Immerse Kids in Survival Skills & Adventure with a Classic Book & Excellent eGuide {A Progeny Press Review}

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Disclaimer: I received a FREE 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 compensated in any other way.

If you are a book study guide lover or just want to cherry pick ideas from an excellent eGuide as your lower elementary through high school students read classic stories, I encourage you to check out Progeny Press, a popular Christian vendor of study guides for literature that makes it 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!"

We're recently been checking out their My Side of the Mountain Study Guide by Carol Clark - an eGuide meant for students in grades 5-8 which can be completed in 8-10 weeks - and I can honestly attest that it is a thorough, varied guide chock full of ideas for learning, review, and discovery.
 

The guide is written to be used in its entirety for independent unit-based engagement and study. However, it is also designed and organized in such a way that parents and/or students can easily scan it to pull an idea here and an activity there for more flexible enrichment or targeted study.

The Study Guide Comes in a Handy Digital Format

When you order your My Side of the Mountain Study Guide, or any eGuide from Progeny Press, you get instant access to a downloadable study guide and separate answer key.
The interactive PDF format of the eGuide works on our Windows laptop, and, I hear, works on Macs, too.

Once  opened with the FREE Adobe Readerprogram, the eGuide allows students (or parents who have students narrate to them) to enter answers directly on the computer and save their progress as they work. (I believe with an alternative app the fillable fields of the interactive guide can work on mobile devices and tablets, too.)

This interactive PDF format is convenient! It means that do not have to print any of the guide if you'd rather just have your kids work onscreen. Or, you can easily print just what you need or want - the whole guide at once, a single lesson or page as students need it, or multiple copies of pages for your family's use.
All the convenience and learning. None of the paper and ink waste. Love it!

What I love even more is that the answer key can also be easily printed or accessed onscreen which can help parents/teachers to check student work without having to read and answer questions on their own.

Plus, there is free technical support offered should you encounter any difficulties when using the digital guide and answer key. This, though, I doubt would be needed by anyone, since the eGuide and Answer Key are so easy to use. Seriously, everything worked A-okay here with this study and one we did previously.

The My Side of the Mountain Study Guide Is One Complete Study Guide!

When I said the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide is "a thorough, varied guide chock full of ideas for learning, review, and discovery" earlier I meant it 100%.

The eGuide offers:

• author information
• story synopsis and background
• pre-reading activities
• vocabulary study
• Bible study
• critical thinking
• comprehension questions
• post-reading activities
• writing prompts
• resource listings
• literary device activities

... and more. In doing so, it really gets students engaged and learning as they immerse themselves in reading classic literature and thinking about survival skills, adventure, and faith.

Included in the 63-page interactive eGuide are:

• Literary Techniques to include adjective use, alliteration, allusion, anthropomorphism, assonance, comic relief, coming of age (or bildungsroman, which was a new word for me), conflict, dramatic structure, facts vs. opinion, flashback, full-circle ending, irony, metaphors and extended metaphors, mood, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, paraphrasing, point of view, recapping, similes, suspension of disbelief, verb use, and more.

• Moral Lessons and Character Values about such things as acceptance, being alone, bullying, fear and worry, daily life, honoring parents, hospitality, lying, patience, provision, superstitions, and understanding God.

• Activities and Writing Assignments to include at and design, cooking, creative writing, a crossword puzzle, drama projects, essay choices, field trips, health & nutrition, journalism, journal writing, letter writing, legends, maple syrup, math connections, parody, plant research, poster projects, research writing, rock climbing, safety chats, science connections, wooden toys, and more.

• Suggestion for Further Reading, which include more materials by the same author and books that tie in with or are similar to My Side of the Mountain.

You can find samples of the eGuide at My Side of the Mountain Study Guide.

Why We Chose the My Side of the Mountain Study eGuide and What We Thought

A few years ago, I got it in my head that I wanted to use the well-loved classic, My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, to start an outdoor book-and-adventure club with friends. However, life kept happening and the club never came to be. Still, I wanted to read the book with my younger two children before they age out of it. Thus, when an opportunity came up to review the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide by Progeny Press, I took it as a prompt to break the book out for some relaxed Mom-and-us style learning.

Key word there is relaxed! Because we were using this thorough resource during the bridge from spring into summer when we tend to wind down more formal studies, I opted to use the eGuide in a non-traditional way with my children.

Basically, we read my old, weathered copy of My Side of the Mountain together as we swung on an outdoor swing together, laid on a blanket in the sun, or snuggled before bedtime. Then, every few chapters, I would break out the study guide with the kids and use it for prompts for faith-and virtues-chats, oral quizzes about vocabulary, literary devices, etc.
I also browsed it for ideas for enrichment for practical life and survival skills among other things.

This led to nature walks and explorations...

 ...salads with wild edibles...

 ... some strawberry picking...

... foraging for clay and trying to make clay ovens...

... picking mulberries...

...building fires...

... picking black raspberries...

... making chocolate covered strawberry deliciousness...

... foraging for and whittling walking sticks...

... and more!

There has just been so much inspiration for hands-on, outdoor, fun and learning!

Or course, there has been indoor learning, too.

Sometimes, I read my children questions from the guide and had them answer orally while I took quick notes on their answers in the fillable fields so I would remember which questions we'd already covered.

One time, when we did this, I set a timer, gave the kids game chips as points for every correct answer and, let the child who had the most chips at the end of the game choose if we would have a snuggly read together or watch one of the movies we'd found in the resource section together before bed.

The winner chose the latter, so we found free access to one of the recommended movies on Youtube. Then, as we began watching it, my other child came in, and the movie engaged us all.

After watching, the movie we dovetailed into natural conversations that night and the next day during which the kids compared parts of the movie to My Side of the Mountain (especially the survival aspects and the ideas of running away and coming of age), chatted about survival skills, and discussed some cultural and faith points that  the movie and our eGuide-enriched study of My Side of the Mountain brought to the fore.

I was delighted with all this and grateful for the eGuide, since I had never heard of the movie before and do not think we would have happened upon it without the eGuide's suggestion.

I also do not think our entire experience with My Side of the Mountain book would have been as rich as it has been without the eGuide. I am grateful that the eGuide allowed us to embrace natural, relaxed learning, to find some great extension activities/resources, and to review some key literary devices, vocabulary, and more.

The My Side of the Mountain Study Guide certainly is a blessing that has all the typical vocabulary exercises, comprehension questions, writing prompts and literature device studies that you'd expect in a literary unit study which can be used traditionally or in a more relaxed way. It also focuses on connections between the classic book of one boy's adventure and coming of age and Scripture and offers a wide array of optional activities and further resources to engage students in wonderful exploration and learning.

I most certainly recommend the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide to others with middle school age learners whether they like independent literary studies or relaxed, hands-on family learning like us.

Learn More

Progeny Press gets a two thumbs up from me both for this My Side of the Mountain Study Guide and for an earlier Progeny Press review of their Give Me Liberty E-Guide due to how well it is written and designed and how family-friendly they are with wonderful extension ideas and permissions that allow you to use the eGuides with multiple children within your family.

Progeny Press earns similar ratings with other families, I hear, for its wide variety of E-Guides geared toward elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, and high schoolers.  You can read about some of the other titles offered among the 64 Progeny Press social media, blog, and video reviews that Review Crew families have shared.

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