Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Progeny Press Study Guides Review - Shadow Spinner and Little House on the Prairie





Reading takes us on so many adventures!  The girls and I have been reviewing and getting to experience life on the prairie and life in India while using the Little House on the Prairie Study Guide and Shadow Spinner Study Guide from Progeny Press.  

Progeny Press has written these study guides, E-Guides from a Christian perspective, so applicable scripture memory and questions are included with each chapter.  The mission statement for Progeny Press has caused me to love their materials even more.

"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!"

Progeny Press Study Guides combines literature, critical thinking skills, along with Biblical text.  The Study Guides provide a great way to encourage your student's love of literature, and also give them scriptural reminders about behaviors to discuss. 

When classically educating your child, one thing parents can do is draw out as many educational experiences as possible in literature books.  This can become a time consuming endeavor, but Progeny Press has done all of the work for you.  

In the last few weeks, we have been using both the Shadow Spinner Study Guide  and the Little House on the Prairie Study Guide.  Both are written for students in roughly grades 5 - 8.  You do need the chapter book to read with your study guide materials.  We already owned Little House on the Prairie, and the library had Shadow Spinner for us to borrow.

The download is easy to open and includes both student pages, as well as teacher/answer guide.

Shadow Spinner is the story of Shahrazad who must tell a story to the Sultan nightly, in order to save her life.  If the story is not interesting enough to keep his interest, she could lose her life.  She is running out of tales to tell the Sultan, and must gather new ones that he has not heard.  Will she be able to do this with the help of Marjan?


Caty has been reading through this story, and enjoying it.  Progeny Press study guides can be used at your own pace.  The questions are very though provoking with each chapter.  They encouraged Caty to really think.  But at the same time, due to her learning disabilities, she struggled a bit with writing the answers and really getting her thoughts lined up.  The Shadow Spinner Study Guide really adapt to their learning style by allowing them to move at whatever speed they are most comfortable.  One day I had her just type up her answers to the questions, instead of handwriting out the responses.    

Each book is broken into a certain amount of chapters being matched up with questions.  Included also are questions and activity suggestions that include areas of interest in geography, science, math, and also language arts.  So when using a Progeny Press Study Guide, you are really getting a total study unit.

The Shadow Spinner Study Guide was created to either be printed and kept in a notebook binder, which is what we chose to do or you can easily type into the PDF file and print the pages, if you need them for a record of your studies.


You can see the drop down button choices for students in the photo above.  Those are in the PDF file and allow students to select the answer and print the pages then.

I thought some of the harder questions really forced Caty to think about what she was reading, and not just flying through the book.  Just learning about different writing styles that an author can present while writing really got her.  She wants to write short stories, so this really got her that sometimes writing is more than just throwing a bunch of lines on paper or in a file.  


I really liked questions like the one above.  It made Caty really "read between the lines".  Using this Progeny Press study guide was the deepest she has ever looked at a book.  It made her struggle a bit.  She did not move through the study quickly.  But it definitely gave her a new respect for authors and how to write.

Lydia and I are working our way through the Little House on the Prairie Study Guide.  This classic story will take you through the lives of the Ingalls family.  It is completely different from the television series, which Lydia has seen and enjoys.  


The Little House on the Prairie Study Guide starts out with a brief synopsis on the book and also background about this period in time.  There are mapping activities suggested, and the author of the study guide even suggests the whole family get involved in the study by going camping or even cook a meal over an open fire.  This is an activity that we did do.  We have cast iron pots just for cooking over the grates on our fire pit in backyard.  It's a favorite fall activity.

Just like in the Shadow Spinner Study Guide, the Little House on the Prairie Study Guide also includes vocabulary and grammar studies for studies to go through.  The book is broken down into roughly three "chapters" or sections in each "learning" unit.  You can go through each section as fast as your student needs.  

Since cooking is something that Ma must do daily to keep up with her family, there are even simple recipes included in the Little House on the Prairie Study Guide.


Cornbread is something made often in our house.  I wanted to make it over the campfire, but knew that I would burn it since I do not have a lid for the skillet.

One of the activities in the Little House on the Prairie Study Guide that I really thought was great was working on letter writing and addressing.  This is such a lost art, since everything is sent through email now.  So Lydia was able to practice letter writing during this unit study, which worked out great as she will soon be helping the stable where she rides on a fundraising letter project later this month.

The extra project suggestions throughout the Little House on the Prairie Study Guide were fun for her and included her building a log house in Minecraft and even attending a local program at the library on wolves.




Any of the Progeny Press Study Guides can be adjusted to your student's learning level.  If they are in the suggested grade range, but struggle with critical thinking, pick and choose the questions that you go through with them.  If your student excels, then encourage them to complete all the questions independently.  I verbally covered some questions with Lydia, and had her complete some independently.  

Progeny Press Study Guides can be used by schools, co-ops, homeschools, and even just over a winter/summer break.  They were created for all learning styles and educational environments.  We have been using Progeny Press Study Guides with all of the kids for several years now.  They are a favorite educational tool of mine and I look forward to new ones entering our studies all the time.

Several members of the Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to review various Progeny Press Study Guides.  Click on the link below to see how they used these products in their homes and activities that they also done.

Study Guides for Literature {Progeny Press Reviews}

Crew Disclaimer


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