Moving Beyond the Page - Tornado and Amazing Weather - Schoolhouse Review

We received a Language Arts Study and a Science Study from Moving Beyond the Page. It is a literature-based curriculum. This curriculum works well for children that are hands-on learners. They sell complete curriculum and also individual units so you can pick and choose what studies you want to do.

We chose the Language Arts Unit Tornado and the Science Unit Amazing Weather. They can be used separately but are designed to be used together. These units are designed for ages 7-9 and include everything you need for a full study.

We received the physical book for Tornado. The set included the book, Tornado, How the Turtle Got It's Shell and the teachers guide.

The teachers guide is a spiral bound book with lesson plans and student worksheets for you children to work through as they read through the story. There are daily activities listed that you will do for that days lesson.

We received the online access for Amazing Weather. This unit includes the teacher guide (online), On The Same Day in March  
book and Weather and Climate - Geography Facts and Experiments book and a boiling point thermometer. For the student worksheets with the study, I would go online and print the pdf pages for each lesson. With the online access, you can print as much or as little of the pages as needed.

The printable online units seem like the more cost-effective way to go if you are wanting to use this curriculum with multiple students.

The physical unit for Tornado is $24.97 and there is also an online unit available.

The online unit for Amazing Weather is $29.91 and there is also a physical unit available.

Our Final Thoughts

We really enjoyed both of these units. They are really exciting. The teacher's guides are well laid out and easy to follow. All of the  bugs participated in these studies as much as they could. The were always excited to hear what would happen next in the Tornado book. I can see us using Moving Beyond the Page more often. I will be using the online version for our family for everything, that way, everyone can enjoy doing the worksheets. I highly recommendced this curriulum, especially for those who want full inclusive science, language arts or social studies.

Go see what other crew members has to say about Moving Beyond the Page.

Activity Bags!!!!

Let me start by saying how Awesome these Activity Bags are. I heard about this company a couple of years ago and wanted to try them but over time had forgotten about them. When they came up for review, I was so excited. I jumped at the chance to review some of these bags.

For this review, I was able to choose two bags from this company. After hours and hours of thinking and trying to decide which two would be a good match for our homeschool, I decided on Science Activities in a Bag - Books 1, 2, & 3 and Preschool Activities in a Bag Books 1 & 2.

We love science in our homeschool but if you are like me, I find it hard to do all that is required of science experiments. I have good intentions when it comes to hands-on experiments but after hunting down all the supplies and hoping we have everything we need to have a successful science experiment, let's face it.......I'm exhausted!!!

Science Activities in a Bag can solve all of these problems for you. They are exciting and easy to do. The ebooks contain instructions, supply lists and detailed instructions on how to assemble each activity bag if you are wanting to organize a "swap" with friends or other homeschooling families. This would be great for coops and homeschooling groups.

Science Activities in a Bag - Book 1 - Biology, General Science & Nature is $15.

This book has examples of 25 experiments to enjoy with your children. In this book, you can: Learn how to determine the temperature using a cricket's chirp, how yeast and sugar can inflate a balloon, how to force a spider to spin a web right in front of your eyes, and more. The first experiment we wanted to try out of this book is entitled "Fungus Amungus". Here you can see the supplies needed for this experiment.

Two sandwich bags, one slice of bread,  glass of water, a straw and a slice of citrus.

The best part other than actually doing these experiments with my bugs.......

is that many of the items needed for these experiments were already lying around our home.

Science Activities in a Bag - Book 2 - Chemistry, Human Body & General Science is $15.

This book also has 25 experiments. In this book, you can learn how salt makes it harder for water to freeze, how you can hold a flame directly under a balloon and not pop it and how to collect and match fingerprints.

And the one we chose is entitled "Eye Parts". We learned all about the parts of our eyes and their purposes. This came in really handy since my Dad just had cataract surgery.

Science Activities in a Bag - Book 3 - Chemistry is also $15.

This book also has 25 experiments in it. There are so many to choose from but we decided on "Salt Crystals". We are learning how to grow crystals out of salt. Here are the supplies needed for this one:

One metal paper clip, one 8-inch piece of string, one pencil, plastic spoon, 8-10 oz glass of water and salt

We are working on it daily and recording any changes on the experiment log that you print out for each experiment. It is so much fun doing these experiments now that activity bags has made it so easy to do.

You can also get these three science activities in a bag for a special combo price of $39 or buy them as a bundle for $27.

                   



Preschool Activities in a Bag - Book 1 and Preschool Activities in a Bag - Book 2 are an answered prayer! I have a 3 and 5 year old that, sometimes can be quite a handful during school time. The three older bugs would totally agree! It is hard to hold their attention for a long period of time, so these activity bags do just that for me.

Each night, I will pick one or two activities out and prepare it for the next day. It is so easy to have everything laid out for you, ready to go. Each book comes with a Preschool Activity Supply List. It lists general supplies needed for each activity.

Some of our favorites from Book 1 are ABC Puzzles, Alpha Spoons, Chalkboard fun (which we enjoy tremendously since I painted one of my dining room walls in chalkboard paint!!!) and Hand Puzzle just to name a few.

Out of Book 2, Alphabet Match, Fruits of the Spirit, Fruity Puzzles and the list goes on an on.

All of these books are downloadable in PDF format. I really like this because each book contains a good number of pages so I am able to pick and choose what I want or need to print.

In my opinion, these little ebooks are well worth the price for the amount of activities that are included in each book.

I am looking forward to using these books again and again. They also have Math Games and Travel Activity books. I am planning on purchasing those in the near future!

The Preschool Bags are great for ages 3-6 years of age. The Science Bags are for K-8 grade but I have to say that my 9th grader is loving it just as much as the other bugs!

To see what other crew members thought about activity bags, click here.

Disclaimer: I received Activity Bags, free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

changes made.....new curriculum......

We are definitely a homeschool family! Our plans have changed. Earlier this summer, I sat down and decided what our school year would consist of. I had it all laid out and knew just what we would start with the day after Labor Day. Well, after alot of thinking and praying, I feel I have been led to change our science and history. Everything else will stay the same as planned. We will continue using our Language Lessons, Words of the Week, and other copywork from Queenhomeschool. The bugs will also continue using Life of Fred and Math for a Living Education for math.

Recently I purchased two new books. The Prairie Primer and The Zoo Guide: A Bible-Based Handbook to the Zoo. These will be our science and history curriculum for at least this semester.

 

The Prairie Primer by Margie Gray is a literature-based unit studies utilizing the "Little House Books" series. There are nine units in the Primer - one corresponding to each nine "Little House" books. We will be using this as our history this year. We are so excited about this. I have also found a Prairie Primer Binder-Builder Lapbook.



It is a lapbook done in a binder instead of folders. It covers the first three books: Little House In The Big Woods, Little House On The Prairie, and On The Banks of Plum Creek.

I also purchased a cookbook entitled, The Little House Cookbook. I think I am more excited about this book than the bugs!

 

 

For our science, I purchased Zoo Guide: A Bible-Based Handbook to the Zoo from Answers in Genesis. It is a wonderful book that will give your students and children a biblical understanding of creation that refutes the evolutionary perspective zoos so often promote. This book features more than 100 animals. It has beautiful pictures, amazing facts and design features that point to our  AWESOME CREATOR! This will be our science.

 

 







 

We purchased a zoo membership at the beginning of the summer so I thought what a better way to use our membership! We will use this book, along with a visit to the zoo every other week to study science this semester. I am planning on doing a unit study on a different animal every two weeks. We will take our Zoo Guide, pick an animal and learn all we can about that  animal for two weeks. Within the two weeks, we will visit the zoo and physically see the animal we are studying. How fun is that! Everyone is so excited about Science this semester!

 

This is definitely a change from what I had planned but I think it's a good change. We want to learn as much as we can but at the same time, we want to have fun doing it.

 

I am planning on  posting as much as I can on our blog about these exciting and fun things we have planned, so stay tuned!

 

God Bless!