Notgrass or Sonlight for highschool

[Cheri Warren]

My dd is entering 10th grade and needs a good solid year of World, American and Govt.

 

She loves to read and does not like textbook ie: Abeka or BJU.

 

Which of these two do you prefer? Notgrass or Sonlight. I love the books in Sonlight, but don't like the fact that there is no "real" world history unless I had her do Alt 7.

 

Can you gives me pros and cons of both programs?

[Christy B]

We LOVE Notgrass.

 

It was a perfect fit for us, with the combination of engaging style, ease of use, and the original source volume. If you implement the scheduled additional reading, you truly would have the best of both worlds, the text and the "real" books.

 

We are currently using World History.

[Love2Smile]

:lurk5:

[merylvdm]

And we LOVE Sonlight :001_smile: But I am also sad there is no World History. As we have done SL all the way I did feel that covered it well in SL6/7 and I used the Church History as World History, plus the 20th century history.

 

My kids loved SLs history and Literature and my oldest (who will be a junior in college next year) felt that SL had prepared her so well for college classes (and she is in a rigorous Honors program). In addition SL prepared her well for the AP English exams. She received 5s for both of them (she took them in her senior year after SL 530 the Brit Lit course and she had done all upper-level SL cores by then).

[Geek]

There have been a lot of complaints over the years about SL's high school cores being insufficient. They are finally starting to listen somewhat to these complaints in their Dear Sonlight forum, but I have no idea what they have in mind or what their timetable is.

[Cheri Warren]

There have been a lot of complaints over the years about SL's high school cores being insufficient. They are finally starting to listen somewhat to these complaints in their Dear Sonlight forum, but I have no idea what they have in mind or what their timetable is.

I got wind of some of the complaints. What I am afraid with SL besides there not being a "real world" history course is of too much reading and not enough history taught. Have you used SL for highschool?

[Geek]

 

I got wind of some of the complaints. What I am afraid with SL besides there not being a "real world" history course is of too much reading and not enough history taught. Have you used SL for highschool?

No. My oldest is 11.

[merylvdm]

I homeschool primarily for academic reasons (though I enjoy all he other benefits too!) and because I wanted high academics I chose SL. It is extremely rigorous at the high school level if you do it all - and there is PLENTY of history as well as literature (many of the books are biographies etc and are 'living' history books).

 

My oldest took US History AP after doing SL 100 which is the most lightweight of their older level cores (and my younger kids actually did it as middle schoolers) - and then she took the AP US History exam and scored a 5. The SL books are engaging to read, but that doesn't make them less 'meaty'.

 

My kids are also on our homeschool quiz bowl team (we are the only homeschool team in our state as far as I know) and in most tournaments half the team are my kids (and often the other kids are SL kids too) - and they do very well on any history questions. In fact, this past year they placed second in a State US History Bowl (and we are not from the US, so I and my kids have learned everything we know from SL).

 

I have seen the complaints about SL's high school program, but apart from the fact that I too would like a proper World History course, I can't find anything to complain about. Through SL my kids have gained knowledge, learned to think and learned to write extremely well. We do do ALL of SL - the Language Arts and the History and we do pretty much every assignment and the research papers. And my kids academic results have been excellent as a result.

[LatinTea]

nevermind....it's late....maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

[Cheri Warren]

nevermind....it's late....maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

awww.come on,...don't leave me hanging all night!

[Tokyomarie]

Wow, Meryl! Thanks for sharing this! SL is different from a typical textbook program and it is also different from TWTM- though I have incorporated some TWTM ideas into our SL studies- but it is a very effective program when used as intended. It's not for everyone, and many have to do some adaptation, but it's a good solid program.

 

I'm excited to learn that your daughter scored a 5 on the US History AP after Core 100. Did you use some prep books in addition to the Core materials?

 

We afterschooled for many years while in Japan. My girls were in Japanese public school, then my oldest did 2 years in an international school. My oldest used Core 5 as an afterschool program one year back then. When we came back to the USA, I chose a program with a classical & Christian worldview emphasis. My younger 2 did SL. My oldest & I both got burned out quickly because there was no help for me as a teacher. At the end of the year, I debated about sending her to school somewhere; then she looked at the SL catalog. She asked if she could do Core 200 for her 11th grade year. She did Core 200, went on to do a Core 400/Core 100 history combo (all of 400 except the Bible, which we dropped to give her time to do Core 100 history) for her 12th grade year.

 

Core 200 really helped my daughter to re-engage with homeschooling, and at the end of her senior year, she took the English Language & Composition AP and scored a 5.

 

What's more, she loved those last 2 years so much that she's decided to homeschool her own children!

 

That said, my younger daughter moved on to other curriculum after Core Alt. 7 (which was Core 6 in those days), because of specific needs she had. High school SL is not for everyone. I tried something else for my son for 9th grade because of a) the grass is greener syndrome and b) he is dyslexic, with most of his problems in writing. We couldn't keep up with SL as written. Well, the grass really isn't greener, no matter that the other curriculum is a wonderful curriculum, and I've decided that we will modify SL as needed to meet his needs because it works for me and he absorbs print information best when it is in the kind of engaging books SL offers.

[LatinTea]

We used Sonlight for 12 years. We loved the books and the time spent together reading in the early years. I remember all that with fondness, but I also remember trying and trying to make the IG work each year, never able to follow through with my plans. Maybe it was just me. :confused: No, it wasn't just me; there are many that use Sonlight 'only for the book list'. And that's what it ended up for us in the high school cores.

 

My ds is very bright, but quickly got bogged down with all the reading, especially when the notes in the IG added many pages to the week's work. I always have felt that those notes should be less wordy. There are many issues and I don't want to go into it all here, but reading this thread on SL's forum will give you some idea of the scope of the problems. https://www.sonlight-forums.com/showthread.php?t=268117

You may want to just browse through it as there are over 200 responses. I feel for Sonlight because there are so many differing opinions on what their customers think will help fix the issues.

 

I love Sonlight for the younger years, but I've never been excited with a high school HISTORY curriculum that compartmentalizes itself with Church history, 20th century, and a middle/high school American history with many middle school readers. It's just too oddly arranged for me. My dream would be World History from Ancients to the present with British/World Lit combined along with a strong American History with American Literature combined. We still used SL because I think I felt safe there and was used to it, being too afraid to venture out 'on my own'.

 

My ds is doing fine with what he learned with Sonlight (he's a quick learner and loves to read), but my dd needs something different. So, we are going to give Notgrass a try (possibly along with Spielvogel...not sure on that now) for World and American along with literature using Progeny Press or Lightning Lit. I just wish I were a better, more organized teacher like some of these moms who love SL in the latter years. But that IG always nails me to the wall. I gotta move on. :sad:

 

Sonlight in the upper grades works for many and you may want to give it a try. Just be prepared to spend lots of time with the IG's. That's my advice and I'm sticking to it! :D

[southcarolinamom]

For my daughter we used the following:

 

Sonlight Alt 7 for 9th grade - One Year World History

Winter Promise Ancient History for 10th grade

Sonlight Core 100 US History for 11th grade

Notgrass US Govt and Economics for 12th grade (required by South Carolina)

 

For my son we used:

 

Beautiful Feet Medieval, Renaissance & Reformation History for 9th grade

Sonlight Core 100 US History for 10th grade

Sonlight Core 300 20th Century World History

Notgrass US Govt and Economics for 12th grade