hsmom10
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Posts posted by hsmom10
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To clarify again- Sonlight isn't going to be used in the public schools (at least not in regards to this article). This is a one day a week homeschool enrichment program that uses their own materials, and then offers curriculum for free to the families that enroll in the enrichment program. They will use Sonlight in their home.
I am happy to have heard both sides because I have been able to see how it would benefit some families. You are right that families would be able to take the secular version and purchase the religious parts, if they desired. I am not against being inclusive of all types of homeschoolers (and it isn't even a matter of the families being non-religious, many of them are, and again I get that the public school cannot offer religious materials and I have no problem with that) But who knows if they will ever offer the secular version to the public. It will be interesting to see.
I do think that the fact that the CFO's children attend the program has something to do with it. And again, to me, it feels like a move opposite to what I thought Sonlight was about. And yes, purely financial, not about the greater good of all types of people.
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I can't figure out how to quote on my kindle, but actually agree with a lot of your points, serendipitious journey. I am actually an old earth, non- providencial history person. I have had trouble finding that perfect curriculum for our family and have eliminated some of the Sonlight materials over the years. But I do appreciate some of the religious content and knew when deciding on Sonlight that it was a Christian company with religious teaching.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out and if a secular version will be available for the public.
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Thanks for all the replies- I appreciate seeing the different sides.
I just want to clarify, although it doesn't really matter, it isn't that the public school enrichment program will be using Sonlight- they use their own curriculum. But families that choose to use the enrichment program are given Sonlight for free to use in their home.
I agree completely that it is a financial move
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What I meant by bringing up InvisiCorp (which is the name I'm now remembering, LOL) was that they didn't stop publishing Christian curriculum just because they also make it secular-friendly for a different audience. Two product lines, one for hs'ers and one for public schools. I'd want to hear from Sonlight directly before I assumed they were de-Christian-izing the product they've been selling for so long. I doubt that.
I don't think they are de-Christian-izing anything they are selling to the homeschooler. They are just altering the program for the public school district. Again, it is less to me about using it in a secular manner, and more that I am not sure I like them being involved in the public school system. And that they would remove the basis of who they are (christian) to fit. It makes me uncomfortable, partly because it seems to be such a secret. Sonlight has not come out and said this is the direction they are taking. They never even really acknowledged they were part of that district curriculum fair last year. I don't know. It just doesn't feel right to me.
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Do you have a link to the article?
I agree with you. From what you've said, it sounds like Sonlight is rewriting their program to have a secular version. That's their right, of course, but I would want to make sure that wasn't what my kids would be using.
I've seen far too much, lately, of curriculum publishers changing their products to suit the public schools, when many families are pulling their kids to avoid the public school curriculum in the first place. I know Math U See changed their entire program, Alpha through Zeta, to suit the public school. in the case of MUS, they have said they have simply added things and haven't changed or omitted anything from their original program. That being said, I am glad I already own the untarnished versions, Alpha through Zeta, of MUS.
Here is the link:
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Interesting. I guess I see it different. Again, I do not have any problem with people omitting or using the program in a secular manner. There is just something that rubs me the wrong way about them doing it for the public school system.
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Has anyone heard this? I live in a district in CO (close to Sonlight headquarters) and saw this in a newspaper article. Basically one of the districts has a one day a week homeschool enrichment program, through the public schools. I knew last year they offered Sonlight as a curriculum to use, free of charge, and was surprised that a religious curriculum would be offered through the public school system. Well, in this article it says that in order to be used by the public school district next year, they have done "secular edits" and have removed all religious content or anything advocating faith so that the public school will be able to offer it to families. I guess the CFO of Sonlight lives in this school district, and his children attend the public school enrichment program.
I don't have a problem with public schools not being able to use religious curriculum. I don't have a problem with anyone wanting to use Sonlight in a secular way.
What bothers me is that SONlight, who has always been a religious company, is conforming or altering who they are, to fit in to a public school model. The CFO is quoted in the article saying "It would not be worth it to do it for one district. There are other entities. We're working with groups in Alaska, Ohio and Washington."
I have been a long time Sonlight customer, but I am not sure I want to support them through this. I am not even sure this info would remain on the Sonlight forums.
Just seems crazy to me. Has anyone else heard anything about this?
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This is interesting to read. My dds will be doing the CAT this year, they are 3rd and 5th. My 3rd grader is doing Saxon Intermediate, and they have not done long division at all yet, nor any division at all. We switched to Saxon from Horizons this year and I know Horizons covered long division in 3rd grade. I guess this might be something I need to teach her before taking the test? I hadn't even thought about test prepping them, but now I am wondering if it would be beneficial. I agree with you that it isn't about the score for the test, but that the test score can reflect on you. I think for our state we only have to be in the 13th percentile or higher, but it would feel pretty awful to score low.
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This is our first year using Saxon and I am finding it to be a pretty good fit. My daughters are in 3rd and 5th grades, and we switched to Saxon from Horizons. While I thought Horizons was pretty solid in the beginning, I was surprised how much they did not retain in the switch to Saxon. So we have had to back track a little bit to get them both caught up.
We are using Intermediate 3 and 65, neither of which are scripted. My older uses the DIVE CD, which is a computer based CD that teaches the new topic for each lesson. I feel this has been a very good fit for her. The CD comes from a Christian perspective, which I know isn't for everyone.
I do not find the drilling to be too much at all, especially compared to Horizons. My 3rd grader when doing Horizons 2 was sometimes doing 80+ problems a day. She has not complained ONE time about the amount of work in Saxon. She has a timed drill, then there are a couple mental math problems (mostly skip counting at this point), and about 6 review problems. Then we do the new concept together, which sometimes has a few "Lesson practice" problems that go with the new concept, and sometimes not. Then there are 20 problems that she does independently that are the spiral/review stuff. The older daughter has a few more problems than that, and her timed drills are longer- but really no complaints from her, either. I heard whining every single day about the amount of work in Horizons. We do not skip any problems in Saxon.
I know you asked for downsides, and I struggle with whether it is conceptually weak as I see so often on these forums, but ultimately I am happy that my kids seem to like it and are doing well with it. They do read Life of Fred as well (we can get them at our library) and they LOVE those. I just wanted to touch on some of the things I have read in this thread.
Good luck with whatever you decide!
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We are doing it for 5th grade, I am not sure if it changes- but ours is on a 5 day schedule with a test after every 5th lesson, so the test day is never consistant during the week. Then every 10th lesson there is an investigation which throws everything off another day. I guess some people choose to skip the test/investigation day, or maybe do them on the same day together but we work 5 days a week with a test one of those days. Hope that makes sense. I didn't do Saxon for K-3 so I am not sure how that works.
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My 3rd grader is doing:
Sonlight Readers for reading (Core D regular)
FLL 3
WWE 2
Wordly Wise when we can fit it in
She listens to me read Sonlight Read Alouds every day
I also have All About Spelling, which we were pretty good at working with last year- I bought the next level for her this year (3) but I am having trouble finding the time to fit that in.
Memorization- we do a bit of the FLL memory stuff, she is also involved in theater and does a lot of memorizing lines, etc, there.
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What Core is it? For Cores A-C (used to be K-2) you can choose the readers that best fit your child, up to grade 4/5. Also, if it is an older Core it might be labeled Level 2 Regular, Level 2 Intermediate, or Level 2 Advanced. Those are now Grade 2, Grade 3, and Grade 4-5. So, if you have a 2nd grader they can do the level 2 readers and you could look for the 4-5 readers for the 4th grader.
If it is Core D (3) it works a little different. I have my 3rd and 5th graders combined and they have always done their own level readers. Now in Core D my 5th grader is just doing the advanced schedule, which are the same books my 3rd grader is reading, plus 9 more, so everything is on a quicker schedule.
Hope that helps!
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We are not. My husband has the day off and we will be going to the museum and planetarium!
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I think they are a little harder to read out loud than some other books (especially to the younger ones) but we absolutely love these books- and my kids loved them, too.
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We are doing Core D with the new IG. There are things I like, and a couple things I don't. I LOVE having all the discussion questions for all the books included in each week. I often skipped the discussion questions because it was so hard to find them sometimes.
I don't like that all the pages are white. I wish the science was still yellow, it just separates everything (for me) better. We don't use the LA, but I have used it in the past and liked the peach color of those pages as well. Everything now is so white.
Overall we are really liking it. I did opt to only get the 4 day course, so the very heated discussions about "The Light and the Glory" do not apply to us since I did not buy that book.
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Watch out for that amazon order!!! I ordered it a few days ago and it was delivered just now and.......
they sent me only ONE box and not only that the box was opened inside the larger shipping box and the crayons were everywhere and broken. I am NOT happy! :glare:
That is awful! I have had that 12 pack in my cart since this thread was started, just waiting to hear if they would really send 12 packs. Who in the world would pay $18 (or $22, whatever it was) for 1 pack of crayons??? What a bummer, since it clearly states 12 pack of 64 count crayons! I am sure Amazon will make it right, though.
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Today was our first day, too! A little crazier than I was hoping, but we made it through! Hoping for a smoother day tomorrow! :001_smile:
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We used Sonlight science for 2 years (Science A and B), left for something else for 2 years and are now back to Sonlight Science D. I am excited to be back. I thought doing only one subject per year would work for us, but realized we like the jumpiness of Sonlight a little better :001_smile:
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I agree that the placement tests are not meant for students that have been using Saxon, the results will tend to be falsely high. They are meant for students new to Saxon (although I read Abeka can also give false high results)
Anyway- my 3rd grader will be doing 3 Intermediate next year. She is coming from a different program, and I want something set up like 5/4 and up rather than the K-3 program. She is pretty independant with math so I think it will be a good fit!
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We love it. It is a fun experience- you get to see characters that are only ever out for that party, the parade is my favorite of all time and you get SO much candy!
We did the party at Disneyland last year and didn't like it nearly as much as the one at WDW. It is not something we would splurge on every year, but it is a great experience.
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We are just switching to this for my rising 5th grader, I did buy the homeschool kit, which includes the teacher guide, the student grammar guide and the writing guide. If you were not going to do the writing you wouldn't need that 3rd book of the homeschool kit. HTH!
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Thanks for all the suggestions. If anything, it has given me more to research :) I will check all of these out!
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Hello, I am having the hardest time figuring out what to use for my rising 3rd grader next year for LA. I would like to find something that has both grammar and writing together. My oldest will be using Hake/Saxon along with finishing up IEW SWI-A. My rising 3rd grade is not ready for IEW. She is currently using Sonlight LA 2, and it is not a good fit for her (or me). I think I like a more traditional, solid approach, but am also really drawn toward LLATL for her (just worry it is too light). I already have the next level in Sonlight LA, and my idea is to have a stronger stand alone program, but I may try to incorporate some of Sonlight in. I would say she is on the young/weaker side of 3rd grade. Thank you!
Sonlight removing religious content for use in public school program
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
I agree with you completely!! This is part of the problem I have with it. A company that preaches one thing, and then does something completely opposite.