We are so excited to be starting Level 1 in The Good and the Beautiful math program. We ordered the first day it came out and were thrilled to receive our package with all of our goodies in it! We are only a few lessons in but we are LOVING it so far! More on that in a later post!
One thing I love about The Good and the Beautiful is that it REALLY is open and go! I do some preparation things for different subjects but those are mostly all optional prep things to just make my life easier.
What do you get?
If you order the complete course set you will get two course books {Course Book Part 1 and Course Book Part 2}, “My Planner”, and the Math 1-2 Activity Box.
I order everything from the company. I think it is a great price AND the quality is top-notch in my book {and I am one of those people that notices those types of things}.
The course also comes with {although you can also download these for free on their website!} three songs to help your kiddo as they progress through the course. They are the “Seven Days in a Week”, “Twelve Month in a Year”, and “Time Song” {the time one is new for this course!}. These songs are awesome and catchy and ALL my kids love singing them!
What do I NEED to prep?
The course book is all ready for you. I literally just put a post it on the lesson we are on – open it every day, and GO! Absolutely no prep needed with these!
I would recommend downloading the songs onto your phone or make sure they are ready to go on your computer before you begin. You will need them from the very first lesson so you will want them ready.
The prep now all comes down to the math activity box!
Math 1-2 Activity Box
I LOVED the math activity box for Level K and this one is just as special and beautiful. I know many wonder if the activity box is “worth it” and for me – it totally is! Would it be possible to do this course without it, I am sure you could, but this is 100% worth it.
PLUS, they combined levels with their activity box and so this will last you TWO levels ! I feel like that is an awesome deal!
What is included in the activity box?
The activity box includes:
- A sturdy box that holds all of the items {Jacob thinks the box is WAY cool – weird, but true!}
- 1 clock
- 2 ten-sided dice
- 155-card double-nine domino cards set
- 6 chipboard pages with fraction pieces, tangram pieces, base ten bricks, seashell manipulatives, egg manipulatives, and marble manipulatives
- 10 mini wooded 3D figures: 1 sphere, 1 cube, 1 cylinder, 1 cone, 1 triangular pyramid, 1 hexagonal prism, 1 triangular prism, 1 rectangular prism, and 2 hemispheres
- 2 game pawns
- 1 mini measuring tape
- 128 numbered game cards (numbers, symbols, and more)
- 1 spiral-bound My Place Value Chart with pockets
- 1 place value pieces page
- 10 double-sided game and work mat pages
- 44 double-sided tangram work mats and cards
- Game instructions booklet
Prepping Your Activity Box
So once you’ve oogled at the awesome-ness of this activity box it is time to start prepping!
First, this is what you NEED to prep.
You will need to remove all of the manipulatives from the chipboard pages and put them in their bags. The box comes with great bags with labels for you to put them in.
ALSO, just a side note about the chipboard pieces. These are VERY thick and great quality. The illustrations used on them are just beautiful and Jacob was truly giddy looking at them.
Then you will need to separate all of the numbered game cards and then either rubber band them or put them in a plastic bag.
Next, you need to cut out the place value pieces and put them in a plastic bag.
Then separate the tangram work mats, junior explorer cards and the mini tangram cards.
One thing that is NOT included in the activity box that you will need is some money. The course instructs you to add 100 pennies, 20 nickels, 10 dimes, and 8 quarters to your box. Last year, I bought some realistic plastic coins {because does anyone else HATE the smell of coins on your hands?!} and they have worked out great!
And that’s it!
This could honestly all be done in a short episode of your favorite show on Netflix. Easy peasy.
Now, let’s move on to the additional things I did to prep our level 1 math. These are definitely not necessary! I am lucky in that Jacob is my oldest using all of these things and so I’ve got three more kiddos after him – SO I WANT THEM TO LAST!
So to my trusty laminator I go! I chose to laminate the 128 numbered game cards. That number seems like a lot {and I guess it is} but I felt like it went by really fast. You can fit a lot of cards on a laminating page and so I felt like it was pretty quick. AND I only had one or two scrambling moments when cards fell out of place while heading down the laminator shoot so I considered it a WIN!
The only other things I laminated were the works mats. These are on really great paper anyway but, again, I want these suckers to last!
One thing I will say about laminating the mats though. I feel like unless you cut closely around the edges {which I didn’t do because it filled the whole page} these are a little hard to get out of the box when you need them during the lessons. They fit perfectly INTO the box there’s just not a lot of wiggle room for you to take them out. Does that make sense? I realize that is an easy problem to fix but just wanted to let you know!
How long does it take to prep it all?
I was able to prep all of this in the course of one movie! So grab a pillow for your back {or maybe that’s just me – pregnancy problems!}, grab a favorite movie, and enjoy the beautifulness of this curriculum! After this prep, you are set for a solid TWO LEVELS of math joy! WINNNNNN!
