Age 8 to 10

Purchase Age 8-10 |Age 8-10 Curriculum Samples |Getting Started with Age 8-10

Overview

Design a new plant species. Evaluate the relationship between a Native American boy and a pioneer boy who are able to learn from one another in spite of their differences. Experiment with magnets and electricity. Learn about simple machines and examine how they are used in a colony of rats in the The Rats of NIMH.

At Moving Beyond the Page we believe that children learn when they are actively engaged in their learning. Beginning with the Age 8-10 level, we use many hands on and engaging science kits to teach your child the science topics being covered. You cannot find a more hands on science curriculum available for homeschoolers. Click here to jump down to the complete list of science kits.

The Age 8-10 level uses these and many more activities to thoroughly cover the state and national standards in science, social studies, and language arts. Add Right Start Math for a complete and comprehensive homeschool curriculum.

The Age 8-10 curriculum constitutes one year of academic instruction.

Prerequisites

Able to read and comprehend chapter books at a 4th or 5th grade reading level
Able to write an organized paragraph
Usually used by children in third or fourth grade

Placement Assessments

What's New and Different for Age 8-10

Like the Age 7-9 level, the Age 8-10 curriculum covers the standards in science, social studies, and language arts. The literature units can be bought independently from the science and social studies curriculum. This provides you with the option of utilizing Moving Beyond the Page as an independent language arts program or as a science / social studies program to supplement your current curriculum.

There are a total of 12 literature units that accompany the Age 8-10 level. They are each designed to accompany one of the 12 science / social studies units that make up the year-long curriculum package. All units are broken down into daily lesson plans. When you begin lesson 1 of a science / social studies unit, you will also begin the first day of the corresponding literature unit. The knowledge gained in each science and social studies unit is reinforced through the corresponding literature unit.

The list below shows how each of the science and social studies units line up with the language arts units.

Science and Social Studies Unit	Literature Unit
Concept 1: Interdependence
Unit 1: Dirt and Plants	*Little House in the Big Woods* Look at life through the eyes of a pioneer child as she contributes to the work of her family. Learn how the pioneers were dependent upon their natural environment.
Unit 2: Native Americans	*The Sign of the Beaver* Examine the relationship a pioneer boy and a Native American as they come to appreciate each other and learn from one another - despite their different cultures.
Unit 3: Ecosystems and Ecology	*Native American Animal Stories* Read a number of myths, legends, and folk tales handed down for generations by many Native American cultures that attempted to explain the relationship of humans, animals, and the environment.
Concept 2: Force and Power
Unit 1: Magnetism and Electricity	*Ben and Me* Examine the life of Ben Franklin and the events surrounding the founding of our country through the eyes of an intelligent rodent named Amos. Appreciate early inventions and the inventive process. Design your own kite to fly. Explore the elements of historical fiction and discriminate between fact, fiction, and opinion.
Unit 2: The Power of People	*The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe* Explore the theme of Good vs. Evil and evaluate the proper and improper use of power. Engage in the writing process - from rough draft to final copy. Practice logical thinking, apply the rules of plurals, and work with possessive nouns. Analyze the power of effective imagery in writing. Compare and contrast the novel with the movie.
Unit 3: Forces of Nature	*The BFG* Learn about the culture of London, England and the role of the Queen. Learn the language and ways of giants! Examine cause and effect in literature. Analyze characters and their actions. Write a newspaper report on an event in the story.
Concept 3: Similarities and Differences
Unit 1: Africa and Asia	*Stories from Africa and Asia* Experience the cultures of Africa and Asia through the eyes of a child that lives in Africa and a Japanese girl living in Hiroshima after World War 2. Appreciate the lives of children across the world by examining similarities and differences. This unit provides an introduction to writing a formal report, explores story conflict, introduces haiku poems, and reviews verb tense.
Unit 2: Rocks and Minerals	*Holes* Meet Stanley Yelnats, a boy who is wrongly accused of a crime and sent to a juvenile detention camp. Here, he meets a variety of interesting characters. Explore the desert biome and the dangerous animals that live in this region. Recognize irony, practice possessive nouns, and correct run-on and fragment sentences.
Unit 3: Europe	*Charlotte in Giverny* Read the diary of a young girl whose family moves to France in the late 1800's so that her father can paint with the controversial new impressionists. Here she learns about the culture of France as well as the techniques of the early impressionists. Create paintings that reflect the style and techniques of the impressionists. Practice using a thesaurus to find new words. Learn the rules of commas and apply them to your own writing.
Concept 4: Exploration and Survival
Unit 1: Animal Adaptations	*Abel's Island* How will a genteel rat learn to survive on his own in the wild? Follow Abel as he learns to rely on his instincts and the natural resources in his environment for survival and the chance to return to the family he loves. Learn the difference between predictions and inferences, practice writing thoughtful questions, and try your hand at the art of reflective writing.
Unit 2: Early Explorers	*Pedro's Journal* Adventure with a young sailor as he journeys to the New World with Christopher Columbus and his crew. Follow their dangerous journey as they struggle for survival in the high seas. Explore the elements of historical fiction, practice using quotation marks in dialog, recognize and apply subject-verb agreement, and practice identifying and using similes.
Unit 3: Work, Tools, and Simple Machines	*Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH* Read the amazing story of Mrs. Frisby, a mother who struggles for survival as she strives to save the life of her sick son. Along the way, she encounters a group of mysterious rats whose past is intertwined with her own. These intelligent creatures use modern technology including simple machines and electricity. Explore the genre of fantasy, follow story plots, and learn to recognize homonyms and understand acronyms.

In the Age 8-10 curriculum, your child will explore all subject areas using a hands-on and investigative approach. Oftentimes, homeschoolers are only taught reading, writing, and math during the early years, but a truly comprehensive curriculum will expose them to science and social studies as well. These subjects can be the most engaging and exciting for a young child. The curriculum is also filled with quality literature to enjoy with your child.

Because all lessons are based on state and national standards, your child will learn all of the necessary skills for his age. Your child will continue to be challenged to read and write at a higher level.

Summary of Skills

The links below will take you to the Summary of Skills for each of the concepts that make up the Age 8-10 curriculum. The Summary of Skills is a list of the state and national standards that are covered within Moving Beyond the Page. This list can be useful for your own planning purposes, but it is also quite helpful when submitting required documentation to fulfill state and local reporting requirements.

Science Kits

The Age 8-10 curriculum provides a number of hands-on science kits within the 8-10 curriculum. These kits will provide your child with a hands-on experience that is unparalleled in any homeschool curriculum.

Science Kits in Age 8-10
	Force and Power Science Kit Identify magnetic materials, and investigate polar strength. Observe an invisible magnetic field, make a magnetic compass, and learn how to keep magnets strong. This kit contains many of the hard-to-find items needed to complete the experiments in this concept.
	Science Wiz: Electricity Kit Designed and written by science education professionals the Electricity Kit illustrates the basic principals of electricity. The kit includes clearly illustrated directions that allow children to work independently to build circuit loops, light lights, buzz buzzers, spin wiz bangs, send coded messages, and play hours of motor mania. Includes step-by-step instruction book, kit, and all materials.
	Pocket Sled Kite Kit Make your children’s first kite making experience a pleasant one with this Pocket Sled Kite Kit. Each kite kit includes flying line and materials for making your Pocket Sled Kite durable and airworthy. Decorate them with crayons, paints or markers. Pre-cut parts make assembly quick and easy. All you need is tape, scissors, crayons or markers. The Pocket Sled Kite is made of durable, water resistant Tyvek and has no spars (sticks), so there are no sticks (spars) to break.
	The Young Scientist Club: Minerals, Crystals, and Fossils Kit Grow a salt rock garden, string crystals and rock candy. Identify five unknown minerals with the hardness, streak, acid, and magnetic tests. Study a fossil. Break open a large geode. Complete this set by making a cast and a mold fossil that will impress your budding scientist. Collection of three kits: # Kit 7 Minerals # Kit 8 Geodes # Kit 9 Fossils
	Dig-A-Dino T-Rex Kit Be a Paleontologist ! Dig and excavate the skeleton of a mysterious prehistoric animal and then assemble the skeleton to form a dinosaur model. Each set includes a “buried” dinosaur skeleton in a plaster block and a specially designed digging tool, along with a quiz of 10 questions and answers about dinosaurs.
	Science in a Nutshell: Work: Plane and Simple Investigate inclined planes, screws, and wedges. Calculate data and use graphs to record work. Measure and compare the amount of force needed to move objects.

What Else Do I Need?

Moving Beyond the Page encourages character development - kindness, honesty, and respect for authority. Even though we are not a religious curriculum, our curriculum is conducive to supplementing with religious stories and lessons. For example, when studying communities, you can talk about how God wants you to show kindness to everyone in your community. While many parents add their own religious studies, others choose to supplement with a separate religious curriculum.

Many children at this level are ready to begin learning cursive handwriting. Moving Beyond the Page does not teach cursive handwriting, so if this is something you need at this level, you will need to add a cursive handwriting program.

The Age 8-10 Full Year Curriculum Package covers science, social studies, and language arts. When purchased with RightStart Math, you will have a comprehensive curriculum for your child.

Schedule Worksheets

School-Year Schedule Worksheet
This worksheet will help you plan your year for a traditional 9-month school year with four 9-week quarters and a summer break.
Year-Round Schedule Worksheet
This worksheet will help you plan your year for a year-round schedule with small breaks along the way.