The Sword in the Tree Study Guide {REVIEW}
The Sword in the Tree E-Guide contains:
- Prereading Activities
- Questions for the chapters of the book
- A section to think more deeply about the story
- Lessons on comparing and contrasting parts of the book
- Optional projects
- Vocabulary
- Activities
- Fact or Opinion
- An Overview which can be used as a final test
- Postreading Activites
This was our first time using Progeny Press Study Guides. We had never read The Sword in the Tree, either, and were excited to start. We decided it would be best for me to read the book aloud to both of our older elementary age kids (B, our son who is age 11, and C, our daughter who is age 9). The Sword in the Tree guide is listed for grades 4-6 which is perfect for our two who are just finishing grades 5 and 3.
We read the book over the course of several weeks and then decided to try out the prereading activities. We decided to start out by going to our local library and looking for some books on King Arthur and his sword. We found several choices of books and had fun reading some of the legends of King Arthur. Some of the other suggestions which we didn’t get to, but are fabulous ideas are buying coloring books which are about arms, armour or knights and castles, researching Oak Trees and their leaves, or reading about medieval swords. There are lots of great ideas to set the stage for your students so that their mind is thinking about knights, castles, and the Middle Ages.
The question sections are from multiple chapters combined together. These questions are outlined for Chapters 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-14 and they are all great review of the chapters. While this section is more factual questions about the plot and what happened in the book the “Think About the Story” section allows the kids to work on inference and deduction. The student is able to think deeper about the story. We loved the compare and contrast section which asks you to read Luke 15, the story of the prodigal son, and to compare that with Uncle Lionel and his family. I think this is an excellent exercise.
The optional activities section gives the student lots of opportunity to really study a variety of moral dilemmas in an up close manner. I personally love these questions because it is a perfect way to interact with your children using situations that they might be confronted with. This is a good launching point for deep conversations.
The kids and I enjoyed the vocabulary section, as well. In the first vocab unit (labelled for chapters 1-6) the words are underlined in a sentence from the book. This word is given in context so that the student can then discern what they believe the word means. Then they are given a chance to search for the vocabulary word in the dictionary. I like this better than just searching for a word because I think it gives the kids time to come to their own conclusion and really think about what they think the word probably means.
Although we didn’t get completely done with this study guide, I was able to flip through some of the sections we didn’t use. Some things that stuck out at me are the consistent use of Scripture. Kids are asked to look in the Bible at different verses of the Bible and are able to study key words like wisdom, humility, and obedience. I love that this is so much more than a list of dry comprehension questions. This study gets the kids look further into the ideas set forth in the book and gives them a chance to understand even their own lives on a deeper level. I also noticed that key literary devices are explained in various sections. Words are used such as paraphrase, foreshadowing, setting, similies, point of view, first, second and third-person narrative, fact and opinion. I think this study guide offers so much to the student and is perfect for the grades intended (grades 4-6th!). We loved The Sword in the Tree E-Guide so much that we are looking at doing another Upper Elementary guide such as Little House in the Big Woods E-Guide. I think this could even work if you do a “light” school day in the Summer months – this offers so much in the form of language arts!
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