SL Core 5

[texasmama]

What say ye about this Core? It is our current plan for next year with my (next year) 5th and 3rd graders. We have completed Cores 1+2 and 3 and are currently doing Core 4.

 

Core 5 looks interesting and different, and we don't mind going off the beaten path of the four year history rotation. I will also have a kindy student next year. Any feedback or experience with Core 5, positive or negative, is welcome.:001_smile:

[swimmermom3]

There are many good things to be said about SL Core 5. If your focus is primarily mission-oriented and your children are ready for research work that requires significant time in front of the computer with World Book, then it will be a good fit. If these are not priorities, it is a core that can be readily adapted to suit your needs. What about the core appeals the most to you? When you look at the book list, are you excited about most of the books or do you see some that will need replacing? Is your emphasis in studying world cultures an evangelical one?

[texasmama]

If your focus is primarily mission-oriented and your children are ready for research work that requires significant time in front of the computer with World Book, then it will be a good fit. If these are not priorities, it is a core that can be readily adapted to suit your needs. What about the core appeals the most to you? When you look at the book list, are you excited about most of the books or do you see some that will need replacing? Is your emphasis in studying world cultures an evangelical one?

 

We don't do the SL LA program, just the history, readers and readalouds. Is the research tied to the LA program or the history portion?

 

I am okay with an evangelical/missionary focus but our main goal would be to learn about other cultures/religions. I want my kids to have a good understanding of these. I am a tweaker so it won't bother me to tweak as needed. I am excited about most of the books on the list. SL history (with the readers and readalouds) has seemed to be a good fit for me and my kids so far. We have only skipped a few books in the three years we have used SL Cores. I edit/explain as I read, if necessary. A few books were just plain "boring", in my kids' words. (Calico Bush was one of these.) Mostly, my kids love the book choices, though, and my 10 year old's favorite book by far was "Missionary Stories with the Millers" - Core 1+2, I believe. We know several missionaries IRL so I think this resonates with them.

 

Thank you for your feedback.:001_smile: You made me think...and that is a good thing.:D

[texasmama]

Any other feedback on Core 5? :001_smile:

[DawnM]

We plan to do it starting in the Spring. I am actually adapting it (at least that is the plan at the moment) to fit into 6 months or so, because we really want to do some of it, but we need to MOVE ON as well! We hs year round though, so I will fit it in somehow.

 

I already have most of it, purchased from a local friend who stopped homeschooling. I have looked through the materials and it looks really good. I have heard many say it was their favorite core!

 

Dawn

[rhrice3]

I did Core 5 with 7th and 3rd grade girls. It was perfect for us, and I feel like it was very enlightening for all my children (my 9th grade son sat in on some of the books). My 7th grader was a very slow reader and the research part of the World Book was very good practice for her. She read ALL the books by herself, and I read all the books to my 3rd grader. There is a list of movies somewhere on the forum that goes with it, and I would recommend them highly. We got the movies from the library and Netflix.

 

Back to the World Book part - it is very detail oriented at times and your child will spend a good amount of time in front of the computer. I think that it would depend on the child, but it is "research" oriented and I know that waiting until daughter was in 7th grade was the right decision for us. We did not do the LA part of Core 5, but I made my 7th grader write papers from the suggestions in the explorer journal or simply write about something that interested her.

 

We had 4 other hs family friends doing the same Core so we talked alot about it and swapped books, etc. I can tell you that all 5 moms were constantly amazed at the things they were learning and happily surprised by the wonderful things all our children were learning and talking about.

 

Sorry, I have rambled but I hope that this helps some.

ReneeR

[Mom0012]

We've used SL from Pre-K on through core 4 this year. I've already bought my IG for core 5 and will start collecting books soon. I am planning on finding the movie list someone mentioned in an earlier post and I am going to try the EHE and see how it goes. I bought an older version of the IG and EHE because I heard people had less frustration with that than the most recent version. We may not use the EHE for every country, but I would like my children to get some practice with research skills, so we will use it as much as possible.

 

If everything flops for us with the EHE and the World Book, I am going to use the Enchantment of the World Series as our spine. I had originally hoped to purchase these books, but have discovered that our library has lots of copies of these. This series has been recommended as a replacement spine on the SL boards for those that don't care for the World Book.

 

I'm looking forward to learning about lots of different cultures and hope to add in more cooking and hands-on activities for this core than I have with any of the other cores. I'm preparing for this core to take us longer than normal and maybe run into the summer. We did Galloping the Globe when my kids were young and I had a lot of fun planning activities for that. It was one of our best years yet. I am hoping Core 5 will be somewhat of a repeat of that, but at a higher level.

 

Lisa

[meet me in paris]

We are half way through Core 5 right now.

 

My daughter really likes it. Unfortunately, our computer that had World Book already installed on it crashed, and I don't want to buy it, and the EHE is VERY hard to do without it. It seems like the questions were written specifically to go with World Book, which I had not expected. So now we have joined the ranks of many SL'ers who let their kids copy most of the answers out of the EHE answer key (I *never* thought I'd say that, but there you go).

 

The books are excellent. We haven't had a single dud yet (and we've done 5 Cores now... they all have duds). We're not going with the missionary focus (no DVD, we try not to treat other cultures as "lost") but we are reading most of the missionary biographies. My daughter has enjoyed those so far.

 

It's very easy to add movies, food, etc. to this core. That's been the best part. The actual core is WAY over the head of my 3rd grader. I had her tagging along and doing notebooking pages and reading books on the countries, but that wasn't as great as I wanted it to be. For example, some of the countries you will study for 5 weeks or more (china, india... russia was long, too) and I couldn't keep the interest going for that long. I finally broke down and bought a different program for my 9yo and she's much happier doing history again. :)

 

Hope that helps!

[swimmermom3]

You have received lots of excellent feedback that runs true to our experience with Core 5 for the most part. The research that I mentioned is the Eastern Hemisphere Explorer work that goes with the World Book online. I have mixed feelings about it. It teaches research and perseverance on a surface level. The format is basically the same for all of the areas studied with a few variations. Some children thrive with the work and others are frustrated or bored with it. My son was in 5th grade and did not care to spend that much time in front of the computer. WE switched to using The Enchantment of the World books that another poster mentioned. I also picked up a textbook that my dh ended up really enjoying. This was only a small portion of our work since we tweaked other areas to include some marvelous resources from a secular version of Core 5. Have fun. Keep a scrap book with photos of your projects and your meals. I know we have some good Core 5 threads hiding out somewhere. I will see if I can find them.

 

On a personal note, I struggled a bit with the tone of some of the evangelical work. My husband grew up in a missionary family and his uncle was imprisoned in China for being a "white Chinese." The tone of some of the books with regards to the "lost," which seemed like 90% of the rest of the world, including other branches of Christianity, caught me off guard.

 

We kept most of the books but replaced a few that were incompatible with our worldview.

[StephanieZ]

We really enjoyed it. Mine were 4th & 6th when we did it. I do think that this is the ONE core that we'd have been better off doing a year older, b/c it was a struggle for my 4th grader to keep up with the written work / computer encyclopedia research. I helped him a bit. If you have time to help your 3rd grader extra (say 60 - 120 min/wk at the computer helping use the computer based encyclopedia), then you'll be just fine. If you can't find the extra time, you might want to modify expectations for that aspect for your younger.

 

BEST thing by far was doing country feasts every 2-4 weeks with another family. We cooked up BIG for 2-4 hours and had true feasts (late enough so dads could be there for the eating part). It was a blast. Very fun, especially if you can find another fun mom who likes to cook to help. (We added this, it was not part of the offical core.)

 

FWIW, we loved the change of pace. It was a great core. Wouldn't miss it & look forward to doing it again with my little in 2 1/2 years.

[Thea]

Any other feedback on Core 5? :001_smile:

 

Core 5 is awesome. Some of my favorite books are in this core. We skip *most* of the missionary books and focus on the different cultures.

Edited January 9, 2011 by Thea

[unity]

We hated the EHE. It just sucked the fun out of the core and not only that, but the material did not sink in at all that way. I found that they weren't actually retaining any of the little factoids they were regurgitating every day from reading WB.

 

I agree about the negative tone of many of the books regarding other cultures...sometimes it felt like we were just studying them to go in there and change it all.

 

Overall, I thought the core was ok, but it was along that year that I decided to move away from SL after completing all kinds of cores. It's not that Core 5 is much different than the ones before it, but as my kids got older I just was feeling the need for a different approach.

[MerryAtHope]

We hated the EHE. It just sucked the fun out of the core and not only that, but the material did not sink in at all that way. I found that they weren't actually retaining any of the little factoids they were regurgitating every day from reading WB.

 

.

 

This was our experience as well. My kids actually loved the EHE at first...for the first 2 countries. But then the newness and fun wore off, and the idea of a year-long research project on country after country (with never enough time to find all of the answers--oh, and some aren't in WB but you don't know which ones aren't in WB, so you and your kid might think you just aren't reading in the right places...), well, it got old fast. I didn't think EHE taught good research skills really. It taught how to search for a word and how to skim to look for a specific answer, but not how to read to learn, how to immerse in a topic etc...

 

We liked most of the readers and read-alouds. We liked about half of the history books. A few we really disliked. At the end of the year I was tired of books for the first time in my HS career (and we're used to reading lots of books ala Sonlight--and usually add additional read-alouds too). But this core is just stuffed full. I wish I had dropped more and researched using a different spine earlier (instead of halfway through the year when all my steam was gone). My history lover didn't like history this year, and my other said history was "more boring than usual."

 

Merry :-)

[texasmama]

It sounds like a good Core for us with some modifications. My boys work well together, and my 3rd grader is very advanced - but this does sound like more research than either of them are prepared to do. The idea of modifying the research expectations (and doing them with my assistance) sounds like a good fit for us. Perhaps we can all three work together on this. The idea of a feast with foods from the country we are studying sounds like a lot of fun, and I think my kids would love that. :001_smile:

 

In the past with SL Cores, I have been surprised at the books my kids liked and the ones they didn't. They love Landmark History of the American People, for instance, which I did not love. They still find it interesting, as we are on our second year with this spine. They are funny little guys.:tongue_smilie:

 

I appreciate the feedback so much, since this Core sounds very different from the ones we have done previously. I always edit and add my own commentary with all of the books we read, and it sounds like this Core will not be any different. That is one of the things I love about homeschooling. Thank you again for the feedback. I feel so much more prepared.:001_smile:

[swimmermom3]

We hated the EHE. It just sucked the fun out of the core and not only that, but the material did not sink in at all that way. I found that they weren't actually retaining any of the little factoids they were regurgitating every day from reading WB.

 

I agree about the negative tone of many of the books regarding other cultures...sometimes it felt like we were just studying them to go in there and change it all.

 

Overall, I thought the core was ok, but it was along that year that I decided to move away from SL after completing all kinds of cores. It's not that Core 5 is much different than the ones before it, but as my kids got older I just was feeling the need for a different approach.

 

This was our experience as well. My kids actually loved the EHE at first...for the first 2 countries. But then the newness and fun wore off, and the idea of a year-long research project on country after country (with never enough time to find all of the answers--oh, and some aren't in WB but you don't know which ones aren't in WB, so you and your kid might think you just aren't reading in the right places...), well, it got old fast. I didn't think EHE taught good research skills really. It taught how to search for a word and how to skim to look for a specific answer, but not how to read to learn, how to immerse in a topic etc...

 

We liked most of the readers and read-alouds. We liked about half of the history books. A few we really disliked. At the end of the year I was tired of books for the first time in my HS career (and we're used to reading lots of books ala Sonlight--and usually add additional read-alouds too). But this core is just stuffed full. I wish I had dropped more and researched using a different spine earlier (instead of halfway through the year when all my steam was gone). My history lover didn't like history this year, and my other said history was "more boring than usual."

 

Merry :-)

 

I stuck to the original Core 5 for almost a third of the year because I felt cowed by the SL rep and especially the SL forum. It was sheer netherworld. It was only after I found a secular schedule that we really took off and had a blast. It wasn't the secular aspect so much as that darn EHE. My son didn't really absorb the information either, yet once he read it in an Enchantment of the World books, he had it down. I don't consider skimming the same resource (as mentioned above) over and over again to be research.

 

I also didn't realize the redundancy that would appear when you did all that research on say ancient Chinese, Japanese, and Indian history only to turn around and repeat it the following year in Core 6.

 

Merry, I think part of the issue with the books wasn't just the sheer number but a matter or redundancy. There were three books that were Newberry award winners that dealt with the theme of courage and had someone overlooked by the others of their community who is then stranded in a deserted environment. They are all great books on their own but when you lump them together their value diminishes, imo.

[Mom0012]

I stuck to the original Core 5 for almost a third of the year because I felt cowed by the SL rep and especially the SL forum. It was sheer netherworld. It was only after I found a secular schedule that we really took off and had a blast. It wasn't the secular aspect so much as that darn EHE. My son didn't really absorb the information either, yet once he read it in an Enchantment of the World books, he had it down. I don't consider skimming the same resource (as mentioned above) over and over again to be research.

 

I also didn't realize the redundancy that would appear when you did all that research on say ancient Chinese, Japanese, and Indian history only to turn around and repeat it the following year in Core 6.

 

Merry, I think part of the issue with the books wasn't just the sheer number but a matter or redundancy. There were three books that were Newberry award winners that dealt with the theme of courage and had someone overlooked by the others of their community who is then stranded in a deserted environment. They are all great books on their own but when you lump them together their value diminishes, imo.

 

Lisa -

 

Where did you find this secular schedule? And are you saying there is a lot of redundancy in the books in core 5 itself or in following core 5 with core 6?

 

Thanks!

Lisa

[DawnM]

Very good information to know before we start this core! I would like to do a fairly revised version of this core so that we can MOVE ON as we are at least a year behind.

 

So, I am looking at what we might actually be able to skip.....this is helpful.

 

I was already looking at how to pick and choose within the core. I grew up as a missionary kid, so the missionary aspect is very important to me, but I also want to focus on our family a bit as there are a few books written with my dad and my grandpa in them. I plan to add some excerpts from those in.

 

Dawn

 

I stuck to the original Core 5 for almost a third of the year because I felt cowed by the SL rep and especially the SL forum. It was sheer netherworld. It was only after I found a secular schedule that we really took off and had a blast. It wasn't the secular aspect so much as that darn EHE. My son didn't really absorb the information either, yet once he read it in an Enchantment of the World books, he had it down. I don't consider skimming the same resource (as mentioned above) over and over again to be research.

 

I also didn't realize the redundancy that would appear when you did all that research on say ancient Chinese, Japanese, and Indian history only to turn around and repeat it the following year in Core 6.

 

Merry, I think part of the issue with the books wasn't just the sheer number but a matter or redundancy. There were three books that were Newberry award winners that dealt with the theme of courage and had someone overlooked by the others of their community who is then stranded in a deserted environment. They are all great books on their own but when you lump them together their value diminishes, imo.

[DawnM]

What spine would work better do you think?

 

Dawn

 

This was our experience as well. My kids actually loved the EHE at first...for the first 2 countries. But then the newness and fun wore off, and the idea of a year-long research project on country after country (with never enough time to find all of the answers--oh, and some aren't in WB but you don't know which ones aren't in WB, so you and your kid might think you just aren't reading in the right places...), well, it got old fast. I didn't think EHE taught good research skills really. It taught how to search for a word and how to skim to look for a specific answer, but not how to read to learn, how to immerse in a topic etc...

 

We liked most of the readers and read-alouds. We liked about half of the history books. A few we really disliked. At the end of the year I was tired of books for the first time in my HS career (and we're used to reading lots of books ala Sonlight--and usually add additional read-alouds too). But this core is just stuffed full. I wish I had dropped more and researched using a different spine earlier (instead of halfway through the year when all my steam was gone). My history lover didn't like history this year, and my other said history was "more boring than usual."

 

Merry :-)

[texasmama]

I would love the info, as well. :001_smile: Also, does anyone have the Netflix movie list which would correspond with this Core or any other outside resources that they recommend? My boys tolerate a LOT of reading aloud, as do I. Sounds like we will need this for next year. :001_smile:

[swimmermom3]

The two options we utilized for a spine are The Enchanted World series and the McDouglas Littell World Cultures and Geography: Eastern Hemisphere. This thread on the Logic Stage board has a ton of resources that you can add to Core 5 to personalize it and both of the resources mentioned above are linked there.

 

DawnM - While my family has a secular approach, we belong to a an extended family with a rich missionary tradition. My objection to some of SL's book choices for the missionaries had more to do with the quality of the biographies. Benge & Benge, imo, have a tendency to write to a formula that tends to water down the complex and varied lives of the missionaries that they write about. They all sound the same after a while.

[swimmermom3]

I would love the info, as well. :001_smile: Also, does anyone have the Netflix movie list which would correspond with this Core or any other outside resources that they recommend? My boys tolerate a LOT of reading aloud, as do I. Sounds like we will need this for next year. :001_smile:

 

The SL forum used to have a great movie list in the stickies under Core 5. Check there or ask. If you don't come up with one, I will dig out mine.

[texasmama]

The SL forum used to have a great movie list in the stickies under Core 5. Check there or ask. If you don't come up with one, I will dig out mine.

 

Thanks, Lisa. I will go over there and check. I am registered but rarely go there. I get most of my info from here.:001_smile:

 

This has been a helpful thread, and I appreciate the contributions of the BTDT folks to us who have not BTDT yet.

[DawnM]

Ah, yes, I am not highly impressed with the Benge and Benge books either. We will probably read excerpts and discuss, but will not read them all.

 

It doesn't matter what curriculum I use, I end up tweaking it beyond recognition anyway.......sigh.

 

I have most of Core 5 here already and will be going through it soon to get an idea of what to read and what to skip.....Core 5 particularly we will be skipping things as we need to get on with it.....I spent a full 3 years on Cores 3 and 4....:tongue_smilie:

 

Dawn

 

The two options we utilized for a spine are The Enchanted World series and the McDouglas Littell World Cultures and Geography: Eastern Hemisphere. This thread on the Logic Stage board has a ton of resources that you can add to Core 5 to personalize it and both of the resources mentioned above are linked there.

 

DawnM - While my family has a secular approach, we belong to a an extended family with a rich missionary tradition. My objection to some of SL's book choices for the missionaries had more to do with the quality of the biographies. Benge & Benge, imo, have a tendency to write to a formula that tends to water down the complex and varied lives of the missionaries that they write about. They all sound the same after a while.

[scrapbookbuzz]

I'm glad I found this thread! We were a bit behind on the EHE work and now I know why! Today my dd (12yo) kept saying (about her work on the EHE), "This is boring." I must admit that I find the WorldBookDVD to NOT be user friendly! This disappoints me because the EHE sounded and looked so enticing! Maybe I'll just focus on the Choose Your Own Adventure and some mapping in a different format.

 

Thank you to the ppl who posted about Enchantment of the World series. I will definitely look into those!

[Boxing Hare]

We are almost done with SL 5 - 24 more days to go! We have enjoyed it. The EHE wasn't so bad, it just takes some getting used to. I don't assign everything in it. They work about 25 minutes on it, and then I help them find any missing answers. Usually they can finish it themselves.

 

I like that this core hits upon an area that is usually omitted. We have learned so much. Plus, the current events are more interesting to them now that we have studied the middle east and are moving into Africa.

 

My kids are 10 and 11, btw.

[texasmama]

Thanks for reviving this thread. I will save it for next year as we prepare to use this Core. :001_smile:

[mom@shiloh]

We're also doing Core 5, but tweaking it.... um, alot. So right now we're using Galloping the Globe and focusing on geography and adding in the readers and read-alouds as appropriate.

[StephanieZ]

We enjoyed it. We especially enjoyed having country feasts every 2-4 weeks with one other family who was also doing the core. That was insanely fun.

 

Only caveat. . . My kids were 4th & 6th when we did Core 5. They've always been this way: straddling the official grade level of the core. From Core 3-7, Core 5 was definitely the hardest stretch for the 4th grader. (He's a very strong reader and generally has no problems with any of the stuff 1-2 yrs ahead of grade level. . . and has had no other significant difficulties with the SL work in all other cores.) The Encyclopedia/Explorer work was a handful for him and required some hand holding. It's not particularly hard reading or anything, but just time consuming to If I were you, I wouldn't even TRY to have a 3rd grader do those assignments. You could substitute some other text readings on the countries, or simply skip it.

[texasmama]

Only caveat. . . My kids were 4th & 6th when we did Core 5. They've always been this way: straddling the official grade level of the core. From Core 3-7, Core 5 was definitely the hardest stretch for the 4th grader. (He's a very strong reader and generally has no problems with any of the stuff 1-2 yrs ahead of grade level. . . and has had no other significant difficulties with the SL work in all other cores.) The Encyclopedia/Explorer work was a handful for him and required some hand holding. It's not particularly hard reading or anything, but just time consuming to If I were you, I wouldn't even TRY to have a 3rd grader do those assignments. You could substitute some other text readings on the countries, or simply skip it.

 

What do you think of having my two boys work together on the assignments? Not having put my hands on the Core yet, I don't know if that is feasible. They really work well together and are truly more like twins than like kids two years apart. Or perhaps have my 5th grader do the assignments and have the 3rd grader tag along (though he is such a know it all bossy pants that he will NOT be able to stop from helping ;)).My 8 yo is scary, scary smart and is working a grade level ahead in math, as well as reading several grade levels ahead. He'll pass me by very soon. lol He is also not easily frustrated. He enjoys a challenge. Any other thoughts for what to do with him from the perspective of someone who has seen and used this Core? I am all ears.:bigear:

[StephanieZ]

What do you think of having my two boys work together on the assignments? Not having put my hands on the Core yet, I don't know if that is feasible. They really work well together and are truly more like twins than like kids two years apart. Or perhaps have my 5th grader do the assignments and have the 3rd grader tag along (though he is such a know it all bossy pants that he will NOT be able to stop from helping ;)).My 8 yo is scary, scary smart and is working a grade level ahead in math, as well as reading several grade levels ahead. He'll pass me by very soon. lol He is also not easily frustrated. He enjoys a challenge. Any other thoughts for what to do with him from the perspective of someone who has seen and used this Core? I am all ears.:bigear:

 

These options might work just fine. The issue is really one of patience with 'busy' work. . . and with facility of searching for specific data in a relatively large resource. See if you can find some sample pages. . . probably on the SL website? At least 2 years ago, it was a format where there were 3-5 pages or so of fill-in-the-blank stuff for each country. Flag, plants, economy, environment, forms of gov't, history stuff. . . both generals that were the same for all/most countries and other things that were unique to each country. . . It wasn't too HARD for my ds when he was in 4th gr, but it was just irritating and time consuming. If you can get your hands on it early, you could spend some time preparing your son(s) for the assignments. Perhaps start the first country this summer, or make up some similar assignments for OTHER countries and let your kids learn how to do it. The thing is, they don't spell out which article(s) the data is to be gleaned from, so you have to be competent at choosing search terms, moving around the encyclopedia, skimming articles for pertinent topics, etc. . . and then, of course, reading the pertinent articles. I did have ds do it, and he did it fine, but it just was not fun, and I don't think the benefits were worth the boredom/irritation factor.

 

You can definitely have them work together on the assignments, but it is a bit awkward sitting at the computer together. (Pretty much filling in the blanks in glorified worksheets by researching on the wb enc.) They could split the assignments and/or work together at the computer. You can also help them a lot, by bookmarking and/or highlighting pertinent items and/or holding their hand while they do it. I did this some for ds, and also irregularly had dd-older do it for topics when she did them to make it faster for ds when he did it.

 

FWIW, my ds-younger was reading at least at a 10th gr level by 4th grade and wrapping up Singapore 6 in math. . . It wasn't a *difficulty* issue with the wb encyclopedia stuff, but a hassle factor. Frankly, it was a hassle for my 6th grader, too, but she was more mature and less irritated by it. My youngest will be doing SL5 when she's in 5th grade, and is super-smart, but I am still glad she'll be at grade level for that core in particular just b/c of the wb encyclopedia stuff.

 

I plan to introduce the wb explorer type activities and researching topics using the wb enc. a few months prior to starting core 5. This might be helpful to you as well for both kids. I will just have her do little research topics on animals, places, events, etc. . . stuff for fun and mainly just for gaining facility with the tool.

 

HTH

[texasmama]

Thank you for that detailed reply. It helps me to have some concrete expectations for this Core. My sons don't mind sitting together at the computer now doing various things. My oldest son is the one who will probably be the most frustrated. His frustration tolerance is pretty low. He doesn't make transitions/change in his schoolwork easily so I expect resistance due to this being a huge paradigm shift for our history program. (Still cannot get him to read his own passages in WWE3...I must read them or all is lost. lol) I don't mind hand holding during the research, particularly in the beginning...and even until the end, if needed. ;) As long as the answers are not so hard to find that they frustrate me, I think we will be okay. lol

[ilovemy4kids]

This was our ALL TIME FAVORITE CORE!!!!!!

Sandra