What do the two pictures above have in common? A whole awful lot if your name is Katie and you live in the Dunham family! Katie is in 4th grade this year and is currently reading Voyage to Freedom as part of her history studies. I LOVE it when reviews perfectly coincide with what we’re already doing anyway and not only coincide, but totally enhance it. The Pilgrim Story is an online class from Dayspring Christian Academy and it does this PERFECTLY.
The Pilgrim Story is a self-paced, interactive online course that takes kids (and parents too!) through an in-depth and thorough look at the true history of the Pilgrims and does it in a way that is not only informative, but also super engaging. Take a look at this:
The lessons really are that well done. The content is provided in the space of five units with a total of 17 lessons. These lessons (which take 30-45 minutes to each to complete) include:
- King Henry
- Geneva Bible
- Liberty of Conscience
- Leaving Leiden
- Conditions on the Mayflower
- Building Christian Character
- The Mayflower Compact
- And way more than that!
In addition to the great online media, the course also includes a plethora of downloadable resources which are necessary to complete the student notebook each child will compile while taking the course. The suggested age range for this course is listed as grades 3-6 on the website, but the narrator of the series says it can be modified for use with 2nd grade through 8th grade.
Here’s an example of one of the downloadable student notebook pages:
And one of my favorite downloadable resources is this Mayflower Passenger List – just seeing these names on here makes this seem so much more like a REAL story than just one of legend.
But I would be remiss if I didn’t say that my very favorite part of the whole course comes at the very end: the virtual field trip to Plymouth, MA!
This field trip is SO much more than an online scrapbook – you really sort of accompany a class on their four day field trip to where all of this took place. Pictures are shown and described in such great detail. This really is the next best thing to going yourself. MUCH better than just doing a google search for the same things. Wowza! This really brings the whole story to life!
The entire course costs $99. Access begins 48 hours after you purchase it and you have access to the content for six months from the time of registration. There are no set hours you have to be online to access the course, all of the lessons are available at any point that works for you.
I do find it necessary to tell you a fast internet speed is a must for this. One of our computers is in a weird spot in our house and it doesn’t always get the greatest (fastest) reception. That slow speed made loading the individual lesson slides a major pain (and sometimes just impossible). We had a much better experience when we worked off of my husband’s laptop in a better connected part of our house. Just an fyi on that!
The subscription cost is quite a bit on the high-end, but the course really is a complete one. Besides all of the available media, they provide craft ideas, map-making activities, live action scenes, and a whole lot more. Students are really engaged in a variety of learning styles.
My only suggestion for improvement would be that for the price that this is, families be allowed permanent access to the content. I think it’s super great and am happy we have access to it right now, but my youngest daughter will be going through the same content at home in another year and I’d love to be able to save all of these great resources for her personal enrichment next year. I certainly wouldn’t be able to pay for the class twice! But if your homeschool plans take all of your kids through the same history “core” at the same time, this would be a very attractive resource to add to your curriculum for the year.
So now you know how much I really love this resource. Be sure to check out what the rest of the TOS Homeschool Crew had to say about The Pilgrims Story right here!
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