justpitchingmytent: TOS Review: Moving Beyond the Page

Are your kids creative? Do you want them to be more so? Are you bored with just books and worksheets? Do hands-on activities sound like what you need more of in your homeschool? Then Moving Beyond the Page may be right up your alley. Moving Beyond the Page provides Language Arts, Science and Social Studies curriculum for ages 4-14. Our homeschool received two of their individual units to review: Language Arts Package: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which came with an online guide and the physical book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain) and Science Package: Health and Nutrition (which came with a physical guide and both physical books: Boy's Guide/Girl's Guide to becoming a Teen). I will share with you how each of these worked in our home and the details of each, beginning with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

How it worked in our homeschool:

     The online version of the Language Arts Package: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was so easy to use! It was simple to access the online curriculum each time my son sat down for his next day's lesson. We liked how that when we had completed a lesson we clicked "lesson completed" and it was automatically marked out in the Table of Contents. This gave a sense of accomplishment and helped us keep track of where we were. On the Table of Contents page there is a button which allows the parent to turn the "parent overview" on/off (with a password). This was very handy...I could turn it off while my son was working on the computer, and then turn it on for grading or instructional purposes.
   Each lesson begins with an introduction about what the focus will be on that day. It gives you "things to think about"/"things to know" as you prepare to read the assigned chapters from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Usually 3 chapters were assigned each day and there were 3 questions for the student to answer at the completion of the reading.
     Next came the Language Arts Lesson. Topics like point of view, the 3 basic types of writing or irony were taught. The student/parent was usually given 2 activity options to choose from in order to learn the topic for the day. (I always like options!) Most of the choices were hands-on or at least a thought-provoking writing assignment. (At first, the activities seemed like so much work...like is is really important to build a raft from rolled-up newspapers? But...as my son worked, I could see the value in the activities! Problem solving, creativity and learning-by-doing all came into play.
   A note about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: I realize that MBTP (Moving Beyond the Page) cannot take credit for the authorship of this novel, but I commend their choice in literature. My son loved the book! I read the first half aloud to him. He read the second half to himself since I had a cold. He could not wait to finish the book since it was so exciting. In fact, once we were just a few chapters in to the book, he went and got The Adventures of Tom Sawyer from the library to read.

Getting started: One of the first activities was to map out the slave/free states during the time period of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (I love the integration of subjects!)

A map of Huck and Jim's Journey. The stops along the way were numbered in order as we read the book. All the worksheets were easy to print from the online site.

Building a raft. This was made from instructions that we printed off the online curriculum. My son was a little frustrated at first, but in the end really enjoyed this project.

A language arts activity. MBTP has several activities that take time/effort...but most of them are well worth the effort. My son was proud of all the hard work he put into these posters. I was happy to hang them beside his school desk for future reference!

Product Cost/Similar Products:

$22.88 (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn online version, like the one my family received)
$26.94 (for the physical version)
OR
Purchase a Full Year Language Arts Package (physical version) for $255.68

If you'd rather have the online version, that would cost $219.30.

Age Range:

12-14 years old (new age range just added in 2014)

Health and Nutrition

How it worked in our homeschool:

The curriculum, Science Package: Health and Nutrition was different in that my son had an actual notebook to work in, which was handy. Similar to the Language Arts unit, there are "ideas to think about"/"things to know" before beginning each lesson. A reading assignment is given for the Guide to Becoming a Teen most days. There are questions to answer and activities to complete. There were several video links to watch online, especially for the Drug Abuse chapter. The activities in this unit did not seem as hands-on/creative as the Huckleberry Finn unit.

We only needed the Boy's Guide to Becoming a Teen since I had a son completing the unit. The guide was written by the American Medical Association. There are several worthwhile chapters in this book, like "Eating, Exercise and Healthy Weight" or "Your Skin, Teeth and Hair." However, I need to note that there are also sections in the book that our family, as Christians, disagreed with. To be fair, most of these sections were not assigned, but they are there. (MBTP is a secular company.) Our family made some modifications to the curriculum and still made it work for us.

Filling in answers in the Health and Nutrition workbook.

My son discovered some scrapbooking tools of mine that came in handy with all the hands-on projects with MBTP.

Watching online videos about Drug Abuse and filling in a chart in his notebook. (The links were given in the workbook.)

Product Cost/Similar Products :

$46.89

Online $42.83 (This includes an online curriculum, Health and Nutrition and physical books: Boy's Guide to Becoming a Teen and Girl's Guide to Becoming a Teen.) If you only need just the Boy's Guide or just the Girl's Guide, you could purchase the items separately and pay $27.88.

OR

Purchase a Full Year of Science for 12-14 year olds for $436.08. (Physical)
or the online version for $400.36

Age Range:
12-14 years old (new age range just added in 2014)

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