I know how we can all get caught up in trying to search for the perfect combination of classes for our kids. There is a theme running through our classes this 2013-14 school year.

At Learn Beyond The Book, we value a chronological approach of History integrated into all our studies.  We studied Ancient Times last year and this year we’ll move on to the Middle Ages & Renaissance.  We are very excited about this.

I wanted to highlight one set of classes, which especially if you are in a charter, could really make your life easier. It is the Middle Ages/Renaissance unit study, that involves Literature, History, Geography, Science and Art on Wednesdays, Theater (including Shakespeare) on Mondays, Art for younger kids (Mondays), some Music (Mondays and Tuesdays), and even mixing it up with Minecraft(Tuesdays)!   As part of this unit, we will also have an optional weekly monitored online activity from home on the game Civilizations where students will be able to build empires and learn about how it works to rule and defend an empire.  There are a few classes that make up this great unit and they are marked with asterisks on our Fall schedule. We will even have some fieldtrips to go with the unit study. Every week we update what was done in the classes with optional additional enrichment activities and suggested books to read in our learning record files that you and your EF/IST can access and we will also have pictures of our work on there for work samples. The unit is designed to be a year-long course, but students enroll for a semester at a time and isn’t obligated to attend both semesters.  Basically if you do this unit, you will be covered for all subjects, except Math and PE!

Students retain so much more when they are immersed in a unit study and so we are looking forward to learning about this time period in History in all the ways possible!  We hope you’ll join us!