is sonlight 5 still a good pick if you skip EHE?

[jenniferlee]

OK, last question for a year, I promise!

 

I was planning on using sonlight 5 for my 12 yo. But I was thinking of not doing the EHE part. Is that irresponsible? Would she still get out of it what she should? Or would I be gutting the program? I can't tell from looking at the guide.

thank you (again)

 

Jen

[Cynful]

We'll be doing Core 5 this fall or perhaps starting Jan. if we don't speed up a bit. ;) I'm not sure yet if we'll use EHE. I don't think it will ruin the program to not use it. Someone mentioned that they used GeoScribe instead of the EHE sheets when they didn't work for her children. I'll be looking for other replies to this thread too.

 

Good luck,

[swimmermom3]

OK, last question for a year, I promise!

 

I was planning on using sonlight 5 for my 12 yo. But I was thinking of not doing the EHE part. Is that irresponsible? Would she still get out of it what she should? Or would I be gutting the program? I can't tell from looking at the guide.

thank you (again)

 

Jen

 

Jen, Core 5 is still great even if you don't use EHE. Most libraries carry the Enchantment of the World series. Or if you don't even want to read quite that much background material and want to focus more on the cultural aspects, you can use this inexpensive text from McDougal Littell. This link has the book completely online. As you can see from the table of contents, you can use the text for middle school for both ancient and middle ages history. I am not a big fan of texts, but this has been a real bargain. It will provide historical background and the modern-day political and cultural situation. If you search for Core 5 on this forum, you should be able to find a link to a secular version of Core 5. Actaully, I think the author still used some of the missionary books but did not use EHE. She also includes geography plans, menu and film suggestions.

 

HTH!

[jenniferlee]

thanks for your replies!

I'm not too worried about secular or christian content. I'm mainly worried that it's just going to be overload on the work/buying something that we're not going to get around to.

 

Jen

[jenniferlee]

ok, that is good to know. I'm leaning more toward just diving in at this point, but I really like to know what others have thought that have actually used it.

 

thanks,

Jen

[MerryAtHope]

We really disliked EHE here! I think the core is better without it. The core lacks a spine though, and EHE tries to be that spine (it gives the background information for the wonderful literature), but even when we used it we felt like we just wandered from country to country with no real rhyme or reason--it's like a bunch of unit studies strung together. Some of the countries do have other history books that individually serve as a spine for that country though. I wish it had a "real" spine, and if I was doing it again I'd search for one. But, without one, I think the literature is rich and well worth doing.

 

Merry :-)

[jenniferlee]

well, that is just how it always is isn't it? totally opposite opinions on the same subject.:D

 

Merry, could you tell me what it was that you disliked? So maybe I could see if it's something that we wouldn't like either, or something that we would think was great, KWM?

 

and, let me try for one more angle - is EHE mainly just a geography guide? could I use something I already have to do background info on the different countries? Like trail guide?

 

Jen

[Cynful]

As I stated above, I haven't done Core 5 yet, but I do have everything here for when we are ready. I'm a little confused now though. :confused: How can EHE "be" a spine? The way I'm looking at it, its just a bunch of geography sheets/culture notebooking pages to fill out, except they don't tell you where the answers are and the kids need to research to find the answers thus learning in the process. Am I wrong on this?

 

Also, would SwimmerMom's suggestion of the McDougall Littell textbook be a good spine?

[swimmermom3]

Sonlight recommends that you put EHE in a 3-ring binder so you can add projects and photographs to it so that you will have a visual record of your journey for the year. There are anywhere from 4-8(?) pages of worksheets to fill in for the Pacific Islands, Australia, New Zealand Antarctica, Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia, Russia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and Africa. The format is basically the same for most of the areas studied: mapping, basic facts (population, flag, climate, key occupation, government, and most popular religion), famous people, a book box (very short review of one book covered), Journey Jots ("comprehension-based questions with a more visual format"-your child has an one and a half inch space to draw the native dress), Local Lingo which covers words unique to the country or region, the key religion (fairly extensive coverage), and monumental moments which is a time line and abbreviated history. Students also "Choose an Adventure" for the destination. This is a special project that for the most part my son really did enjoy.

 

The student finds most of their answers by scrolling through pages and pages of Worldbook Encyclopedia online. Not all answers are on this resource and you don't know which one aren't, so you need to able to tell the child to move on.

 

For a research-oriented child, EHE makes sense and is a very useful tool. Where we ran into problems was where my computer-loving son was bored out of his mind with Worldbook. He told me that he was more caught up in just getting done with the worksheet than learning the material. He had figured out how to scroll, write, scroll, and write. So we went back to our usual method of reading (first Enchantment of the World and then the MCDougal Littell text) and then discussing the material. This left more time for cultural exploration and world issues. Instead of workbook pages we have scrapbook with maps, book and movie reviews, art projects, critical thinking papers and photos of various projects and meals. We also used the Trail Guide to World Geography and created a separate notebook.

 

Another point of contention with regards to EHE and my family specifically was that I knew we would moving into ancient history this year and would be studying world religions at the point in time of their creation. This made 1/4 to 1/3 of EHE redundant.

 

Core 5 with EHE is a much-beloved Sonlight core for good reason. You will need to choose whether or not to use EHE based on your knowledge of your family-not on what the rest of us think. Dive in and see if you like it. Maybe your family will thrive with it. If so, great! If they don't, then move on. I made the mistake of letting myself be brow-beaten into believing that our lack of love for EHE was a failing in the discipline aspect on my part and an intelligence and diligence on my son's part. Hogwash!

 

You know best for your family. Follow your heart and don't be afraid to make whatever changes you need to make to get the most out of this great core.

[unity]

We have just finished Core 5 and honestly I feel quite let down. So many people claim it's "unmissable" but personally I would not do it again. It felt completely disjointed and we hated the EHE. They did about 1/3 of it before I allowed them to drop it. Our experience was just like swimmermom's, in that it was simply about finding the answers and writing them down, with almost no retention. I decided to start making time in the day to watch movies related to the country at hand, and that improved their cultural understanding more more effectively. I think the EHE, for us, added almost nothing to the core except a big pain in the neck. The exception here would be the "Choose Your Adventure" projects which I thought were pretty neat.

 

Actually this year was so unsatisfying that we are moving away from Sonlight next year and going to try WinterPromise. I have that whole program now and I've got a great feeling about it!

 

p.s. ignore this signature; it's way out of date! Wow!

Edited May 6, 2010 by unity
outdated siggy

[MerryAtHope]

Merry, could you tell me what it was that you disliked? So maybe I could see if it's something that we wouldn't like either, or something that we would think was great, KWM?

 

Yes, I know what you mean--sometimes when someone says what they hate about something, I think, "hey, that's just what I'm looking for!" LOL!

 

Lisa (swimmermom3) and Unity said it pretty well for me. EHE is like a year-long series of research reports. The kids learned how to look things up in WB, how to search for answers and find related articles, skim for information, summarize and restate things--the kinds of skills you would use to do a research project. Only...doing one after another after another was drudgery for us.

 

Then, there's the time issue. You can try to answer all of the questions, that might take an hour a day on top of what you are already doing for history and other topics. Or you can set a time limit and be satisfied with not doing them all. Or do some sections one time, some another.

 

Then there's finding the answers--Sonlight gives you an answer key, but they don't tell you whether an answer is actually in the WB encyclopedia, or if you need to search online to find the answer. This isn't all Sonlight's fault--WB redoes it's encyclopedia every year, and you never know what they will change. For SL to wait for that to come out & rewrite EHE every year would be time and cost-prohibitive. And it's not that big of a deal EXCEPT...when you've got a kid who is just learning how to search for things, how to skim (and they might think they need to read every word, or they might not realize to just look for subheadings etc...), and they have looked and looked for this answer...well, to not know if the answer wasn't in there or if they didn't know how to look for it can be frustrating. This isn't a *major* issue as most of the answers are in WB, and I did tell my kids if they couldn't find something to just move on and not worry about it.

 

My kids like the Worldbook encyclopedia as a resource, and even used it later on this year--but it's different when you are researching something that you want to research, and when you are reading an encyclopedia day after day to find answers that someone else told you to find, that you might not even care about. I tried to tailor it to my kids--let them pick subject areas that interested them...it just didn't work out very well for us.

 

Mainly it just became drudgery to my kids (and somewhat to me too).

 

I know lots of people seem to enjoy EHE, some kids just seem to eat it up--mine didn't.

 

Merry :-)

[MerryAtHope]

We have just finished Core 5 and honestly I feel quite let down. So many people claim it's "unmissable" but personally I would not do it again. It felt completely disjointed and we hated the EHE. They did about 1/3 of it before I allowed them to drop it. Our experience was just like swimmermom's, in that it was simply about finding the answers and writing them down, with almost no retention. I decided to start making time in the day to watch movies related to the country at hand, and that improved their cultural understanding more more effectively. I think the EHE, for us, added almost nothing to the core except a big pain in the neck. The exception here would be the "Choose Your Adventure" projects which I thought were pretty neat.

 

Actually this year was so unsatisfying that we are moving away from Sonlight next year and going to try WinterPromise. I have that whole program now and I've got a great feeling about it!

 

p.s. ignore this signature; it's way out of date! Wow!

 

We dropped EHE after about 12 weeks too. I too felt let down, after years of reading how awesome it is--for me the build up was greater than the final product. Dropping EHE and deciding to just enjoy the books and focus elsewhere made the last 2/3 of the year pretty good for us, so I don't think I was quite as let down as you were. It's honestly the only core I ever thought about returning, but I realized that returning it wouldn't satisfy me either because I wanted all of the books, LOL! And we even still wanted World Book. Returning EHE, then, didn't make any sense, LOL! Mid-year I was very frustrated realizing that I didn't like the "whole" but couldn't return it without getting rid of all the "parts"--and I liked most of the parts.

 

Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to a more chronological history, but like you, it kinda nudged me away from strictly following Sonlight again. But I'm going to go more eclectic and use Mystery of History but add in SL books for lit & some extra history. We almost always like SL book choices. I'm excited too!

 

Merry :-)

[swimmermom3]

We dropped EHE after about 12 weeks too. I too felt let down, after years of reading how awesome it is--for me the build up was greater than the final product. Dropping EHE and deciding to just enjoy the books and focus elsewhere made the last 2/3 of the year pretty good for us, so I don't think I was quite as let down as you were. It's honestly the only core I ever thought about returning, but I realized that returning it wouldn't satisfy me either because I wanted all of the books, LOL! And we even still wanted World Book. Returning EHE, then, didn't make any sense, LOL! Mid-year I was very frustrated realizing that I didn't like the "whole" but couldn't return it without getting rid of all the "parts"--and I liked most of the parts.

 

Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to a more chronological history, but like you, it kinda nudged me away from strictly following Sonlight again. But I'm going to go more eclectic and use Mystery of History but add in SL books for lit & some extra history. We almost always like SL book choices. I'm excited too!

 

Merry :-)

 

Wow, Merry! I could have written this, but not as eloquently.:D I even called SL and asked about returning it, but yes, then there were all those books. I would still do it again but with the secular list because it is very good and avoids a couple of the books that for our family, were "over the top."

[Jen+4dc]

...never mind, sorry!

[Sunkirst]

So I was just looking forward to our first year of Sonlight next year and planning to use Core 5 with my 12 yo ds (secularly - I'm excited to search for a secular remake!). All I can say is "Thank Goodness for this Discussion!"

 

My ds is a kid who could really benefit from learning to research, but I can definitely see him becoming the kid who felt annoyed and "drudged down" by list after list of "trivial pursuit facts," and I don't want to make him hate research. OTOH, the timelining and the Choose your adventure projects sound interesting (anyone mind clarifying what sort of thing one does for a "Chose your Adventure" project?)

 

SwimmerMom3, Thank you so much for providing a very achievable substitution

 

So we went back to our usual method of reading (first Enchantment of the World and then the MCDougal Littell text) and then discussing the material. This left more time for cultural exploration and world issues. Instead of workbook pages we have scrapbook with maps, book and movie reviews, art projects, critical thinking papers and photos of various projects and meals. We also used the Trail Guide to World Geography and created a separate notebook.

Did you ever use the EHE after you began to create your own "scrap book?" Did you use it to define any parameters for what you wanted your children to research, or did the Enchantment of the World and the Littell text do that for you?

 

Thanks!

[swimmermom3]

So I was just looking forward to our first year of Sonlight next year and planning to use Core 5 with my 12 yo ds (secularly - I'm excited to search for a secular remake!). All I can say is "Thank Goodness for this Discussion!"

 

My ds is a kid who could really benefit from learning to research, but I can definitely see him becoming the kid who felt annoyed and "drudged down" by list after list of "trivial pursuit facts," and I don't want to make him hate research. OTOH, the timelining and the Choose your adventure projects sound interesting (anyone mind clarifying what sort of thing one does for a "Chose your Adventure" project?)

 

SwimmerMom3, Thank you so much for providing a very achievable substitution

 

Did you ever use the EHE after you began to create your own "scrap book?" Did you use it to define any parameters for what you wanted your children to research, or did the Enchantment of the World and the Littell text do that for you?

 

Thanks!

 

After we found the McDougal Littell text, we never looked back. After my son had labeled his own map of the region, we used some of the Geography Skillbuilder exercises to strengthen geography skills. Each section in the book has a brief assessment which includes: Taking Notes, Terms & Names, Main Ideas, and a Critical Thinking question. The Taking Notes portion covers every kind of graphic organizer you can think of. My son read the section and took notes in his spiral notebook. I then checked orally to see if he understood the 4-5 terms presented and the three main ideas. We nearly always discussed the critical thinking question.

 

There are numerous activity options suggested like:

 

 

1. Create an illustrated report on the religioous buildings of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

2. Make a poster showing crude oil and the products made from it. Label them as primary or secondary products.

3. Write an interview you might have with a new immigrant to Israel. Include information on where the immigrant comes from, the date and method of arrival, reasons for coming, and reactions to a new land.

4. Make a diorama showing a camel caravan traveling through the Sahara, carrying salt to people in southren Africa.

 

My son wrote a speech arguing for peace in Israel - I think- that he was to present to the UN. We videotaped it.

 

There are Interdisciplinary Challenges that are similar to what is in the EHE. My son did do the Trans-Siberian railway project in EHE after we watched a movie. There is a similar project in the ML that has you touring the Ganges River.

 

I don't want to confuse the issue for anyone. I just want to show that there are numerous options in working through Core 5. Choose what works best for you. We shifted some of the missionary focus to a more global focus. During our study of Australia, we watched the wonderful movie Rabbit-Proof Fence as a family. My oldest, who is in ps hs was studying Manifest Destiny at the time. We had some very interesting and intense dinner discussions. We also used the Material World book.

[jenniferlee]

Lisa, Merry and Unity,

thanks so much for your detailed input - it's really valuable to me!

 

Jen

[swimmermom3]

If anyone needs a Core 5 secular schedule, please pm me. We have it somewhere on the board, I just can't find it. I can also give you a link to see the text book I mentioned online.

 

Jen, you are welcome. Best wishes to you for a great year with Core 5.

[melmichigan]

We have Core 5, we don't use it as a core. I have it on the shelf and pull out books either for extra literature, or to blend in with our current course which is Core 6, 7, and 100 chronologically. I added in my own version of culture/geography with a Glencoe text. I think research is an important skill to learn but 36 weeks of it is overkill for us at this point. I doubt we will ever do it as a core with any of the kids, but we do enjoy most of the books. That's just our 2 cents. :)

[Sunkirst]

Wow, Lisa, Merry, Unity and all, Thanks so much for being so generous with your time and information. I'm looking forward to Core 5 even more than I was before.

 

Thanks,