Review: Dayspring Christian Academy's The Pilgrim Story

Bentley and I have been enjoying Dayspring Christian Academy's online course, The Pilgrim Story, for the past month or so.  Dayspring Christian Academy is a physical school located in Pennsylvania.  They also offered a few of their classes online for use with self directed learning.  The Pilgrim Story is one of the three currently available, and it is designed for children in the 3rd-6th grade age range.

Because Bentley is a great reader, and this is a great time of year to study the Pilgrims and all of the events leading up to the first Thanksgiving, I asked to review the product even though technically my child isn't in 3rd grade.  I'm glad I asked, the course has been an enjoyable experience!

The Pilgrim Story e-class is composed of 5 main units, each of which have 4 to 5 lessons in them.  The class finishes off with a virtual field trip of Plymouth, Massachusetts.  Each of the lessons consists of an online Powerpoint style presentation slide show that is narrated.  The lessons are interactive, with review questions, quizzes, and some fun activities built into them.  For example:

The picture above is a snapshot of Bentley's "chest" he was given the chance to pack.  The lesson discussed the space constraints the pilgrims faced and then lets the kids walk through what they would choose to pack into their trunk.  A fun way to make history more real in a concrete way!

The course was put together by one of the teachers, Mary Stauffer, at Dayspring Academy, and each of the lessons has print outs that go with it.  There are vocabulary sheets, work sheets, and activities to print.  The work sheets were a little frustrating to Bentley, mostly because of his age - they had fill in the blank areas and his handwriting was too big to fit all the writing into!  Aside from that small issue I was very impressed with the handouts.  There were very nicely put together (graphically and informationally speaking), and provide a great summary of the course material.  You will need a color printer for best results with printing the hand outs.

You can purchase access to this course, through Dayspring's website,  for $99.  This gives you access to the course materials for 6 months, which is more than enough time to work through the program at your own pace - be it a slow one (like us) or a faster clip (not us!).

Other thoughts:

• Initially, watching an overview of the first unit's lesson, I was unsure how Bentley would like it.  The course consists of power point slide, that you click through, and there is background narration.  I thought it was a little bit dry and didn't know how my 6 year old would respond.  But it turns out... he likes it!  Quite a bit, actually!  He doesn't care about flashy animation.  The content is interesting and well put together, and that's enough to capture his attention.
• The content has a definite religious "bent" to it.  Which is not unexpected since it is from a Christian school!  I am enjoying the incorporation of Christian/biblical principles discussion into the class material.  Dayspring Christian Academy is a "Principle Approach" school.  This means that they have a strong focus on developing Christian character traits (i.e. self governance, hard work, etc...).  This focus is obvious in the lesson segments, and I think it adds richness to the material.  The "story" discusses God, the will of God, and Christian values - all in context of the story of the Pilgrims.
• The course provides a nice introduction/walk through of the material for parents.  Lots of great extra resources are suggested to supplement the course lessons, which I appreciated.  It is nice when the extra "leg work", so to speak, for a class is already provided for you!
• The site "class room" was easy for both Bentley and I to navigate.  The access to the print outs and extra materials was logical and easily accessible.
• The course is very comprehensive.  My 6 year old is going to be better educated on this topic than I am when he's done!  Everything from King James and the Geneva bible to The Mayflower Compact, the first winter in America, the Wampanoag people, and the first Thanksgiving.
• We've enjoyed this unit study so far!  We're about half way through and we plan to finish it up.  Bentley has picked up some great background knowledge about the story of America, and I'm impressed with his retention of what the class teaches.  

Go here to see how the rest of the crew used this course.  It's been a bit crazy at our house with the baby (understatement) so we didn't use the extra enrichment activities that you could supplement the online material with.  I know that a number of the TOS review crew members did, however, and you can check out their reviews for more takes on how you could use this course!

I was provided with access to Dayspring Christian Academy's The Pilgrim Story, for review purposes, free of charge.  That being said, all opinions expressed are 100% mine.