Homeschool Crew Review~ Macbeth from Progeny Press

This year, the kids and I were going to tackle Shakespeare! I couldn't believe our luck, when we were offered a chance to review the Macbeth E-Guide from Progeny Press. I knew this fantastic study guide would make reading Macbeth a wonderful adventure for the kids and I.


Progeny Press is a Christian company that offers homeschoolers a wonderful selection of study guides to go along with wonderful quality books. These books and study guides open up the doors to new and amazing worlds. In the past, we have used and reviewed a few other E-guides from Progeny Press. Read can read more about them....The Indian in the Cupboard and Tuck Everlasting.  For this review, we received the downloadable Macbeth  E-guide from Progeny Press. The study guide can be purchased for $21.99. The Macbeth E-Guide is suggested for use with students in  high school students or grades 9th-12th.The new interactive study guide will open with Adobe 9.0. With this new interactive feature, students will be able to enter their answers directly on the computer and actually save their work and progress. Of course, the study guide can still be printed out just like before. 

The Macbeth study guide is broken up into 15 different sections. Introduction for the Instructor This is an introduction on how the study guide is designed and offers suggestions on how to use it with your students. Special Note on Shakespeare's Plays This is just a short paragraph that gives some important information about Shakespeare's play and few suggestions on how to make reading Shakespeare a little easier to understand and enjoyable. A wonderful suggestions is to watch a movie of the play. It brings the play to life for the students.

Synopsis for the Play Just like any other synopsis, this is a brief summary about the play Macbeth. Introduces students to the plot and important characters int he play.  Background Information This section provides student a look into the world of Shakespeare and what life was like for the audience the play was written for. This brief section gives students a little bit of history in order for them to understand the play even better. It simple provides historical context! About the Author Here student are given a brief biography of William Shakespeare. Where he lived, who he married, what he wrote, and when he died. Of course, students could easily check out a biography of William Shakespeare for further reading. 

Suggestions for Pre-reading Activities This sections provides students with y different activities to work on before they start reading Macbeth. They can do some map work, look up bible passages to see how they pertain to the play, research Scotland, write a report, etc. Act I Act II Act III Act IV Act V These five sections are where the study guide digs into the play. Here students will be given various activities and questions to help them understand what they are reading. Here are a few of the topics that will be covered...vocabulary, a scrambled quotation they have to solve, general questions, analysis questions, character study, foreshadowing, dig deeper, extra activities (art projects, acting out, write a journal, write an eulogy). 

Overview This is the section you work on after you have finished the book. This section offers students various topics to think about and discuss. This brings this students to the point where they can talk about Macbeth, the choices he made, and the consequences he had to face.  Writing Projects This is the final work section of the study guide. Here 8 topics are presented for the students. This section is great for having the students pick one topic to complete and write a final paper on the play, Macbeth. parents can either assign a specific topic or allow the student to choose one of the eight. Additional Resources Here students and parents will find a very nice list of suggestions for other Shakespeare plays, books about Shakespeare, and videos of the plays that are recommend. Answer Key With the downloadable E-guide this is a separate section. It contains all the answers for the questions and activities presented in the study guide. I just kept it stored on my computer for reference. I didn't print out an answer key for the kids.

How We Used the Macbeth E-Guide? I choose to print the study guide out for both Michael and Therese. The study guide is recommend for high school, but I knew both kids would be able to do the work. Michael is in "8th grade" and Therese is in "7th grade." Of course both of them work at different grade levels depending on what the subject is. Since we'd used study guides from Progeny Press before, I knew the kids would know and understand the layout of the booklet. Before we started reading Macbeth, I printed out the study guide, 3 hole punched the pages, and created a binder for both kids.  We followed along in the guide. We read Act 1 first. I used the same technique my high school English teachers used. I assigned Michael, Therese , and myself various characters to read. We acted out the play! This helped break up the reading and kept all of us in an active role. After completing Act 1, we set out to work on the pages in the study guide. I love how the first lesson in the study guide is vocabulary. This helps students understand what they are reading. Shakespeare can be a little tricky to comprehend and the activities and lessons provided in the study guide helps solve this for students (and parents). For us, I broke up the study guide over 12 weeks. We read and worked through the guide for 4 days a week. We are currently about half way through. I've picked a pace a little slower than recommended, but I did it so we could fit in our other studies. Social Media Links: Facebook Twitter Instagram  Youtube Pinterest Want to learn more about the study E-Guides from Progeny Press? Click below and see the reviews from the crew members for The Bears on Hemlock Mountain E-Guide (Grades 1-3), Charlotte's Web E-Guide (Grades 4-6), The Silver Chair E-Guide (Grades 5-7). Till Next Time, Monique