Explain Sonlight to me

[StacyinOhio]

Researching our options. Can someone explain to me how Sonlight cores work? Is it a complete curriculum? I can't seem to get their website to work for me.

 

I have 4 children with one on the way. The 3 oldest will be in 4th (3rd grade math), 2nd and 1st and then I have a preschooler who is fine with fun work I give her. Next fall there will be a newborn. Will Sonlight cores work well for multiple children? I had planned on continuing with our bju online classes with the exceptions of spelling (all doing AAS), history (all doing Beautiful Feet Early American History), science (all doing Apologia), and my 1st grader doing a separate reading/language arts curriculum that I haven't yet decided on.

 

The bju price just kills me though. It costs as much to just choose a couple of classes as it does to purchase the entire grade kit. Plus, I have nothing to sell or use the next year for the younger kids. It's a big expense every year.

 

At the same time I'm fearful of moving away from the online classes with a newborn.

 

Any suggestions?

[Mae]

My experience with Sonlight and my lap full of kids has been...different. I own the preschool level all the way through Core 3 (it has a new name now). My five kids ages range from 3rd grade down to 1 year old. The baby and 2yo made read alouds extremely difficult because they are LOUD and active and never sleep. I felt like I was just handing a book to my oldest son and saying "Read this. I might ask you questions on it later." I could never remember where I had put the latest preschool or kindergarten book. The difficulty of the books range from thought-provoking (AKA too hard for little kids to understand) to just right. The great thing about having so many kids in the age range is that the book will be good for someone, right?

 

As for Sonlight terminology...Core means history, geography, and reading out loud books for the family. For the younger ages you choose what level of language arts and math. So as far as saving you time and lesson planning with your hands full...Sonlight doesn't really do that. You will still need to teach LA for your 1st, 2nd, and 4th grader plus three levels for math too.

 

I'm in the same boat...looking for something streamlined to I can survive this next year...

[OK Family]

First I suggest requesting their free catalog. It usually is much easier to look at. Sonlight is a literature based program, alot of read alouds for history and reading. Not only do you get all the books but a schedule and comp. questions for each story. There are also different levels of readers for the child to chose from. Sonlight is not an actual curriculum, but more of a gathering place for good literature and other curriculum's they highly recommend.

[mschickie]

Sonlight can work with multiple age kids although I think it would be difficult to do the 4th grader and 1st grader with the same Core. You could do one Core for 4th grade and then one for 2nd and 1st grade together. Sonlight's core consists of History, Geography, Reading and Read Alouds. They also have a LA program that ties into the reading. Sonlight is a complete curriculum for those areas you do need to add on Math, Handwriting and Science. I think you could do 1 Science for all 3 ages though. Sonlight does not require alot of planning time but does require you to have time to read to your kids. I know some folks who use multiple cores that have one child work on on your own material (handwriting, Math...) while they read to the other one and then vice versa. Some also use the read alouds as bed time stories or just skip some of them. I love it but then again I only have 1 child at home right now.

[3peasinapod]

Ah, the dreaded 3-year gap for Sonlight cores. I have heard of some people combining in SL that age span, but it takes a lot of work on the part of the mother. Doing 2 cores the first year of SL could potentially be difficult, but I know a lot of people who have done it.

 

First, let me tell you what our day looks like with a 4yo, 2nd, and 3rd graders. We are doing SL Core B and Core P3/4 with SOTW and SOTW AG. We also do SL Science C. I don't do their LA. We chose our own math. After finishing LA and math in the morning (with breaks), at around 11-12 in the morning we start our SL. There are history and read aloud portions. History are nonfiction spine books and read alouds are historical fiction. I usually do the history portion in the mornings, along with any added activities (SL doesn't come with activities). Before bed is when we do the read alouds.

 

If you decide it's right for you, I would suggest either Core A (introduction to cultures) or Core B (ancient history) for your 1st and 2nd graders. Core B is for advanced 1st graders. SL, on the whole, works better for the high end of the age range for each core. You would have to buy a core, LA, math, science and electives. SL has a whole kit-n-kaboodle for this, but you wouldn't be able to choose what works best for your children. I always buy just the core with LA and math separate, sometimes from different companies. If you like SL science, you could try Science 2 for all of them together.

 

HTH!

[ZooRho]

I would suggest going to the SL forums. I think you have to registar. But for free you can ask questions on the choosing forum.

 

but you can pay like $5 a month which is worth it if you want to really check things out. They have individual forums for each of the cores. Then they have other ones that deal with homeschooling issues, parenting, etc, and then they have a general forum called Meet and Share.

 

 

I have used SL since 1995.

[SnMomof7]

Argh. I can't believe I just lost that post! Let me try again :).

 

You likely know some of this already, but I'll start from the beginning :).

 

The main part of what Sonlight offers are their cores. These are literature-based programs that use only real books and an Instructor's Guide (IG) to teach history, geography, and literature. So when you order a core you get a big box full of books, an IG, and some timeline figures. The books are broken into history readings (read together), read alouds (together), and readers (independent reading). There is also normally a poetry book or two as well. The IG schedules the books across the year for you (making it super easy to stay on track - no planning, wonderful). They also include discussion/comprehension questions, vocabulary, additional notes for deeper information, maps, prompts to timeline/map etc.

 

A Sonlight core is a wonderful thing in my experience! Saves SO much on planning!

 

Sonlight also offers LA that accompanies their readers but many families with more of a classical bent substitute this for something else. It is optional. Sonlight's Bible is also an add on if you have something you are already using.

 

Sonlight's Science is entirely separate from the core. It is also literature based, but it jumps around a lot between topics in the lower grades (too much for us, we like to camp out on a topic for longer).

 

Sonlight also has other recommendations - like for math, that they don't produce themselves. Again, our family using something else :).

 

So, how does it work when you have a nursing baby? For me, it worked GREAT! Because I was already sitting in the rocking chair nursing, all I had to do was grab a book, read, and we had done school. WAY easier than a course that is heavy into hands-on activities - those just don't get done when I have a new baby.

 

How does it work for combining? I guess it depends on what you are looking for and how flexible you are in your expectations. Because SL uses real books, they will appeal to children across a large spread of ages, but if you want something very fine-tuned for each age, it might not be best. What I am doing with my girls is picking something in between the levels of my two oldest children. My youngest I am VERY flexible with - she listens to all the read alouds (which she LOVES), and some of the history - I don't require her to sit in on that - and casually enters into discussions with us. She also does some low key narrations. My oldest I require to do pretty much everything, because the core we are doing is fairly easy for her :).

 

There are also some free audios at SL's website that you can download that address teaching large numbers of children :).

 

Honestly, SL is one of the things our children have enjoyed the MOST for their education. They always ask for more, and all I need to do is read to them and talk to them. I can do that, even at bedtimes and naptimes :).

 

HTH!