For the last few weeks, we have been reading Mr. Popper’s Penguins E-Guide while completing the downloadable literature unit study guide from Progeny Press.
Progeny Press produces fun and interactive study guides for many well-known novels from a Christian perspective. They have a large variety of study guides available for all school levels: lower elementary, upper elementary, middle school and high school. These study guides are designed to encourage children to read and enjoy literature.
You will find that there are a few different authors that write these study guides, but don’t let that put you off. All the guides follow a similar format and are extremely well written. Many of the e-Guides are interactive, which allows your child to type in the answers on the pdf file and save it. This is great, saving time and money on printing and binding.
The recommended time to spend on these study guides is 8-12 weeks, though it only recommended and you can take as long or as short as you wish.
Progeny Press has many study guides available which they divide by grade levels:
- Lower Elementary ( for K- Grades 3)
- Upper Elementary (for Grades 3 – 5)
- Middle School (for Grades 5 – 8)
- High School (for Grades 8 – 12 )
How did we go?
We have already used many of the study guides from Progeny Press, so we knew what we were expected to do. (You can read our past reviews here: Stone Fox, The Door in the Wall and Uncle Jed’s Barbershop.)
The study guide for Mr. Popper’s Penguins is 60 pages in length (including the answer key) and contains a synopsis, author information, a note on how to use the guide, pre-reading activities, chapter studies, overview, review puzzle race, essays and projects as well as ideas for post-reading activities.
As the novels don’t come with the studies, I purchased our book and the boys waited patiently for it to arrive. While waiting, we completed the prereading activities from the study guide. This included researching the North and South Poles and labelling them on a map as well as researching penguins. We also watched a couple of videos we found at the library about penguins. When the book finally arrived, both boys sat down and read it completely from start to finish.
Before starting the chapter studies, we read the chapters of the book again. The study guide concentrated on four chapters of the book at a time, with each study being about 6 pages long. We completed one four chapter study in one sitting. This did not include the optional projects. We did these over the next day or two depending on how involved they were.
After completing all the chapter activities, they went on to complete the overview in which they learnt about conflicts in stories and how to create a climax. This really helped them with understanding what a story needs to make it interesting and exciting to read.
This study guide as really got our boys interested in the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the world. They love researching these areas and learning more about how the animals survive in such a harsh climate.
This is a picture of a polar bear that our youngest boy drew.
We really love these study guides and I am always impressed by the way they are written. I love how the Bible is incorporated into the studies and how the children are encouraged to research so they have a better understanding of what they are reading. These study guides are also very easy to prepare and cater to many learning styles.
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