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Sonlight Core G (ancients) question


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I'm looking at possibly getting SL Core G for next year (which covers the ancient side of world history), but I'm not sure if I'm stretching the age limits of my kids. I think my 11 (will be 12 in the fall) yo could handle it fine. I'm not sure about my 9 (will be 10 in the fall) yo. Is this too big of a stretch? Both are excellent readers, but the 9/10yo has a shorter attn span for more difficult material. I was looking over Core F and just didn't like the looks of it for us. The comments in the 1st 3 weeks of the Core F teacher's guide kept talking about "how difficult" the books were, and it just doesn't meet my history goals for my children, anyway. We just covered American History and State History this year, so I don't really want to repeat that with Cores D & E. Or, any other options? (We've used SOTW before, and could definitely see using it again, but would need to add other things in - we've used it very lightly before by just reading thru it and not doing the activities or supplemental reading).

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We use the books from the World History (old cores 6 and 7) and the US History (core 100) in our middle school rotation. The exception, 2 books in Core 6 that are listed as 14 and up and one book in Core 100 (Christy). I also take out The Trojan War in Core 6 (boring) and add in Black Ships Before Troy, Black Horses for the King, and Detectives in Togas if not already read. I also made Tara, Daughter of the Nile a read aloud for content. (My DD did the first 24-26 weeks of Core 6 when she was 9/10.) I also had to add in lots of extras because she is a super avid reader and wanted to spend more time on ancients before we got to the middle ages. Many people on the SL boards will tell you the content is to mature, but Catherine Called Birdy and Mary, Bloody Mary are routine books in middle school literature where I live. I didn't have a problem with them. YMMV.

 

If anything else you could pick and choose readers for your younger DC. If that doesn't sound like an option you could do the SOTW books, and add whatever of the literature you wanted from lists from SL, WTM, MFW, HOD, etc. and end up with something similar.

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I had considered core G for my 5th grader for next year's ancient's studies. She is not a strong reader, but I thought I could do the core over 2 years to make it more manageable. It would cover ancients and middle ages, I believe. That was the only way I thought I could make it work into a 4 year history cycle and accommodate a 10 year old.

 

Paula

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I haven't used Core G yet, so I can't answer specifically. I will say that I don't think the books in Core F are hard. I have also heard a lot of people say that Core G was a walk in the park after Core F (but I believe this is because of the research segement (EHE)).

 

On the other hand, my daughter is already using a Core above her grade level and I really wouldn't want to push it to two cores above unless the difficulty of the books really levels off after Core F. My daughter has really enjoyed every core we've done, and she is a very bright student, but there are so many times when I can see that my son has gotten so much more out of the reading than she has just because he is older.

 

My daughter will be 10 when we begin Core G next year, but she'll be 11 in November.

 

Lisa

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My 11y/o son struggled with the readings. He completely understands the history stuff, but many of the books have been tough and boring to him. He's a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" kind of reader. :) I don't have regrets about doing Core G, but it was tough. We're going to do F, then H for 7th and 8th.

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If the 9 yr old has a short attention span, you may find the longer readings of that core hard to do. If you really want to use that core, maybe just expect the 9 yr old to read fewer readers at a slower pace and don't expect as much comprehension from the read alouds and history read alouds or slow those down.

 

I am using that core in the fall with a 12 and 10 year old. The 10 year old is a level below what's recommended for that core, but she is a voracious reader and her comprehension and logic skills are advanced. My 12 yr old may have more difficulty with some of it than his sister will, because he's my reluctant reader and has some auditory processing and comprehension issues. So it's really hard to say, just going by age, how a child will do with it. You can always just slow it down if you need to, I plan to do it slower than scheduled since core G and H cover 4 years of history in 2 years and that's a bit fast.

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Using Core G has worked really, really well for us. Because it uses the SOTW books, even my little guys have enjoyed it. All 5 boys listen to the read alouds, and I actually read both the readers and the read-aloud books out loud because my oldest is a slow reader and was getting very discouraged trying to keep up. My ds11 is a faster reader and was doing just fine (we started when they were 11 & 10). I had intended to have them read the readers themselves after a semester of me reading, but the books were so good I wanted to read them aloud so I could get in on them, too.

 

I've got SOTW on CD, so we listen to that and I make all 5 boys color the activity sheet while we listen. I read most of the Foster readings aloud (we didn't care for these books, to be honest--they were pretty dry), though sometimes I had my older two read them on their own, and I also read the Usborne selections out loud most of the time. I read all of the poetry aloud.

 

We use Map Trek for geography. We have really enjoyed almost all of the books. This is the first time I've used Sonlight, and I'm looking foward to starting H in the next two weeks (finally finishing G ).

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