WHAT IS AN E-GUIDE?
HOW THE LITERATURE GUIDES WORK:
The literature study guides are very user-friendly! Each guide takes around 8-12 weeks to complete (less time for the younger grades). Progeny Press recommends reading the book before completing the literature guide, but you can also just read the chapters each section covers before working on that section in the guide.
The guides are broken down into sections based on several chapters. There are vocabulary exercises, character analysis, reading comprehension questions, writing exercises, and dig deeper questions. The “dig deeper” questions are usually based on scripture and really make your child think deeper!
Each section also contains extra project and activity ideas, like arts and crafts, cooking, research, discussion, and games to play. These are optional, and I usually had my boys pick one of the suggestions to complete for each section.
The literature guides a synopsis, author information, pre-reading activities, and final projects and activities. They are full of great ideas and information!
HOW WE USED THIS:
The first thing I did was buy The Last Battle. Progeny Press also offers many of the books for sale on their website! We already owned Farmer Boy, so I just pulled it from the bookshelf. Next I printed off both of the guides in their entirety. The Last Battle Study Guide was 67 pages, and Farmer Boy Study Guide was 57 pages. The pages are all black and white, no color, so it’s very print-friendly. I three-hole-punched the pages for each guide and placed them in a three-prong folder for each boy.
We usually completed a page a day in this guide, working together. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well Titus answered the reading comprehension questions! He would read the question aloud, and then I had him give me his answer. We worked together to shorten the answer as he wrote it in his guide. Not all children in this age range will need this much hand-holding, but some will.
For the first section, he chose to do a really neat activity! In the book, Almanzo was eating popcorn, apples, and milk as a nighttime snack. The book mentions that if you get a cup full to the brim with milk and a cup full to the brim with popped popcorn, you can put each piece of popcorn in the cup of milk and the milk will not overflow. This activity was the first suggestion, and Titus quickly decided we had to try it! He was surprised to see that it actually worked. We put every piece of popcorn into the cup of milk and it never overflowed. We talked about why he thought this worked.
He almost always chooses to draw when it’s one of the suggested optional activities! He loves to draw. Drawing also makes him visualize the characters and scenes more.
WHAT DID WE THINK?
I knew we would love these literature study guides from Progeny Press, and we do! We are going to continue with these guides until we finish them, and then move on to the other guides I’ve already purchased for them to use this year! We have reviewed these guides in the past: