Help me choose a Sonlight Core?

[chrissymama]

I am seriously considering using Sonlight next year. My kids will be in 4th grade, 1st grade, and then 2 littler guys (4 and 2).

 

The Cores I'm considering are 1+2 or 3.

 

We haven't done a ton of world history yet, so 1+2 sounds good. I did use Sonlight's reading list last year though, so my oldest has already read all of the readers.

 

Core 3 sounds really good too, but we have spent a good bit of time on Native Americans this year.

 

What would you do?

[krisperry]

Core 1

 

I'd choose the Core 2 advanced books (readers) for your 4th grader.

[abacus2]

Are you hoping to have the 1st grader tag along? If so, I'd go with 1 + 2. What does your 4th grader like? Is he hungry for more American history or would he rather study world history?

[chrissymama]

I am hoping to find a Core to use with both the 1st grader and 4th grader.

 

The advanced 2 readers are what he read last year (2nd grade).

[susesmiles]

I'd go with the Core 1+2. I've heard from others that you don't want to go too far above the child's grade level because the materials chosen are for that older age...don't want to get into certain content until the child is old enough to understand. Plus the older books may not hold the interest of the 1st grader. Whereas, the older child should still find the books from 1+2 interesting and not too young. Sonlight often chooses quality read-alouds that interest even adults.

[susesmiles]

Have you thought about using SOTW 1 with the AG? Then you could choose activities for the older child and younger child. You could also pull in the literature books from Sonlight 1.

[ondreeuh]

Really, you can do a Core without the readers, especially in 1 & 2 (or 1+2). There are plenty of great books to use while you wait for Core 3 or 3+4.

[chrissymama]

Yeah, I am leaning towards Core 1+2.

[sandra in va]

Sorry to muddy the waters....but what if you did core 3 for your 4th grader and added some easier American history for your 1st grader OR used preK or K and join your 1st grader and 4 year old together? They are closer in age than your 1st and 4th graders. Also, I found cores 1 and 2 to be advanced - preK or K would work fine for a 1st grader. This way your 4th grader could use the core 3 readers since he used the adv. 2 last year.

 

I know you were trying to put your 1st and 4th together but I was thinking down the road it might be easier to have your 1st and preK together.

 

Just some more options...:)

[RootAnn]

I guess my two questions are:

 

Why do you want to use Sonlight? Do you like the books, the approach, or the everything-planned-out-for-you?

 

What do you want your children (think separately of the 4th & 1st graders) to come away knowing after the next year?

[1shortmomto4]

If you have access to the SL forums you might want to do a search there. I was looking at trying to place my up coming 4th grader in SL and was considering Core 1 or Core 2 or the combo - and I learned a lot about Core 1&2. You are literally rushing through time (decades and more) in a week so the first half of the year you cover all the time period from Core 1 and then the second half is all of Core 2 time period. There is a lot of reading each day - more so than required if you just start with Core 1. I've found with so many programs that if you use it to the upper end the child gets soooo much more out of it. I think if I just had 1 child (or two) to school and that it was just them and nothing else, the combo core might be okay, but with other kids, something would have to suffer. kwim?

 

The new catalog is coming soon and there have been some little teasers put out recently - one is about a CD that you can get that will help add in some hands-on, coloring pages, etc. I know on the website they have a set of links already but this may (or may not) be even more helpful. I think the sample of Core 1 is not quite the full picture of the year-it would have been more helpful to see something from where the CHOW book is read and see how much reading would then be required. I understand that Core 1 starts out slow but gradually increases - kind of nice when just starting out a new school year whereas the combo you start out of the gate at a running pace!

[SnMomof7]

I have SL 1+2 waiting on my shelf for as soon as I'm done our core K :). It looks like a GREAT year! We are going to use it as an overview of world history before we dive into a 4-year-cycle. That way I will have a general idea of where we are going with history in our more in-depth years!

 

Like Heidi mentioned, it does look very full, both history and geography wise, so the littles might be tagging along a lot, but it would be pretty good for fourth. I'll have a 3rd, k, toddler, and baby when we go through.

 

I can hardly wait to get started. (Sometimes I am tempted to skip the rest of K...I'm trying to talk myself out of that though!)