Sonlight users that follow the schedules...

[hsmom]

how do you stick to them? How do you avoid straying away or tweaking them to death? I like the program the way it is, yet still know me. I don't want to ruin a good thing with too many tweaks or straying away more than needed. Any advice would be great.

 

I really want to try Sonight with my youngest year. We will be using Sonlight Core 1 with 2 reg readers. Just for the reading, read a loud, and history parts. Not the LA or science.

[Karen in CO]

I have tried Sonlight 3 times and still haven't figured this out. I will probably try it again. I seriously need a structured schedule to follow.

[MissKNG]

The IGs actually talk about how they want you to tailor the schedule to fit your needs even if that means tweaking.

[SabrinainPA]

For me, it has been a matter of which child I am using it with. My daughters read so far ahead, we are constantly finding new books to add, adding weeks from TOG units as fillers, etc. I am going to give my son, aka "the Sloth", Core 7 to do coming in January and just let him go at his pace. The schedule is more suited to his slow and steady pace. He will actually be happy the schedule only assigns so much to do, and then he knows he is done. I am switching my girls to MFW, because of the flexibility of the book basket and lighter (assigned) reading schedule. I still have not figured out why I am so drawn to the "idea" of Sonlight, but have never managed to stick with an IG.

[Swirl]

how do you stick to them? How do you avoid straying away or tweaking them to death? I like the program the way it is, yet still know me. I don't want to ruin a good thing with too many tweaks or straying away more than needed. Any advice would be great.

 

I really want to try Sonight with my youngest year. We will be using Sonlight Core 1 with 2 reg readers. Just for the reading, read a loud, and history parts. Not the LA or science.

 

I've used seven cores with Sonlight. There is only a book here or there that I will remove and replace. I do it with two GIANT tweaks- I chucked the comprehension questions and vocabulary. Instead, I just ask a few questions of my own. With my younger child I have her do dictation, copywork, and narrations from our reading. We use the globe instead of the markable map. We've also tried different vocabulary programs over the years.

 

Starting this year for my older child, I do the history reading aloud and he reads both the readers and read alouds to himself. (At his request.) My older child is no longer doing the copywork dictation thing. One day a week he writes down 5-6 most important facts from his history reading. Another day he outlines around 4 pages of history text. For two days he works on a history mini-report from his reading and library books. (1-2 pages.) I also copy the Sonlight maps and he labels them as we go along. Both children use the Sonlight timeline too.

 

We no longer do the Sonlight LA, Bible, or Science.

 

If life gets in the way and I'm rushed for time, I occasionally will have my older child do the reading to my younger. He will also listen to her read aloud. I try not to do this too often though.

 

Hope this helps!

[melmichigan]

I couldn't do it. :lol:

[Mom0012]

I have always pretty much followed the schedule. Sometimes we will get a little ahead in one area and then I will work to catch up in the others. I will try to finish all the books for a given week before moving onto the next week, so if we are ahead in the history readings and behind in our read-aloud, I will just read the read-aloud until we are done and then move on to the next week.

 

I don't usually add or remove books. This year though, I have experimented a little with using audiobooks for some of the read-alouds. This has been a hit because when we listen to an audiobook, we go through it very quickly because we will listen to it every time we get in the car. This then has enabled me to read some things that are not historical fiction during our read-aloud time, like Lang's Fairy Tales or Christmas books.

 

Overall, I am very happy with SL's schedule and find it very easy to follow. I just know how much my kids love the fairy tale books and the Christmas stories, so it seemed like a win-win to substitute my reading a few of those with audiobooks to give us time for the other.

 

Lisa

[hsmom]

So, reading a few books at a time doesn't seem to cause any problems?

 

The way all of you explain how you follow the schedules makes it seem very easy to stick to.

[CarrieF]

So, reading a few books at a time doesn't seem to cause any problems?

 

The way all of you explain how you follow the schedules makes it seem very easy to stick to.

I had the same "hesitation" before I started using SL, but honestly, they map it out so well that it isn't an issue. I was concerned that my kids would not be able to follow more than one book at a time, but it has not been a problem at all. In fact, they rather LIKE reading from several books because it breaks up any monotony and they really like the variety.

I am a "tweaker" (aren't ALL homeschool moms?!) but the schedule makes it easier to tweak because I can look at the entire week to see what subjects will be covered and decide whether or not I need/want to add or subtract anything. Overall, we have been very pleased with SL!

HTH!

[Mom0012]

So, reading a few books at a time doesn't seem to cause any problems?

 

The way all of you explain how you follow the schedules makes it seem very easy to stick to.

 

It doesn't cause us any problems and, in fact, it makes the reading time more enjoyable to be covering a variety of books. There are people who really hate this, though. Some of them work around it by following the schedule horizontally rather than vertically and others just wind up not liking SL.

 

By the time you are in SL 3, you might be reading a few pages from the Bible, a chapter in your history spine, and then a chapter of historical fiction. It's really not choppy at all like it can be in the early years of picture books. Now, reading parts of books didn't bother me then either, but that's when I think some people are really driven crazy by it.

 

Lisa

[texasmama]

I view it by weeks instead of by days. We do the four day a week schedule, which leaves Friday as co op day and wiggle room to finish up. I sometimes read two days of history in one day because we ran out of time the day before. My goal is always to finish the week's schedule in that week. We don't use their comprehension questions, and my boys usually read ahead in the readers. We also just do the history, readers and readalouds. I have found it to be easy as pie.:001_smile:

[Jyniffrec]

I view it by weeks instead of by days. We do the four day a week schedule, which leaves Friday as co op day and wiggle room to finish up. I sometimes read two days of history in one day because we ran out of time the day before. My goal is always to finish the week's schedule in that week. We don't use their comprehension questions, and my boys usually read ahead in the readers. We also just do the history, readers and readalouds. I have found it to be easy as pie.:001_smile:

 

This is how we do it. I always visualize the week's schedule as an accordian. :D