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.