Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Pilgrim Story online school style #hsreviews

The Pilgrim's Story
Usually the story of the pilgrim journey is glossed over so much that students don't really learn the truth and the details that are critical to understanding. Not true with The Pilgrim Story from Dayspring Christian Academy.  Dayspring is a Christian Academy that uses the Principal Approach to education, meaning their foundation is the Bible and Biblical principles in all areas and teaching to restore American heritage.  The more I read and understand the Principle approach the more I want to include it in our homeschool. Thankfully, we received a subscription to this class and easily incorporated it into our home. While there was more writing then Cameron liked. We found the slide show style presentations made it easy to watch and pause for discussions or answer questions that might come up.
Dayspring Christian AcademyThe graphics that are incorporated into the slideshow are very straightforward and connected well throughout the unit.  The various worksheets and activities to reinforce the messages are again well connected with matching graphics and style with a good variety of activities. I especially liked the notebooking approach of the program where everything once finished moves to the notebook for future reference  making the unit study a lifetime learning project.
With the vocabulary we were able to learn not only new words but their meanings and the possible uses even though for the most part many of the words won't necessarily make it into everyday conversation. (hey, a mom can hope that they will , but really...)
The Pilgrim StorySince the program is mostly online, it was nice to have Cameron work by himself with only as little interaction from Mom or Dad away from the distraction of his brother or the rest of the house.
The Biblical foundation of the program gives me confidence in having him work on the program without the worry of content or conflict.
The Pilgrim Story is geared toward 3rd- 6th graders so was a perfect fit for our 4th grader and retails for $99.00. The price is higher than I would normally pay for a unit study, but for the whole program is realistic especially if you have multiple children in that age range. This would be a great program for a family to do together.
Below is an introduction video about the program.


Being a self-paced program allows for flexible incorporation into your school week, since there isn't an assigned time to log on to view the presentations. That to me is a huge benefit to this particular program. With so many programs I have looked at , meetings where only at certain times making it hard to work it into our day.
The course comes to its end with a virtual field trip , which is a surprise for Cameron as I haven't told him about it yet.
The course also fit perfectly into a class he is taking within our local co-op about symbols of America. Understanding the foundations of this country is more important now then ever before and having the Biblical foundation to accompany it is vital.
Of course you don't have to take just my word for it, the Schoolhouse Review Crew members share their thoughts as well.

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disclaimer: As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew we received a subscription to the above mentioned program in exchange for our honest opinion of the program.

1 comment:

  1. Love hearing about new home school resources. Great post!

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