Our 3-Week Arizona Study, outlined.

Week 1: Natural History

Mornings

1.       Book The Desert is Theirs (Baylor)

Tantalizing Topography (Arizona Wild and Wacky [AWW] )

Discussion: What is a Desert (Saguaro NP Curric)

Activity: Neighbors in the Desert (SNP)

2.       Book A Desert Scrapbook (Wright-Fierson)

Discussion: Ways animals and plants adapt to deserts

Activity: Desert Diorama (from One Small Square Desert)

3.       Book, chapters 1-4 Grand Canyon Journey (Anderson)

Discussion: evaporation and crystallization (BFSU A-9 part 3)

Activity: Erosion and Sedimentation (BFSU D-8 part 1)

4.       Book, chapters 5-8 Grand Canyon Journey

Discussion and activity: Limestone and Fossils (BFSU B-8 part 2)

Writing practice: Rock story

Afternoons

Tuesday Poetry theme—deserts, heat and dryness

Read alouds:

One Small Square Cactus Desert

One Small Square Cave

Activities:

TBD.  Likely usual routine.

Week 2: Human History

Mornings

5.       Chapter 1 National Geographic (NG) Ancient Pueblo

Activity: Trees of Time (Tuzigoot NM Curric)

6.       Chapter 2 NG Pueblo

Book  When Clay Sings (Baylor)

Activity: Say it With Pictures (Make N Learn Southwest Indians)

7.       Chapter 3 NG Pueblo

Activity: Dig that Pad! (Tuzigoot NM Curric)

8.       Chapters 4-5 NG Pueblo

Activity: Who Were the Prehistoric SW People? (Tuzigoot NP Curric)

 

Afternoons

Tuesday poetry free

Read-aloud Walker of Time

Activities:

 “What’s Hidden in the Midden?” (Investigating Artifacts Session #5)

“Putting Together Clues” (Investigating Artifacts Session #6)

 

Week 3: “Modern” History

Mornings

1.       Book Down the Colorado: John WesleyPowell (Kogan Ray) 

Activity: “Modern Cultures of the Verde Valley” (Tuzigoot NM curric)

2.       Book AWW pgs 48, 64, 68, 88, 104

Activity: “Sonoran Desert Time Line” (SNP curric)

3.       Book  TBD.  Flex day?

Activity: “Water in the Desert” (SNP curric)

4.       Book Survival!  Desert

Activity/Writing Practice: Planning Survival Pack vs. Day Pack

 

Afternoons

Read-aloud and discuss:

Eyewitness: Wild West

Continue Walker of Time.  Possibly re-read Brighty of the Grand Canyon if time allows.

Activities:

TBD.  Options:

Make and decorate pots and/or baskets

Dioramas from Make & Learn Southwest Indians

Supplemental books:

Earth Fire: A Hopi Legend of the Sunset Crater Eruption by Malotki
Exploring the Grand Canyon by Foster
Mary Colter: Builder Upon the Red Earth by Grattan
The Sonoran Desert by Day and Night (Dover Coloring Book)
A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert by Phillips and Comus
Grand Canyon Association Introduction to Grand Canyon Geology, Ecology, and Prehistory

How do I supplement Moving Beyond the Page?

The Moving Beyond the Page (MBtP) folks say there is no need to supplement their curriculum beyond math and phonics and from what I understand from talking to others in the online MBtP groups, that is often true.  However, *I* needed to supplement the 5-7 (when my daughter was PreK/K and son was in 1st grade) and 6-8 levels (K/1st  and 2nd grade, respectively) beyond math and phonics, just because of my own kids' idiosyncrasies, the modifications needed to be made in order to combine kids of two different levels into one program, and how our life is arranged.  So please take everything I say here with a huge grain of salt, it is only my own experience and I've not heard of anyone else who does it this way.  In some ways I have a love-hate relationship with the program because of this. 

Before I get to specifics I should probably also explain that I am a major research junkie and I have and do try to read everything I could get my hands on about different homeschooling philosophies.  I have ended up taking ideas from Well-Trained Mind (classical education), Charlotte Mason, and unschooling methods.  Bravewriter's The Writer's Jungle and Pickert's Project-Based Homeschooling was also very influential.  Most of the ideas I took from these materials are rather intangible, however, and while they definitely influenced how I tweak MBtP, it is difficult to express how this looks in practice.  But I'll try. 

So, without further ado, how *I* modified and supplemented MBtP 5-7 and 6-9:

• Per MBtP guidelines, math and phonics.  My older child came to the program already a fluent reader, so he skipped the phonics. 
• We did not do any of the printing practice or spelling portions of the program.  My kids have limited stamina for the physical act of writing, so we learned to form our letters through our “writing practice”.  We skipped the spelling for my older child because he is leaning toward being an intuitive speller, working on it in-context.  And the younger one couldn’t read yet so spelling seemed like putting the cart before the horse.
• Scribing the answers.  Some of the lessons have a lot more writing than my kids could handle.  I would decide on the fly which ones the kids would write themselves, and which they would dictate for me to scribe.  
• Compression.  Sometimes we did hit a lesson or series of lessons that were truly too easy.  The last unit of the 6-8 was like this for both my kids, they both already had a very good grasp of this introductory science unit.  So we just went through it really fast.  We still read the books, but we skipped a lot of stuff and did only the demonstrations that seemed extra fun or new to us.  This often meant we did two lessons in a day. 
• Additional books to “up” the information and difficulty level for some of the nonfiction selections of the progress.  For example, when the younger was using the MBtP title The Usborne Children’s Picture Atlas, I gave the older one DK Geography of the World.  This way they both could do their own research at the level they needed. 
• Our daily “writing practice”.  Both my kids keep spiral notebooks for daily “writing practice”. This is so fun!  Some days the kids are writing something related to the MBtP materials, some days they are doing copywork, some days freewriting of their own choice.  The notebooks are very satisfying to look through later—you can see the skills progress before your eyes in fast-forward!  
• Additional science study.  There’s nothing wrong with the MBtP science, but my scienc-y kids want MORE.  So we also use Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (BFSU) as well as a lot of unit studies and interest-led science projects, materials and reading.  This is another post in itself.
• Additional history study. Ditto the above! Chronological history study also appeals to me to help the kids gain “pegs” on which to hang future learning. We started out using SOTW but it didn’t work out so I just made our own booklists.  This is yet another post by itself. 
• Additional literature and poetry study.  See Brave Writer materials above.  J

So you might ask, why do MBtP at all if there's this much change from it?  I ask myself that a lot.  For now, we're continuing with it because:

1.      On busy days, even if we only get MBtP core stuff done, I feel reassured that at least we made some progress;

2.      it gives me a framework for studies to connect subjects and think of subjects I wouldn't have come up with on my own;

3.      and the kids continue to enjoy it. 

I am not at all wedded to the program though so who knows, we may get two weeks into the 7-9 and I'll throw it all out the window once and for all.  ;)