Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.
My family had the privilege of trying the Little Women Study Guide & My Side of the Mountain Study Guide from Progeny Press for this review to use in conjunction with our own curriculum at home. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.
Progeny Press is a Christian based company that produces products that help with comprehension, critical analysis, and vocabulary study in literature and reading. They have a number of very nice literature based study guides and interactive e-guides that go with a number of classical, historical, and award winning books. They are always adding new titles to their list. All of their guides - whether book-bound, on CD, or downloaded - have exactly the same content. Four of their literature guides are considered a full literature credit for the year for students in high school.
The Little Woman Study Guide by Carol Clark is great for using in conjunction with the book by Louisa May Alcott. This is geared towards high school grades eight through twelve. This guide is 94 pages total when printed. The My Side of the Mountain Study Guide by Carol Clark is great for using in conjunction with the book by Jean Craighead George. This is geared towards middle school grades five to eight. This guide is 63 pages total when printed. The ones we received is the interactive e-guide which means that it is able to have the answers entered and typed directly into the PDF and saved. You can additionally print the pages and have your student work on them off of the computer. The e-guides save you money because you do not have to pay shipping and handling. You can also grade the student's work directly on the PDF and make comments in the same file. Mobile Devices/Tablets may require alternative app that supports and saves fillable form fields. All the guides, once purchased, can be reproduced for the teacher's/homeschooling parent's use in their own classroom or home. Once downloaded to your computer they are permanently available on your computer, and are yours and yours only.
These Study Guides cover a lot of ground. They have vocabulary that goes with the book with activities that help retention and growth. The Little Woman Study Guide talks about literary techniques like: Slang, similes, metaphors, foreshadowing, proverbs, allusions, motif, parallelism, allegory, maxims, idioms, juxtaposition, asides, anthropomorphism, antithesis, irony, mood, comic relief, alliteration, in context, foil, aphorism, jargon, sarcasm, tongue-in-cheek humor, extended metaphor, euphemisms, cause and effect, epiphany, poetic justice, flat and round characters, dynamic and static characters, dramatic structure, theme, point of view, and coming-of-age. The My Side of the Mountain Study Guide talks about literary techniques like: Point of view, verbs, anthropomorphism, irony, flashback, in context, adjectives, similes, recap, paraphrase, fact vs. opinion, onomatopoeia, comic relief, mood, metaphors, allusion, alphabetical order, idioms, oxymoron, alliteration, assonance, consonance, extended metaphors, willing suspension of disbelief, conflict, quest, dramatic structure, full-circle ending, coming of age, bildungsroman, and compare & contrast. There are moral lessons and character values taken from the books in each study guide. Activities and writing assignments are also included. Each set of chapters or section has: activities to use the vocabulary, questions in shorty answer, "think about the story" comprehension questions, "dig deeper" questions with bible verses to look up and biblical perspective or philosophical questions to go with the book, and optional activities, like: art, cooking, creative writing, dramatization, etc. There is a lot of other things too that these go into. Take a look at the layout and contents below of each study guide...
Here is Little Woman's Study Guide Layout:
- Study Guide Author
- Note to Instructor (How to use the study guide)
- Synopsis (What book is about)
- About the Novel's Author
- Background Information
- Ideas for Prereading Activities (Things to do or study before and during reading the book): Read Pilgrim's Progress, class discussion, research the U.S. Civil War, journaling activities.
- Chapters 1-4
- Chapters 5-9
- Chapters 10-12
- Chapters 13-16
- Chapters 17-20
- Chapters 21-23
- Part 1 Crossword Puzzle
- Chapters 24-27
- Chapters 28-31
- Chapters 32-35
- Chapters 36-39
- Chapters 40-43
- Chapters 44-47
- Overview
- Optional Essays and Projects
- Additional Resources (Other books by the author, similar titles, plays, and movies)
- Answer Key (located in a separate PDF)
Here is My Side of the Mountain's Study Guide Layout:
- Study Guide Author
- Note to Instructor (How to use the study guide)
- Synopsis (What book is about)
- About the Novel's Author
- Prereading Activities (Things to do or study before reading the book): Field trip, research local plants, read the author's preface to the book.
- Section 1: I Hole Up...; I Get Started...; I Find Gribley's Farm
- Section 2: I Find Many...; The Old, Old Tree; I Meet One of my Own Kind...
- Section 3: The Kings Provider; What I Did About...; I Learn to Season My Food
- Section 4: How a Door...; Frightful Learns...; I Find a Real Live Man
- Section 5: The Autumn Provides...; We All Learn About Halloween; I Find Out What to Do
- Story Review Fun!
- Section 6: Trouble Begins; I Pile up Wood...; I Learn About Birds...
- Section 7: I Have a Good Look at Winter...; The Spring in the Winter...
- Section 8: I Cooperate with the Ending; The City Comes to Me
- Overview
- Optional After-You-Read Projects and Activities
- Additional Resources (Other books by the author, other titles of interest, related books, related movies)
- Answer Key (located in a separate PDF)
How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
My daughter, Teela, who is 12 years old is an advanced reader. She loves reading and devours books. Her favorites are chapter books that have some substance to them. I told her about Little Woman and My Side of the Mountain and she was excited to start reading. We had the book Little Woman on our Kindle so we started with that one. She loved this book and read it chapter by chapter working through the study guide.
She got to use the guide as she read the book and since the review period for this was slightly longer than most (roughly 7 weeks) we got through a good portion of My Side of the Mountain as well. She did the worksheets online to work on her computer and typing skills as well.
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| Our Rose Garden |
Teela loved doing some of the optional activities in the study guides. One of the optional activities she picked in chapters 17-20 in the Little Woman Study Guide was plant a rose bush and tend it. We planted a whole rose garden, not just one plant, this year and she helped me with it. I showed her how to dead head spent blossoms and water them. Another of the optional activities she picked to do for chapters 36-39 in the Little Woman Study Guide had her make and serve Tea Sandwiches. For these we had cream cheese, cucumber and triangle cut bread. On a hot day these were particularly good with iced herbal tea. In the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide she did a lot of the optional activities too. She picked to learn more about skunks in Section 5 because it so happens that we have a family of them with a mama and 5 babies living in our barn. You can go here on my husband's YouTube to see them.
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| Teela with the Tea Sandwiches she made. |
This was the forth time we had experienced Progeny Press and their literature study guides. This time though we got to pick two different study guides instead of just one. The study guides we received were jam packed full of reading comprehension and information to study. I love that they are also faith-based and has biblical applications that relate to the books fairly well. Since Teela just finished 6th grade this year, I had her type her answers as best she could and I believe she did great for her age. These guides are very well thought out and put together and I feel that my daughter learned and comprehended a great deal more because of it.
I highly recommend the Progeny Press study guides. They are easy to download and simple to print from PDF and easy to do online. These guides got my daughter thinking a lot more about the story and characters than she would have just reading the book on its own. Progeny Press has a great selection of other guides that go with some other great books as well. Check them out below.
Follow Them on Social Media:
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/progenypress
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/progenypress
- Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/progenypress
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/progenypress
- Hashtags: #hsreviews #ProgenyPress #Literature #reading #learnathome #StudyGuides #ReadingComprehension
BUY IT
You can get the Little Women Study Guide in e-guide format for $21.99 and the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide for 18.99 from Progeny Press and also download a sample of the guide to see what it looks like.
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