Another Sonlight Question...Instr. Guide...Is core 4 good?

[Penny]

I am thinking of Sonlight Core 4. I love the Sonlight readers and read alouds, but I'm skeptical of the whole package because I don't think I'll like Landmark, and, I've had a bad experience with my Core 1 instructors guide. The maps were lousy (could barely read them), the questions and notes were the obvious for the most part, and I felt pretty much left alone.

 

Is the Core 4 guide better? Are the maps usable? Vocabulary? Any helpful literary guides? Or just questions to ask your child from the book that I could easily do myself?

 

For example, background about authors, insightful questions, background info about the period for historical fiction.

 

Thank you!!

 

Penny

[Tiffani]

Well, this is "just" my opinion. We had a hard time w/ Landmark. I know some people love it and we were in the category of those that "DIDN'T". We really enjoyed the books (readers and read-alouds) but unless you stuck w/ all the readings out of Landmark you'd be pretty lost (as we were). I had some suggest that we follow the Story of the US workbooks and skip Landmark, but that was choppy.

 

The IG was typical of SL. But I didn't feel there was enough info to help "me" in certain areas.

 

Needless to say, that was the last core we did.

 

***but remember, this is just our experience! :)

[Heather in VA]

Well I enjoyed Core 4 but it sounds to me like you are sure enough that you wouldn't that I wouldn't risk it. When you go into something with low expectations, that's bound to be what you get.

[G5052]

Sonlight doesn't get into the type of things you describe until the upper cores. Philosophically that's the way the cores are until about Core 100 or so. In the lower cores, the questions are just factual and the background is very basic. I find it useful, but I'm somewhat weak in history anyway.

 

In our case, that's fine. I have one grammar-stage and one logic-stage, so I have the literary discussions with my older one in the van on the way to Aikido:).

[Colleen]

Heather said, "When you go into something with low expectations, that's bound to be what you get" ~ and it doesn't sound like you're very enthusiastic about this. What leads you to believe you won't like Landmark? I didn't know what to expect, but I enjoyed it and even more importantly, so did my son. (I'm referring to my oldest; he was a 5th grader when we did Core 4 a few years ago.)

 

As far as the IGs in the lower levels are concerned, what I appreciate most about them are the schedules. They help me to stay on track. There are times when I rely a great deal on the notes in the IG, and one of those times was when we were reading Landmark; I did find the notes helpful.