Where did the year go? Beyond Review

I definitely fell off of the blogging bandwagon!  After UNit 5, we took 2 weeks off for vacation, and life got busy!  I returned to my part time job working from home, activities picked up for the kids, and blogging just didn't get done.  But I want to give a brief overview of how your year with Beyond went!

We did almost all of the left side of the guide as written.  We didn't always do the poetry things every day, but we did at least a few days each unit.  We also didn't do the memory work for the verses because my daughter memorizes enough in Awana and church (and we use KJV so the music CD wasn't a fit for us).  Rarely we would adapt a rotating box activity, but otherwise we loved the left side of the guide!

Now for the right side.  We were already using a different math, so that box was just ignored (we use Horizons).  We worked through the emerging reader books basically on schedule and loved them!  We had to skip a few because our library didn't have them (Animal Adventures and Prairie School), but otherwise we did all of the books plus many of the supplemental titles.  I really do enjoy Carrie's picks and the questions she has!  We used Rod and Staff 2 instead of the grammar in Beyond because we had covered all of the Beyond grammar concepts with a Scholastic workbook in 1st grade.  So, that leaves spelling, copywork, and storytime.

Spelling was a battle after the first five weeks or so.  Those first five weeks we were able to do both lists.  But then when the words weren't simple phonetic spellings, my daughter really struggled to follow the directions.  She was afraid to misspell the word on Day 1 when they look at the card, turn it over, and write it.  We ended up just putting spelling on hold and worked on writing.  Near the end of Beyond when I was ordering things for 3rd grade, I ordered Spelling You See Level B for her.  We started it as soon as we got it, and it has been a good addition I think.  It is similar to HOD's spelling and dictation in a workbook.  Since I am not the one telling her what to do, she doesn't struggle as much.  Each day she finds things in a rhyme and marks them - grammar or spelling notes for later.  Then she copies 1-2 lines of the rhyme.  Then, she has words to spell like a spelling test.  The words progressively get harder, and it seems to be working for her.

Copywork was another battle.  My daughter just doesn't love to write.  So, some times we did the copywork and sometimes I just made sure she was writing somewhere else in her day.  Since we were doing Rod and Staff grammar, we often used that for copywork.  Other times we would copy memory verses for Awana.  When we started Spelling You See, the copywork was in there was well.  She also asked to start cursive so she could read everything Grandma wrote.  So, we started Cheerful Cursive in January.  Again, because it is a workbook, she enjoys it a lot more!  She can't wait to do cursive copywork when we are done with Cheerful cursive.

Finally storytime.  I learned using the library isn't a great option for us!  Sometimes I would forget to get a book.  Other times I had to wait longer than expected to get a book.  Then there were the times we couldn't go because someone was sick or the weather was bad.  We ended up reading books for all nine genres, but we failed in getting the activities done in the guide.  I normally got a few done each genre, and that is it.  My daughter did LOVE the books though!  I think the books were her favorite part of Beyond, with history reading a close second.

As for things we added to the guide (other than above), we didn't keep up with the history or science notebooking.  We completely stopped the science about the time we went full speed and life got busier.  History we did occasionally, and we finished up all the sheets at the end of the guide as a good review.  In the future, I might use the history ones every few months as a review if we need a break from full time Beyond, but I won't print them all in the beginning.

At the end of the year, I created a little survey sheet for my daughter to fill out.  It has a spot for her name, her age, and the date we finished the guide at the top.  Then, we recorded her favorite history book (Stories of the Pilgrims), favorite art activity (tulip - Unit 5), favorite science activity (Unit 1 Day 2 - boats), favorite poem (The Cow), favorite ER book (The Courage of Sarah Noble), and favorite storytime book (GInger Pye and Pagoo)

Beyond definitely was a great year!  We both learned so much, and I can't wait to do it again in a few years with my next child!

Beyond Unit 5

We finally got to going almost full speed with Unit 5.  We had a few things pop up that made ti so we had to take a day off, but we are finally to the point of doing a day of the guide in one literal day.  Well, we haven't started storytime again, but other than that, we are doing everything in a day.  We are waiting a tiny bit to start storytime.  We have a trip coming up, so we will be doing storytime a lot on the trip.

The history in Unit 5 gets a little confusing.  We added in the third spine for history, and there was a little confusion as to the main "characters."  Stories of the Pilgrims mentions Love Brewster and then later a girl named Jan.  Boys and Girls of Colonial Days focused on Love Bradford and a boy named Jan.  Luckily, my daughter iddn't pick up on it too much, but it did confuse me!

The poem for the unit is Song for a Little House.  My daughter chose to draw the house.  She tried to mix crayon colors to make brown, as our brown crayon was lost.  That is why the little girl int he picture looks a little "witchy."

We chose to modify the first science activity a little.  My kids are experts at making waves, thanks to visiting a water park last year with a wave maker.  So, we instead talked about how the wave length of light determine the color a TINY bit.

The second science experiment was about heart beats.  We talked about heart beats and the sounds they make.  They really liked listening to each other's hearts with the paper towel tube.

The art for the unit was to make a tulip, as Love Bradford receive a pink tulip bulb.  The paper tulip is taped to a stick and then inserted into a slot behing the flower pot.  Instead of using ribbon, we covered the stick with green striped washi tape.  We tried to add a leaf to the step, but getting it to go int he slot proved to a a challenge.  So, we tore it off.

Finally, here is our timeline to date.  The last entry is actually Unit 6 Day 1, as we finished Unit 5 mid-week (and I didn't get to take pictures until the end of the week).

Beyond Unit 4

Unit 4 of Beyond is about the Pilgrims leaving England for Holland.  The art project was to make a barn door out of construction paper.  Inside, my daughter wrote the verse for the unit - Matthew 6:19-21.  

The first science activity for the unit was on light.  We explored what blocked light and what let light pass through.  We made a chart with our guesses and then checked them.  I few things we had to put in a sort of column.  We could see the light ont he other side, but the light didn't really go through the item.

The second sicence activity was on surface tension.  We placed drops of water on a penny to see how many it could hold.  We did it many times, and we found that a DRY penny could hold about 16-17 drops with our dropper.  Now, if we didn't get the penny completely dry, it held less.

The poem for the unit is called Daybreak.  My daughter chose to paint a picture of sunrise with her playing in a field in the foreground.

There was also a fun history activity for this unit.  We built a dike out of play dough.  Then we had to fix the dike if there was a leak.   The kids chose to "populate" the land side of the dike with a few toys even.

Finally, we finished up the biography storytime.  We read Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin.  We actually finished a little early, as we started to read daily even though we weren't completing a day of the guide in one actual day.  One of the last activities
 for the storytime was to do a written narration based off of yoru child's oral narration.  This is what my daughter dictated:
Benjamin is waiting for someone to take him to Philadelphia.  Mamma tells him to paint a picture of Grimalkin.  Jacob appears.  Benjamin tells Jacob he is going to Philadelphia to paint. Jacob tells Benjamin that they will be taking him.  They eat and then get ready to leave.  Grimalkin plays with the tail of Jacob's hat as they leave in a sleigh. (Chapter 21).

Beyond Unit 3

Unit 3 switches gears by using another spine for history.  We moved to Stories of the Pilgrims as the spine for the week.  This spine starts with the Pilgrims in England and the persecution they face for worshiping in a church other than the official one. 

The first science lesson was about bees and flowers, after we read about the queen visiting the Brewster's home in England.  We learned how bees pick up pollen on their feet and transplant it to other plants, allowing more plants to grow.

 The second science lesson was on light.  We saw how black objects absorb light and white objects reflect it.

 The poem for the unit was call "Uphill." It is about travelers going uphill on a journey.  My daughter chose to draw and paint the road with the coach and then the hotel.

The art for the unit was to make a stone wall with roses growing on it. The instructions said to draw the mortar lines, but instead we sponge painted the stones.  It seemed to work better, was drawing the mortar lines didn't show up well for us.

Beyond Unit 2

Unit 2 was a fun unit.  We continues to learn about the earliest settlements in the US, this time focusing on Jamestown.  We learned about how the city looked and some of the jobs children had back then.

 The art activity for the unit was about the story of Ruth.  My daughter made a field of wheat with a corner for gleaning.

 The poem for the week was "Father We Thank Thee."  My daughter chose to paint the sky, hill, and tree from the point.

 There were two science activities.  The first was to learn about an animal.  My daughter chose a giraffe.  The second was to explore who "flying" squirrels glide.  We dropped two pieces of paper, one flat and one balled up, and saw how the flat one took a lot longer to fall.

Finally, we completed the notebooking page.  Like Unit 1, Unit 2 took us about 2 weeks.  So, doing the notebooking page helped as a refresher before we did the Bible lesson on Ruth.

Beyond Unit 1

We took 9 days to complete Unit 1, which ended up being just over 2 weeks with needing to take a few days off. Here was our normal days:
A Day - Church verse copy work, history reading, rotating box (science, art, or geography), poetry reading/activity, and grammar
B Day - Bible, poetry copy work, spelling, storytime
We did math and reading daily, splitting the math for the day in half. (Although we use Horizons and not Singapore for math.)
On the last day, we did all of Day 5, but we did no grammar (since we are using Rod and Staff 2 and did that 4 days already).
Here are some of our completed work for the week:

Science notebook:

The yellow animal is for Unit 2 (on the other side of the paper)

History notebooking page:

Poetry with painting:

Art (shield to go with Psalm 18:1):

Setting Up Beyond

We just started Heart of Dakota's Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory with our oldest.  We did Little Hearts for His Glory last year, and we have found a huge love for HOD!
I found with LHFHG that there was almost no set up.  I printed off the memory verses, and that was it.  I tried to set up a binder last year, and it just wasn't maintained.  There wasn't enough daily work outside of our workbooks to warrant a binder system.  But, Beyond is different.  If you use Beyond as written, you will have spelling and copywork four days a week and grammar on the fifth day.  So, there is something to file basically every day.  Plus, there are ways to add small amounts of paperwork for history and science.  So, I decided to set up two binders for my daughter this year.
The first binder is for Language Arts.  First, I printed off the poems for the year.  I found these in the Facebook group for Beyond.  This way my daughter doesn't have to find the right poem in the back of the guide, and it is easier for her to use for copywork. I am also typing up the Emerging Reader questions from the Appendix, and printing them as half sheets.  I placed all of these things in sheet protectors.  I added a divider with a pocket to the binder to the current week's work, and then extra sheet protectors in the back for completed work. In the front pocket, I placed some blank sheets of copy paper, enough for a few weeks at least.

The second binder is for history, memory verses, and science.  First, I printed off the history notebooking pages from the Beyond Facebook group.  These definitely aren't necessary, but I thought they would be fun.  I plan on doing most of the writing for my daughter, and we will fill them on on Day 5 of each unit.  I also printed off the memory verses in KJV.  Although we often open the Bible to find these, having them printed off is great for quick reference on Days 2-5 when we practice the verse for the week. All of these I placed in sheet protectors in the binder.  In the front pocket, I placed a composition book for science.  I found science notebooking pages in the FB group as well, but I decided that a composition book would work just as well and be cheaper in the long run.  We will draw a picture at the top and then journal below for each science lesson. In the back pocket, I placed the timeline.  I found the printout in the FB group as well, and printed it on cardstock.  I could have had my daughter make one on Unit 1 Day 4 (as instructed in the guide), but I think the drawing lines, etc would have been hard for her.

All in all, this probably took me less than an hour to put together.  The most time consuming parts were organizing the printed papers and stuffing them in the sheet protectors.  Our printer often sends the printed papers to the floor, so they don't stay in the right order most of the time.