Literature Study Guides with a Christian Perspective: A Review of The Long Way to a New Land Study Guide

Using study guides for literature happens to be one of my favorite ways to approach reading lessons for our homeschooled children. So when we had the opportunity to review another product from Progeny Press, I was very happy to pick The Long Way to a New Land Study Guide which is geared for grades 1-3. (Last year we used and reviewed the Perelandra Study Guide with our teen.) This year, our first grader and I are reading through the book The Long Way to a New Land and use the study guide from Progeny Press.

What is Progeny Press?

Their mission: "To teach our children to think clearly, to understand literature, and to rely on the scripture for truth and values, and enjoy themselves while they do it!"

There are so many great products offered by Progeny Press. They offer their study guides in a variety of ways including printed workbooks, CDs, and e-Guides that you can download right to your computer. You can also purchase books to go along with your study guide on their site.

What Did We Receive?

For this review, we downloaded the 49-page study guide written by Colleen Schreurs for the book written by Joan Sandin. We purchased the book separately but you could also pick it up at a library or purchase it through Progeny Press. The story, The Long Way to a New Land is set in both Sweden and in Ellis Island, New York in 1868. It is an I Can Read book level 3 (for children reading alone). The family is struggling in Sweden and decides to travel to America for a new opportunity.

As you and your children read the story, you can easily incorporate the study guide activities into your homeschooling day. The study guide contains a number of activities to complete with your child before, during, and after reading the book. For example, my husband and I helped our son complete a family tree prior to reading the story. We also worked on creating the different flags to represent where his ancestors originated in Europe. (Both he and his sister really enjoyed this activity!)

Those activities that relate directly to the chapters in the book contain the following parts:

• Vocabulary 

• Questions regarding the content of the chapter 

This was a fun exercise asking why the family packed different items into their trunk for America

• Literary Techniques and Grammar (such as cause & effect, prediction, synonyms, action verbs, etc.) 
• Comparing past and present 
• A section entitled Dig Deeper that consisted of Bible quotations and questions for reflection such as read Matthew 4:4 "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'" with a question asking children why the Bible was an important item for the family to take with them to the New Land

There were also a number of activities for when we were finished reading the book including writing letters to grandparents to learn more about ancestry of the family, the creation of a family booklet with photos, and a cooking center (the study guide contains a recipe for Quick Whole Wheat Bread).

There is also an answer key to help you correct the objective questions.

Note: All the units are written from a Christian perspective. The study guide contains references to Bible quotes using the NIV translation.

How Did We Use the Study Guide?

During the course of the review period, we set aside our other language arts work to focus solely upon reading The Long Way to a New Land and using the study guide. Our son read through the entire book as soon as it arrived. We then completed the before-you-read activities together. When we started working on the sections of the study guide that were specifically geared towards the chapters, I would read the chapter aloud to both our children before our son worked on the questions.

Referencing the book to answer the questions

I only required our son to complete one part for each chapter each day. If he were older, he could probably complete the entire work for each chapter during one day. So the way we worked through the study guide, it will take us about five to six weeks to complete. If you were working at a faster pace, it would probably take you about four to five weeks to complete.

What Did We Think?

I am very pleased with The Long Way to a New Land Study Guide. The variety of the activities means we had something new to work on each day. All the activities were closely connected to the book which I appreciated. This was a perfect fit for our homeschool day.

I also like how you could tie in social studies and history to this study guide. In fact, we were able to talk about the Statue of Liberty (which our son had studied a bit earlier in the year) and examine some stamps from Czechoslovakia as some members of my own family were from Slovakia.

I think the study guide would be perfect for a second grader. I found some of the work to be a bit more challenging for my first grader but as we are homeschooling, we have the flexibility to work through the questions together. Some of the ways we adapted the study guide was taking turns writing out the answers to the questions, reviewing the book as we answered each question, and I gave our son clues as to where to find the vocabulary words in the word search.

Our son's favorite activity from the study guide was creating the flags. He said, "It was so much fun."

He also enjoyed the vocabulary activity where he had to define the word in his own words and then look it up in the dictionary. Some of the words he had to define included homespun, copper, and seaport. From the vocabulary activities, he also really liked completing the crossword puzzle and the word search.

He also enjoyed being able to draw objects from the present that related to objects from the past and coloring in his pictures. For example, he drew a fancy tower (floor) lamp since we no longer use oil lamps like the family used in the story.

I would recommend the study guides from Progeny Press. They are excellent for focusing upon one story or book with your child and allow for tons of learning opportunities.

P.S. Progeny Press has a lot of fun activities and ideas pinned to a board just for The Long Way to a New Land Study Guide! We can expand our time studying about Ellis Island, Immigration, and the Statue of Liberty using their board.

Do You Want to Learn More About Progeny Press?

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Progeny Press offered four different study guides for review. Please visit the other reviews to see how they incorporated the study guides into their homeschooling day.

A Quest for a Great Homeschool Year: Language Arts Overview for 2019-2020

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

We are homeschooling three different children with varied needs in regards to Languages Arts. Our youngest is learning how to read and entering preschool. Our middle child has been reading for a while and will be continuing to master the art of reading and now writing. And our teen will be examining the written words of J.R.R. Tolkien and Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Preschool

Learning Dynamics

Our four-year-old daughter has been wanting to learn how to read like her big brothers for a while now. Through the use of several programs, our daughter seems to finally have cracked the code and is reading. She loves the Learning Dynamics Reading Program because it came with over 50 books that she has been able to start reading after only a few lessons.

The student manual has one page associated with each lesson which she likes completing and she thoroughly enjoys listening to the different songs on the CD that came with the set. We have been enjoying working on it during our homeschooling hours. (Read more in my review.)

First Start Reading

Depending upon how eager our daughter is to start learning how to write, we may or may not be using First Start Reading from Memoria Press with her this homeschool year. Each book (Books A-E) focuses upon phonics, reading, and printing. She is quite eager to start reading but not as eager to learn how to write, which is perfectly fine as she is still young. So, we will take it slow depending upon her desire to read and write. (You can read more about the excellent First Start Reading Program in my review.)

First Grade

Simply Classical Writing

We started using Simply Classical Writing Book One Step-by-Step Sentences (Bible Story Edition) in May and took a break for a while. We will be picking up with Book One again and reading more about David, Daniel, and then stories of Jesus from the Gospel. Each lesson focuses upon practicing good sentence writing, working on punctuation, and the skills necessary to write a complete sentence. I also like that our daughter can join in with listening to the readings from the Bible as we start each lesson. (Please check out my review for more information.)

StoryTime Treasures and More StoryTime Treasures

The two Student Study Guides will be used over the course of one year to read 12 classic children's books and dig deeper into literature. We started using the materials from Memoria Press during the summer to review. I love the way the lessons and resources are set up. We can go at a slower pace or move more swiftly through the lessons depending upon whether or not our six-year-old son understands the topic being taught. We look forward to reading the following books:

• Make Way for Ducklings 
• Billy and Blaze
• Blaze and the Forest Fire
• Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie
• Stone Soup
• The Little House
• Miss Rumphius
• The Story About Ping 

If you want to learn more about StoryTime Treasures, please read my review.

High School

We will be mixing a number of resources for our teen's junior year of high school, including courses from SchoolhouseTeachers.com, material from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources, and vocabulary via our Vocabulary Virtuoso Book 1. For at least one of the courses, we will be reading all of the required books together as a family, so we can discuss them.

Tolkien 

The first course that we decided upon was Christian Values in J.R.R. Tolkien by Dr. Steven Hake from SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It is an advanced literature course that will study six of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and will also include the reading of at least one biography of Tolkien. Over the course of 18 weeks, our son will answer discussion questions, write journal entries to reflect upon the readings, and compose two short papers and one longer research paper.

The books or stories to be read include:

• The Hobbit
• The Fellowship of the Ring 
• The Two Towers
• The Return of the King
• The Simarillion 
• J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter
• Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham

We may or may not extend this course of study beyond the 18 weeks by incorporating other language arts activities during our week or in between the readings of the different books. We wish to have our son to continue building his vocabulary with Vocabulary Virtuoso Book 1 from The Critical Thinking Co., as well as read another play written by William Shakespeare (Hamlet).

Shakespeare 

I am quite excited about using Lightning Lit & Comp Shakespeare Tragedies & Sonnets again from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources to read Hamlet with our son. The course on the Tragedies of Shakespeare is written to be taught over one semester but we only completed the work on Julius Caesar & the sonnets in the first Unit last homeschooling year. I love that we can be flexible and use the course as it fits our needs so we can learn a different Shakespeare play each year.

There is a plot summary of Hamlet, comprehension questions, a literary lesson on duality, an examination of characters, and a look at the language within Hamlet. To conclude the lesson there are 11 writing exercises perfect for practicing paper writing skills (which the beginning of the book goes over for students).

Not Back to School Blog Hop 

This week I am joining up with the Homeschool Review Crew for the Annual "Not Back to School" Blog Hop...5 Days of Homeschool.... Please visit the other members to see what they are sharing this week.

There are lots of great posts in the "Not Back to School" Blog Hop!

Monique D. @ Early Learning Mom - Homeschooling With Autism
Yvie @ Homeschool On the Range - 5 Days of Upper Grades Homeschooling
Abby @ Making Room 4 One More - Time Management for Homeschool Moms
Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool - 5 Days of Homeschool Questions
Amy @ the WRITE Balance - Year-Round Schooling
Annette @ A Net in Time - Homeschooling.
Betty @ Lets Get Real - Homeschooling High School
Cassandra @ My Blessed Mess - Eclectic Homeschooling

A Brief Journey through the Quotes of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

This post contains affiliate links. For more information please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

This homeschool year I hope to read the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare with our teen. To prepare, I looked through my copy of the play – which I purchased in 1994 at a Renaissance Faire according to my notation inside the cover – to find some memorable quotes to share with him.

From the fearless nature of Caesar in Act II to his pride in Act III right before his demise Shakespeare has gifted his readers with many memorable moments and quotes.

I linked up with the following blog(s):

  

Learning Together through Branch Out World - A Review of Picture Book Explorers: Paddington Bear

Picture Book Explorers: Paddington Bear is a literature-based unit for children of ages 5-10 that will take your family on a journey to the countries of England and Peru. Our five-year-old son and I had a fun time reviewing the Picture Book Explorers unit from Branch Out World. We completed many of the 30-plus activities, leaving some to go back to when he is older.

Branch Out World is a UK-based company that was founded by "a home educating family" that loves books. Their "literature-based units are designed so that you can tailor them to your child's needs." What is great is that you could use one unit with all your children – if they fit into the age range – or use it again and again as your children grow. All of the books that are part of their literature studies have a link to the United Kingdom which make them especially educational for us living in the United States. Branch Out World also produces lapbooks which allow you to study topics from Christmas in Europe to Volcanoes.

There are over 20 units to choose in the Picture Book Explorers series including the unit we reviewed – Paddington Bear – and others such as The Day The Crayons Quit and The Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck.

How Picture Book Explorers: Paddington Bear is Organized

The idea behind Picture Book Explorers is that "a particular picture book is read every day for five days and then followed up by activities chosen from a suggested selection." There are five different sections corresponding to five days with a multitude of various learning activities to complete.

In the paragraphs that follow, I will provide a brief sampling of the activities as organized by the days and how we used the material.

Day One – Exploring the Setting

I printed the maps on the same page so I stapled it at the to the page of our logbook.

In addition to reading the book, we discussed the flags of England and Peru, colored them in, and later attached them to our logbook.

We also located England and Peru on a map of the world, South America, and the United Kingdom.

I printed out two coloring pages to include in the logbook as we did not have easy access to travel posters/brochures as suggested by Picture Book Explorers. This way both our 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter could participate together, too!

There is also a section on Migration factors including push and pull factors that we skipped for now because I knew it would be too difficult for our 5-year-old. But in my opinion that makes the Picture Book Explorers: Paddington Bear more valuable because we can go back during a later year and do the activities that we skipped.

Day Two – Exploring the Words

The theme of Helping Others is addressed in Picture Book Explorers, so our son and I talked about how each person in our family helps others. We then talked about how Mr. and Mrs. Brown help Paddington Bear. There are many opportunities in the story to discuss the theme of helping others as Paddington gets into a few problems – even over-filling the bathtub!

One of the activities we completed was creating vocabulary cards for our logbook.

Day Three – Exploring the Pictures 

One of the activities we spent some time on was examining the different architectural features of not only the Brown's home but also our own home and others in the neighborhood. We looked at examples online, read the definitions provided in Picture Book Explorers, and completed the mini-book together. (My recommendation is to remember that – when putting together the mini-book – you will be turning and flipping the pages. Some of the pages ended up sideways or upside down because we filled it all out before cutting the pages out.)

Day Four – Exploring Science 

As a former zoo educator, I loved that we were able to talk about Spectacled bears during the study of Paddington Bear! As our son is younger, I wrote the information about the bears on the activity sheet as we read facts from the provided fact sheet. We also looked at information we found during a bit of research.

There was an opportunity to explore shaving foam and soap to compare the two in a sensory activity. This was a perfect tie-in to the event in the story when Paddington Bear overfilled the bathtub.

Day Five – Exploring Math, Crafts, and More 

There are a great number of activities included – from working with parallel lines to baking your own strawberry tarts. We had fun packing an imaginary suitcase and talking about what items can and cannot fit into the case.

Some of the additional ideas provided for your family!

What We Liked 

• The directions are very thorough – great examples of how to record your child's work 
• List of optional activities and supplies needed 
• Inclusion of printables like the maps and flags 
• Inclusion of fact sheets to provide parents with additional information 
• Activities to pick and choose that span the age range
• Art lessons about design discussing overlapping and emphasis

Some of the information provided on the facts sheets in Picture Book Explorers: Paddington Bear.

The picture we colored in to represent Peru and the facts on the right about bears.

Our logbook in the process of being completed. Still room for photos and science experiment notes!

Things to Note 

• Picture Book Explorers is published in the United Kingdom so the spelling of the some of the words (like color) are different (colour) (Our 5-year-old son asked why some of the words were spelled the way they were!) 
• It is a digital file – you will need to print the lengthy PDFs yourself 
• You will need to have a copy of the book (this one suggested a specific edition of Paddington Bear as there are some activities to complete that required specific features) 
• Review the items necessary for the recipes (like caster sugar) – some of them may not be familiar to people living outside of the UK 

To learn more please visit the following: 

Website – Facebook – Pinterest – Twitter – Instagram 

To see more examples of the activities from Picture Book Explorers: Paddington Bear, please visit the Homeschool Review Crew's reviews! 

Reviewing the e-Guide of Perelandra from Progeny Press

C.S. Lewis is one of our family's favorite authors, so we were very happy to be able to read Perelandra and use the e-Guide from Progeny Press to help our teen understand the material at a deeper level. Progeny Press offers "study guides for literature from a Christian perspective" with hundreds of e-Guides available from The Josefina Story Quilt e-Guide geared towards grades 1-3 to the Perelandra e-Guide for grades 9-12 which we reviewed.

The Mission of Progeny Press is "To teach our children to think clearly, to understand literature, and to rely on the scripture for truth and values, and enjoy themselves while they do it!"

You can watch this video from Progeny Press to learn more about the company.

Each study guide takes approximately 8-12 weeks to complete which means your child will complete about one page per day. Guides for younger children can take less time. As Perelandra proved to be a difficult text for our teen to read, we are working through the e-Guide more slowly to ensure that he understands the material that he is reading.

The Perelandra e-Guide contains the following elements:

• Synopsis of Perelandra, background information, and a Synopsis of Out of the Silent Planet (the first book in the trilogy) 
• Since our teen has not read Out of the Silent Planet yet (my husband has read it), it was great that he could review the events on Malacandra and Ransom's encounters with the Sorn and Hrossa.
• A biography of C.S. Lewis 
• I love having a brief biography of the author as it prevents the need to go to the Internet to look it up.
• Activities to complete prior to reading Perelandra 
• While we didn't complete the prereading activities, they are quite good. I really like the idea of researching the mythical origin of Mars and Venus as well as that of 1930-1950s science fiction. These are just two of the six activities suggested. 
• Vocabulary words and a variety of activities to introduce and teach the new words 
• Vocabulary activities range from sentences from the book with the new words to discussion of mood and tone to searching for antonyms. With a variety of ways to learn vocabulary, students are sure to find at least one way which suits their learning style. 

• Examination of literary techniques 
• There are questions pertaining to metaphors, similes, descriptions, and imagery to name a few. 

• Examination of moral lessons and character values 
• Through a variety of questions, we are able to discuss the difference between Weston and Ransom as we read quotes from the Bible and examine their decisions. I think this has been one of my favorite aspects of the e-Guide – we can have good conversations with our son with Perelandra as a starting point. 
• A variety of activities and writing assignments 
• There are typical essay assignments available, as well as art suggestions, and research papers to pick from for culminating activities. 
• Suggestions for further reading 
• Having a suggested list of books written by C.S. Lewis to look for and other books that relate to the series takes the guess work out what to read next. And the great thing is our son has already read some of the other books such as The Martin Chronicles and The Hobbit. 

What Our Family Likes 

My husband and I have been enjoying the fact that while we are discussing Perelandra with our son – and the answers to the vocabulary and other questions – we are also getting the opportunity to discuss real world events as well as the concepts of morality, right and wrong, and other topics in relation to the Christian view we are trying to instill in our son.

I also like that my husband is reading the book via an online application that allows him to search for key words as we discuss the various questions in the e-Guide. This way we can find the exact phrase or quote that a question brings up and find the reasons within the text for the answer suggested in the answer key. One specific instance would be that of the question pertaining to "emergent evolution" and the Force in Chapter 7. Our son had difficulty with that question, so in addition to giving him hints from the answer key we were able to re-read that portion of the text aloud to discuss whether or not Weston is presenting a paradox or a contradiction.

Going Forward 

There is also an interactive feature to the e-Guide that allows your children to type their answers directly into the e-Guide. We chose to print out the unit study so that we could all be able to look at it while discussing the questions.

As our younger two children, who are being homeschooled, move forward in their reading journey, I look forward to relying upon Progeny Press for their e-Guides. Within the next year, we could use Frog and Toad Together e-Guide for our 5-year-old son. If our teen makes the decision to homeschool in the future, we will be looking for others such as Hamlet e-Guide, Introduction to Poetry: Forms and Elements e-Guide, and The Screwtape Letters e-Guide.

In addition, if you are curious, Progeny Press does offer an e-Guide for Out of the Silent Planet, if you would rather read Book # 1 in the Space Trilogy first and complete that e-Guide with your child. There are also sample pages from the various e-Guides to help you decide if it is a fit for your family.

To learn more, please visit the following:

Facebook – Website – Twitter – Pinterest – YouTube 

The Homeschool Review Crew also reviewed the following e-Guides:

• The Josefina Story Quilt e-Guide
• The Green Book e-Guide
• The Scavengers e-Guide 

To see more reviews, please visit the Homeschool Review Crew!