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.  ;) 

Combining two kids to one MBTP level

My son reads like a pro.  My daughter just this week learned to sound out "cat". (Go, Miss L!)  So they aren't really at the same level, but I am using the same "level" of MBTP curriculum for both kids.  Right now, they are both in the 5-7 level.  I alluded to this in a previous post, but I tried for a while having my son in the 6-8 and my daughter in the 5-7, and it was too much for me.  The two levels didn't mesh in content very well, and I had trouble doing the work for both of them while they were both in that sadly-short-attention-span window each day.  Plus, we were new to homeschooling at the time. I probably should have allowed my son to "de-school" for a while after the unhappy kindergarten experience, but I was high-strung about things.  And probably my daughter just wasn't ready yet.  So we took a break of many months, during which I did a lot of research into homeschooling methods and curricula and my kids did Time4Learning on the computer.  We all relaxed during that period, and eventually the kids became less-than-enthralled with the computerized options.  So one day, I pulled out the MBTP again, with both kids doing the same lesson just to see how it would go. 

It worked!  The attention span window was open long enough to also do math or one other morning thing, and they were extra engaged because they like each other's company and can share ideas. I am lucky that the two of them are less than two years apart in age, that helps, but because the 7-year-old is clearly "gifted" and advanced in reading well beyond his grade (but a reluctant writer) and the 5-year-old is only now to the Hop on Pop stage of reading, so I was concerned I couldn't make it work as the were too far apart in skills. 

But I needn't have worried.  To bring the MBTP 5-7 up to my 7-year-old son, it is a simple matter to give him the "advanced" options provided in the curriculum, ask him for more writing, more advanced ideas, and give him more advanced books that go along with each lesson.  I usually do it on the fly.   My 5-year-old daughter gets the recommended materials and the basic options in the curriculum.  For example, in the social studies unit we are currently working through, which frequently asks for the child to look through internet links or geography books for pictures of how different people live, eat, and play, I put two or three applicable books of complementary content but different level on the table between them.  Almost always, they pick they book most appropriate for their own level: my son usually prefers this DK Geography of the World, and my daughter usually goes for the old classic, People by Peter Spier. 

I won't say that this method of combining will work for them forever, but because my daughter's reading is only getting better, I think eventually it might actually be easier.  We'll see.  Yes, my son often knows the answers to the questions before I ask them, but I think that would be true of almost any curriculum.  Because MBTP is not our only curriculum choice, he is stretched intellectually in other subjects.  Meanwhile,  MBTP fills in gaps I would not have noticed on my own, and is helping him make connections I might not have thought. 

Anyway.  Back to nuts and bolts.  Two kids, one level, this is what it looks like when they are each doing a "final project" on the same topic. 

The 5-year-old gets more verbal guidance.  The 7-year-old did more work with the presentation materials and more independently.  Those papers on the wall, hard to read in the videos, are his words dictated to me with his own drawings below to illustrate the concepts. 

I know MBTP is not for everyone. Yes, it's often discussing simple things that my kids already understand.  But, what's key for me, is that it is helping cement their understanding and draw connections to other parts of life while gently encouraging a variety of writing and expression skills.  Drills and workborks, while they have their place (for us, that place is just math and phonics) are not happy ways for us to develop skills.  And, it is not too difficult for me to implement and the kids enjoy it. That's as much as I can ask for.

Sensory Experiences

Someday, I'll need to do a post about our curriculum choices, but one of the cornerstones of what we use now is Moving Beyond the Page (MBTP). After trying different levels and permutations of how to make it work for our family, what seems to be working now is using the level appropriate for my younger child (right now, the 5-7) with both kids, but and enriching and supplementing as we go to make it more difficult for the older as well.  He's the trickier one anyway, I haven't found any curriculum that will work for him without modification, so I might as well stick with what *I* like for now and just find the way to use it with him. 

Anyway, we're just wrapping up a MBTP unit on the senses (Level 5-7, Concept 2, Unit 2).  This has been great fun, with lots of little projects and experiments using sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.    Often, several at once. 

Or taking some away.

The kids were blindfolded so often in these lessons, to try tasting things they couldn't see, or walk down the hallway using only touch, or to identify their location in the house using only sound, that I think those bandannas have new permanent creases.

One of Big K's favorite experiments was one in which I (unbeknownst to him) poured a small amount of clear soda into several glasses, then added a drop of food color to each glass, making the soda in each glass a different color.  The kids then tasted each one, we wrote down their impressions of the flavor in each glass, then blindfolded them and had them taste each glass again.  Of course, the answers were very different this time.  The objective--teaching the kids that sometimes your senses can trick other senses, came through loud and clear and was definitely a "lightbulb moment".

Another thing I liked about this unit was the frequent suggestions to go outside and practice using your senses outdoors.  Being mid-winter, we're often reluctant to go outside in the cold and the damp, but the recent snowfall made for some very interesting sensory observations!  For Miss L, yes, all of the 5 senses were represented.

Then, the snow melted.  Mud, everywhere.  We're having a bit of a run of sun this week, a very different but welcome sensory experience! 

The next unit, which we will start in a day or two, is "We're the Same, We're Different" and explores what makes people similar and different, both nearby and different cultures.  Looking forward to it!