keglinja Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 I am trying to decide on curriculum for my ds11 (6th) for next year. My plan was for him to do MOH2 along with readers (Middle Ages). We enjoyed MOH1 last year, but he did much of it independently. I keep being drawn to Sonlight's Core F Eastern Hemisphere program, but am fairly sure it will be too much for my younger 2, thus, ds11 will end up working on it mostly on his own. Does Core 5 lend itself to that or would that be too difficult? My hope would be to overlap with my younger 2 some with the read-alouds and mission focus. I have not been able to find many reviews on here for Core F/5. Can you share with me your experiences with it and what you and your kids liked or did not like about it? Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firestar Academy Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 :bigear::bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keglinja Posted July 9, 2011 Author Share Posted July 9, 2011 :lurk5: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mims Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Love the books and the focus. It really introduces you to a lot of the world we typically ignore. I am an evangelical Christian so I loved the missionary stories also (I think about 4 or 5). Your kids are introduced to other religions. The books that introduce these other religions tend to be fairly neutral fiction books so you need to be aware and quick to discuss (the IG does have a lot of helps). My preference is to definitely read the read alouds and I know it is helpful to walk your child through the first couple of weeks of the Eastern Hemisphere Explorer. It has a lot of research and activities that the kids need to figure out how to do. There are a lot of suggestions and discussions on the Sonlight board about how to pull along younger kids such as readers and picture books. We really enjoyed watching netflix movies to go along with it and even did meals for the different cultures which is not my typical. It was my favorite with my older kids and I'm just getting ready to start with my 6th grader. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strawberry Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 We enjoyed Core 5 this last year, and using Galloping the Globe and two great reading lists I found that match up early readers along with this core, it worked for the whole family. I loved that it was a geography based year. I didn't like that now that's it's over, and we're heading into the 6th grade, we are out of sync with the 4 year cycle. You leave American History behind, dive into "world" history, and now what?! We aren't going back to ancient history, so I'm trying to decide between modern or renniasance (sp?). That's my compaint. I don't think I'll use SL in the future, but Core 5 was a great way to end. I'll try to find those reading list links (time running out at the library!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandy in TN Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Even without the missionary stories, Core 5 contains the best selection of read-alouds and readers out of all the SL cores. Even if you are not Christian, even if you can't spend a whole year on Eastern Hemisphere cultures, consider using the readers and read-alouds. Mandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missmoe Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 My dd completed Core 5 mostly independently. It was one of her favorite years. I really liked the projects that were spread throughout the year. She liked that she got to choose from among many different projects. I think the books from the year are outstanding. I think it would be great to add in picture books for your younger kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keglinja Posted July 9, 2011 Author Share Posted July 9, 2011 Thanks for the feedback about the readers and read-alouds - I was pretty certain they would be amazing!! I am tempted to purchase the IG and books, or just the books, and dabble with it slowly, while still having ds11 work through MOH2 (his preference when asked was to study Middle Ages)... What do most past users think of the Explorer pages and World Book CD-Rom? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swirl Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 (edited) We used it for DS when he was in 5th grade. I wished we had not, in fact I'm not going to save it for DD, and will sell it later this summer. Reason #1 My son really disliked the Eastern Hemisphere Explorer part. I've never known him to dread doing any schoolwork before this. It was designed to go with the 2007 World Book CD-ROM and they never updated it to go with the new World Book CD-ROMS that they were selling. (We had 2009.) He would spend 1-2 hours a day searching for answers in World Book and online (with me helping), and still not find all the answers. It was terribly frustrating for him. I finally put a 45 minute limit on this. After this time period was up, I handed him my teacher's guide and he copied the answers. I thought Sonlight was better than this. They were well aware of this problem. You can find thread after thread after thread after thread about this on their forums. Their answer to the problem was not to fix EHE, but tell you that all the answers are not in WB and they want you to learn to search elsewhere. I lost a lot a faith in this company over this product. It was a problem for a lot of people. They knew it, and just chose to ignore it. Reason #2 We did not like spending and entire school year studying just the Eastern Hemisphere. Sure, I thought a lot of the books were good, but I will not devote an entire school year to them again. (I actually liked them better than DS did.) Oh yeah- DS was upset to learn that I'm going to sell this. His only consolation was that his sister was going to have to suffer through it too someday. :D Edited July 9, 2011 by Swirl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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