Review: Progeny Press, The Sword in the Tree E-Guide (TOS Review)

For this review, my almost 10 year old son used The Sword in the Tree E-Guide from Progeny Press. 

This is not our first time using Progeny Press Study Guides, you can see our other reviews as well:

Stone Fox and The Courage of Sarah Noble

We used this unit 3-5 days a week, he did one page a day (any more and he would have not been happy, as he doesn’t like written work much).  Though we have used these study guides before this was the first time I actually had him do the majority of it on his own, written, not orally with me.

Though the guides have a type answer option, I choose to print the packet and have him hand write the answers.

I have to be honest, he does not really like these.  He prefers to read a book, and that’s it.  He doesn’t care to break it into chapters and answer questions about it.  But, he got over it.

We took this product with us on our recent road trip, and he was able to do a page a day in the car!  So it made for great car schooling! My son was able to navigate the guide pretty much on his own; little help was required from me.

I love that the literature guides also work in scripture study, this allows you to combine two subjects together, which is always a plus!  If you have a your child write in complete sentences (mine did mostly short answer) it could also qualify as writing, and there is vocabulary work as well. 

These are Christian based studies (as I mentioned scripture study).  The books are used to point out life lessons and are applied to scriptural concepts. 

The Sword in the Tree was on our reading list this year for the Middle Ages, so it was a great way to use the book in our history studies, as well as adding in the other subjects. 

The E-Guide is a downloadable product, in PDF format.  It does not include the book, it must be acquired separately.

Progeny Press has a wide range of study guides to choose from, for all grade levels (K-12).  I felt that this particular book was easy for a 4th-6th grade range, my son could read on higher levels, but then that allowed for the focus to be more on the questions in the guide.  This has been our experience with the other guides also.  The reading levels were lower than what they were listed, but the guide work was always more difficult for my son.

The guide also includes an answer key!  This is very handy!  It makes checking answers so much easier (because in all honesty, I general have a chance to read the book myself).  Additionally, it comes with a list of fun Post Reading Activities (to rope in even more subjects) and a list of additional resources, including other related titles.

If you are looking to work literature into your curriculum, but would like it to cover a wide variety of activities/subjects in addition, this would be a great way to do so. 

They have lots of wholesome literature to choose from.

The guides are $18.99 and are available as an instant download or a physical product (either on CD or as a printed book).  They also have the books available for purchase.

Because my son dislikes the units so much (only because of the writing aspect) it isn’t something we would do on a regular basis, but I do like to work in at least one a year. I’d also like to try some of the lower elementary choices next time with my 2nd son.  If you do have a child that doesn’t like to write, it’s nice that typing is an option, and previous units we have also done a lot of the questions orally!