Thoughts on Sonlight

Now that I am a seasoned homeschooler with 3 weeks under my belt, I am ready to give an overall impression on the curriculum that we are using. To make things easier for my independent workers I have put sticky notes on each book with their assignments Mon-Fri. This has worked well, especially, for the readers and the history workbooks. I didn't use them for math or language arts as it is easy to keep up with one lesson per day.

This review is for Sonlight's Core only. This includes the History, Geography, Bible, Readers, and Read-alouds.

Overall, I'll give Sonlight an "A". Sonlight's Instruction Guides are invaluable and I don't need to do anything to prepare for a lesson. The daily assignments are all done! I still love the literature. History is fine but I'm hoping it will get more interesting for the girls. Calvin is enjoying Core K. I wish I hadn't felt confused by the number on the core. I really didn't want my 3rd grader doing a Core K. Coming from honors in public school it seemed beneath her grade level. But she is very interested in the Core K that her younger brother is doing. I feel I could have had her do the core along with him. She could have taken more advantage of the internet links provided and I could have used the read alouds as readers for her which would have saved a little $$. I can't say that veteran Sonlighters hadn't told me that because I got lots of input from friendly people on the forums. Sometimes, though, they just ended up confusing me even more because I just couldn't see it.

I have to add that I am suprised by how little the girls learned in public school about American History. Here is the conversation we had about American History:

Me: "Is any of this familiar to you guys? Have you heard of it before"
Them: "Well.....we have heard about Plymouth".
Me: "Thanks goodness you guys learned something at school."
Them: "Oh, we remember that from Charlie Brown Thanksgiving".

I was shocked that they knew so little about Columbus, Jamestown, and Plymouth. Good ol' Charlie Brown came through, though.

The geography seems fine. It makes since to look at the area we are studying on the map. It is pretty natural. Not sure how much is retained, though. Also, we sometimes forget and have to do it the next day or something. Personally, I love geography and fell that, in general, it is neglected.

The bible is adequate. The kids are certainly are more fond of the Bible stories from Core K than the Bible reading/memorization from Core 3+4. I do like Core 3+4 American Indian Prayer Guide with it's snippets of information about different tribes. I have been told that Alpha Omega's Lifepac Bible is very good so I might try them out for next year.

I am really loving the Kindergarten Core and feel it is a perfect fit for my 6 year old.

It is a wonderful core. I would certainly recommend Sonlight to a beginning homeschooler. So easy to do and so much help available. I find that the hours needed to complete the study (listed in the Sonlight catalog) is exactly right. They really have that down.

Off to a Good Start

We are into our 3rd week and hubby instructed me that it's been about a month since I've blogged and he want to read what we are up too.

I started our first school day on Friday, July 24. I wanted to get a feel how everything would go timewise. It seemed to work out well. I oriented the girls on what they were going to do most days and the things that they could do independently. They worked on reading, history workbook, language arts, and sometimes math while I worked with Calvin.

Calvin and I just finished reading the Boxcar Children, or as he called it "The Box Kids". I had never read the book and really enjoyed reading it to him. It was one of his favorite things to do besides his "fish book" which is his language arts. He told his daddy that he liked school and loved his new teacher. I'm not sure how long that will last but for now I'm eating it up.

The girls read a couple of books by themselves: "Pedro's Journal" about a boy about Columbus' ship, and "Om-Kas-Toe" about a Blackfeet boy before they had horses. They liked both of these books well enough. I read "Walk the World's Rim" to the girls as our read aloud. I thought it was slow starting but ended up getting hooked on the adventures of Esteban as he traveled with de Vaca. The girls, however, found it very dry and long. I wish that the core had started with something a little more interesting so that we would have a better start. We are just beginning "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" which, I'm told, is an awesome book.













My only thoughts right now, curriculum wise, are with the science and language arts. While I really love the LA workbook, I wish that the girls had more writing to do. I may try and find some journal starters or something. I do, however, LOVE Becky's cursive book. She is copying sentences that relate to works of art. Her book is absolutely gorgeous. Science has been pretty good and Calvin did love the experiments so I hope it will end up being fun. We just haven't got the hang of it yet.

Our second week was pretty good except two of the three kids got sick and it hit me on the weekend, too. Luckily, it was just a 24 hour thing and they (we) were able to catch back up. We even finished "Walk the World's Rim" and were thrilled. Later while doing her history workbook Rachel realized that Esteban was a real person. Although, I told her that when we read the story it just sank in her brain at that moment. Maybe even though it wasn't her favorite book she still learned something.

So far the kids are enjoying homeschool. Becky likes it because it is shorter and she can take snack breaks. Well actually, I think we all enjoy the shorter process. Rachel likes being a little more in control of her studies. She has been waking up early and getting started right away. I have been finding that it isn't as hard as I thought it would be. Sonlight makes the core so easy to do by laying out a daily schedule. I've made similar spreadsheets for math, language arts, and science so I know exactly what I'm doing everyday. The whole year is already planned! We have learned so much already. We've read 4 books, studied 5 different Native American tribes, discovered new lands with Spanish explorers, learned about scientific classification of animals, and reviewed math. Not bad for 2 weeks! I can't wait to see what happens next!