Moving up to Moving Beyond the Page 6-8

After trying Moving Beyond the Page 5-7 for a month, I finally heeded to what my husband –and I– had thought all along: MBtP 5-7 was not the best fit for our son. It was just too easy for him. In an effort to make it work, I found myself scrambling to find materials that would supplement his learning each lesson.  Eventually, it was clear this is not what I had signed up for nor what I want from a curriculum. The curriculum should impart enough education as is, and the supplementation, if needed, should just reinforce the lesson. To be fair, the 5-7 package itself was a good comprehensive package, but quite simply, it was not advanced enough for my son at this moment. He had already surpassed it.

We are now on our second week with Moving Beyond the Page 6-8, concept 1: Community. So far, we are really liking it. I definitely don’t feel the need to find supplemental materials. There’s enough learning and challenge by itself. That’s great! That’s the way it should be if I am purchasing a curriculum such as this. Specially being one aimed at gifted learners.

One of the several activities within “Goods and Services” used the book “When You Give a Pig a Pancake”. So, just as MBtP explains in its website, this is indeed a very easy read for a gifted 6 year-old.  Thus the purpose is not really for the child to just read the book, but rather to go further. After the child has read the book he is then to analyze the information presented, differentiating  the goods from the services requested by the pig.  Then, the child is asked to create a similar story, where the animal he chooses shall ask for a thing and then another, each building on the last request.  This activity makes the child think more deeply about what good would then require a service as a follow up, or viceversa.  Back when I was collecting supplemental material for the previous 5-7 lessons, I had saved some on community. None of these (and I did get, even purchased, a few) ask the child to analyze the info this way.  Many just have the child mark the goods and the services, or color and paste information, or fill in the blanks in a sentence. Nothing wrong with that, however, I definitely appreciated the higher-thinking approach that was presented in Moving Beyond the Page.

So, yes, though we’ve really just started with the 6-8, we’re very much looking forward to continue to ‘move beyond the page’.