Progeny Press ~ The Courage of Sarah Noble (Schoolhouse Review)

If you can't read about it, you can't learn it. That is my philosophy in teaching. We do loads of reading, every single day. Literature studies are our favorite way to learn, so I was excited to get the chance to review the Literature Study E-Guide for The Courage of Sarah Noble by Progeny Press.

Progeny Press had loads of literature study guides for Early Elementary (grades K-3), Upper Elementary (grades 3-5), Middle School (grades 5-8) and High School (grades 8-12). For the purposes of this review we received an E-Guide for The Courage of Sarah Noble. It was our responsibility to obtain the book, The Courage of Sarah Noble, but I just checked it out at my library. I noticed that the majority of the literature guides were for books readily available at my library which makes it a very inexpensive option for literature study.

First of all, what a delightful classic that I had never read. I enjoyed it immensely and so did the kids. We sat outside on the porch swing each day, with the dogs in our laps, to enjoy our reading.

How We Used the Product

Each morning I would review the curriculum guide to see what was expected for the day's reading. The guide started with "Before You Read" questions and "As You Read" questions. These we just discussed. The "As You Read" question asked the children to identify each time Sarah reached for her cloak to remind herself to be courageous. This gave the kids something to watch for while reading, and they tallied each occurrence.

The vocabulary lessons were our favorite part and the type of assignment would determine whether we did it before or after our reading. Sometimes I wanted the kids to be listening for the vocabulary words. And sometimes I wanted to see if they could determine their meaning after we had read the assigned chapters.

Each chapter had discussion questions, many including essay-type answers. For these, we just discussed them together. I was impressed with the questions where the author asked you to relate instances in the book with particular scriptures.

There were also hands-on activities included in the curriculum guide, including cooking, art, crafts, and games, and we did some of those.

Our Opinion

This was a quality product that we thoroughly enjoyed. With reading two chapters each day and doing the related assignments for those chapters, it wasn't too heavy-handed but, instead, provided some good quality discussion opportunities and hands-on reinforcement of the topics.

Brynne is currently obsessed with the era of early settlers, so she especially enjoyed reading about Sarah's duties and responsibilities at her age. We live surrounded by a large Amish community and, just like I was as a girl, she loves that culture and what it means for the children in it. Reading how responsible children of that time had to be has actually made her want more responsibility around the house. We must never separate ourselves from the lessons of days gone by.

Eli liked all of the adventure in the book, especially with the Indians and the dangers of a possible attack by enemy tribes. This book had a little of something for everybody and the E-guide helped bring out the literary qualities of the book.

I was impressed with the deep emphasis on language arts and the smattering of hands-on projects in social studies and science. In total, this was a great product and I would be interested in purchasing other selections.

Product Details

To purchase any of the E-guides, one can visit the Progeny Press website. The E-Guide for The Courage of Sarah Noble is $11.99.

You can visit Progency Press on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Youtube.

To read other reviews on Progeny Press E-guides, visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog. The titles reviewed were:

• Frog and Toad Together (Lower Elementary)
• Uncle Jed's Barbershop (Lower Elementary)
• The Courage of Sarah Noble (Lower Elementary)
• The Door in the Wall (Upper Elementary)
• Little House in the Big Woods (Upper Elementary)
• Anne of Green Gables Middle School)
• The Last of the Mohicans (High School)
• The Hunger Games (High School)