson book for American Tall Tales and Legends provides an intro to the lesson, complete with lists of materials needed for each lesson. This is followed with the activities for each lesson, which are to be completed by the student. Rounding out the end of the lesson is a conclusion that provides additional activities for student completion, like reviewing stories and vocabulary discussed in the section and the sections of the region being discussed at the time. Just like the print addition, the end of the unit wraps up with a final project for the student to complete.

A nice addition of the online lesson book is that there is an Idea Share section that allows users to go in and add their personal ideas for the unit. This allows others to share things that have worked for them in aiding to provide projects to make students break free from paper learning and expand to projects in relation to the lessons being learned. Each lesson has one of these sections to provide additional ideas for activities.

These units are amazingly thorough and so well prepared. It did not take a lot of work on my part to put them together and the company does provide everything possibly needed for studying the units, included the necessary books for completion. The only I did not receive for my units was the Timeline of American History but this was not something that I had to have for my unit though it would be a great addition if I were to purchase a full curriculum package from Moving Beyond the Page.

Moving Beyond the Page provides unit studies in full year curriculum packages or in various individual units to study, like was provided for our Schoolhouse Reviews. They provide studies to be used with children beginning with ages 4-5 up through ages 12-14. Individual units can be mixed and matched to meet interests and needs of the child. Individual units do include suggestions for unit matches in the description. The two units I chose for review were not a suggested match but they worked well together for our needs.

Moving Beyond the Page’s American Tall Tales and Legends Literature Unit is available in print form or as an online version. It is written to be used with students ages 9-11 and is Relationships: Unit 3 of the full curriculum package for this age group. Books needed to complete this unit are included in the unit package. The print version of this package costs $33.47 while the online version costs $29.41. Once again, this includes all books needed to complete the study.

Moving Beyond the Page’s Colonization and Revolution Science/History study is also available in print or an online version. It, too, is written to be used with students 9-11 and is Discovery and Survival: Unit 1 of the full curriculum package for this age group. The print version of this unit costs $51.88 and the online version costs $47.82. The price of this unit also includes all necessary books to complete the study.

This was a review that my children and I truly loved. We will be purchasing more Moving Beyond the Page curriculum very soon and look forward to learning more from this company.

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Moving Beyond The Page {Crew Review}

Moving Beyond The Page {Crew Review}