BEYOND THE PAGE

“When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the

flower.”

Alexander Den Heijer

I researched (a lot) on what I wanted to do for Kail’s first year curriculum. Our only two requirements were, all in one and non religious.

Many people piece together curriculum for their children. That seemed daunting for us for the first year. We wanted something to serve as a loose guide.

We ended up going with “Beyond the Page” 4-5 year curriculum. We started when Kail was 3 1/2.

Formerly called “Moving Beyond the Page,” it was truly all in one. The box it came in was huge. I wish I would’ve filmed the “unboxing.” Sure, they expect you to have some common things on hand like markers and glue but that is about all that isn’t included.

Kail about to open his new Beyond the Page box. “I look at my school box. I (three and a) ½ years old.” I should’ve filmed more but wasn’t really thinking of this blog quite yet.

No screens or online, you can go either way or both. I loved not needing to be on a screen at home. I also loved the online option when travelling and for checking off units.

I love that “Beyond the Page” is literary based. It encourages critical thinking skills. It’s hands on. For that age there is a lot of parent involvement. We love that. It’s one of the reasons we choose to Almost World School 🌎

For those big on organization, so much about it will make you smile.

Each week:

• Every week comes with its own little labeled art and materials bag. This was awesome to me. I didn’t want to go out and buy a ton of stuff that would inevitably end up not getting used. You only need so many pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, stickers, and the like.

• There is a story book of the week. Lots of great questions to encourage retention and critical thinking are included.

• A new letter is introduced in upper and lower case. The letters were not introduced in alphabetical order but more the order of frequency. Kail made up a cool game with the letter cards. He laid them all out, out of order. Then we found the letters in order and made the sound the letter makes and said the word on the picture. We would often spend 30+ minutes doing this. He learned a lot by making up his own rules.

• It came with number cards up to 20. The number was written on the front. Blocks were on the back (in 5 groups.)

• Workbook pages included an uppercase and lowercase page, a numbers page, and a cut and glue sounds page each week. There were other “workbook” pages to supplement activities.

• There is a vocabulary word of the week. We made a visible list of these. Each week adding on the new word. I would’ve laminated it, but that’s still on my list of things I should probably buy as an Almost WorldSchooler. Now, every time we walk or ride over a bridge (there are many on our trails) we have to “ask the troll if we can cross.” The troll always asks either a math question or a “what do you call a… (vocabulary word.)

• The activities often included nature. The picture below is a summer nature wreath we created. They included the paper plate lol. We love taking nature walks and this is something I may not have thought of without the prompt from the workbook.

The workbook pages were the most school like things we did. Kail loved the cutting and gluing worksheets at first but didn’t like the hand writing worksheets. So we often went many lessons ahead with the cutting and gluing and left the handwriting stuff alone.

One day he became interested in the handwriting stuff and went back and did the missing pages all within a couple of days.

Kail writing some zzz’s. He gets a little silly with it, but I never stop and correct him. Instead I realize he is using both his left and his right hand. That’s learning and taking his ZZZs to the next level. On the little zzz he creates a row of arrows too. Again, I don’t stop him. Because why? Because I don’t care if he isn’t doing it exactly “right.” He is learning in his own way and adding in some extra skills while he does it.

All along though, we didn’t care that he wasn’t into practicing each letter over and over again on a boring worksheet. At 3.5 years old, he was already getting plenty of practice and lots of laughs in with his journal.  He wanted me to spell things out so he could write them. These were words he was delighted to write over and over again.

Potty words… what 2-6 year old have you not heard use them?

Kail’s first attempts at handwriting

I always want to keep the learning “fun.” Important note here, if your child isn’t writing yet at even 6 or 7, don’t fret. All kids go at their own pace. Their little hands don’t have fully developed bones and muscles yet. If they aren’t interested in writing give them play dough, scissors, hole punchers, and other things to help strengthen their hands. Anatomically, they aren’t built to properly write words so early. 

1st Word: penis - we use anatomically correct words. This word took two pages. His little handwriting still needs lots of space. His N almost always looked like a M or a W. He almost nailed it here for the first time.

2nd Word: poop - The last p is backwards and looks more like a backwards B. I don’t correct. I don’t praise either. I model it correctly the next time I get a chance and might make up some story about how B has a straight back with two big humps and the P only has one big hump.

3rd Word: Kail Walker - attempt at writing his name. He wrote “KAIL” many times before. This time he was trying to incorporate “Walker.” In his drawing there is a W in his first name. It’s all in caps. Fast forward 1.5 years… he still writes mostly in uppercase (currently showing interest in lowercase.) Mama worry level = 0. 

4th word: Ashlyn - The name of our neighbor we used to live across the street from. It’s written completely out of order. It’s still beautiful as he explores how to write things that are important to him. His spatial awareness is coming more online. If his handwriting is all over the place, I’m happy he is attempting it because he wants to. 

Beyond the Page took us right at a year to get through. We could’ve done it in 1/2 the time. We weren’t in a rush. Many weeks we did two plus weeks worth in a week. Then there were times we did nothing structured for a month or more. Every day is a “school” day because every day is filled with learning whether we are following some curriculum or not.

It’s all learning!