Sonlight D+E or D and E ???

[abrightmom]

One option I am considering for my boys (will be 8 and 10) is Sonlight. We have read 6 of the books from Core D and we have been in AmericanHistory for awhile. I think I would prefer to read the one year option with them but my younger son is not advanced and isn't within the age range. He is also the more sensitive of the two. He does love the reading aloud though.

 

Would D+E be a poor choice for combining them? I don't know how much reading is really involved in these cores. We love to read aloud and I'd consider reading through both but really don't want to give more than 12 - 14 months to the Am History cores. When we read Core 1/B I had no problems with the schedule and often read ahead.

 

We are strongly considering Sonlight Science E for them as well. :001_smile:

[SebastianCat]

We've done SL's P4/5 through C and will be starting D in the fall. My kids will also be 10 & 8. I've pre-read the entire Core D this year as I slowly purchased books used. We will be doing the Core a little slower than written, adding in Homeschool in the Woods Time Traveler CDs for some hands on activities.

 

I would probably go with D because of the ages of your kids and your younger child's sensitivity. From what I've read about the D+E Core, it uses books heavily from Core E, which contains a LOT of war, darker themes, and sadness. I don't think I'd want to rush into E if I was planning to follow the Core as written with kids this age, just because of the content.

 

If you plan to stay with SL following Cores D and E, your younger child will likely struggle in Core F if he's younger than 10 or 11. I've read that a lot of people consider 12 or 13 the "ideal" age for F.

 

So with all of that, I'd probably do Core D this year, and either skip or supplement the books you've already read. Or if you want to do D+E, I'd plan to supplement some of the sadder or more intense books with easier ones for the sake of your more sensitive child, then plan to do something other than SL the following year.

 

We don't use SL science so I can't help you there.

[abrightmom]

:001_smile: Thank-you. I was really wondering about the content in Core E and I don't know that I've read ANY of the books. What you've shared makes sense because Sonlight doesn't recommend Core D+E for 8 year olds at all. They suggest it for 10+ and "mature 9 year olds". :D

[PeterPan]

Some people add the Abeka4 history text onto the SL american history cores. It would be a good bridge between an 8 and a 10 yo. The Story of the USA (Escher) books SL uses in the cores will bring up topics that appeal to your older and which you can discuss. Then you just add on whatever SL books work for the particular dc.

 

Oh the joys of history! :)

[abrightmom]

Elizabeth,

 

Yes, joys!

 

My husband actually wants us to use VP online as our base and then just enjoy a leisurely stroll through American History with SL Cores 3 and 4 (no pressure as to the pace). We just love to read together and these Cores are chock full of awesome books. We can follow that up with Core F (eastern hemisphere) in a few years. The online class is going to run itself and I LOVE to read to them.....

 

Between VP's follow up readings and SL's readers my boys would have a great variety of books to read at their levels.

 

Anyway, I missed church today (family went without me) and I'm sitting in my jammies planning the school year 2012-13 while willing this current one to END. :001_smile:

 

ETA: Just looked at the Abeka text. Dare I say I like the looks of it? I have steered clear of Abeka's history because I have HEARD that they are over the top about America being God's chosen nation, teaching that the white men did no wrong, and yadda yadda yadda. Am I going to find this flavor in this text? I DO like the sample and my boys would really love it. I know they would because, well, we love history. :) I'm definitely going to ponder this as MY focus with them while VP runs the cycle for us. We are going to be running the states & capitals study alongside WHATEVER we do so this ties it all up nicely for me without being too much work. Sonlight is seriously open and go for me and VP online is click and go. Our States & Capitals book and Story of USA will give us something to WRITE and DO each week. Boy, I think this plan is the right one. I am LOVING it right now except that I think DH doesn't realize how expensive it's going to be! :)

Edited May 6, 2012 by abrightmom

[PeterPan]

You're such a hoot! I don't fully understand your plan, but I'm glad it's coming together for you! :)

 

And yes, I'm planning today too, hehe... I've got the ipad and plan to head back out to the SUNSHINE. I should have gotten this thing YEARS ago. They should have INVENTED it years ago, lol. With the spreadsheet and wordprocessor functions, you can sit wherever you want and make your plans and still be with your kids, not cooped up! Love it!!

 

PS. Congrats on getting your dh on board! So great when that happens. :)

[freeindeed]

I am currently using Core D+E with a (just turned) nine-year-old and an eleven-year old. While we are enjoying it, I would have preferred to use Core D one year & then Core E the next. I feel that it would have been better to move through things more slowly instead of jamming it all into one year. I'll be using Core F this upcoming school year, but we're stretching it into a two-year program & I'm adding in/substituting books for my younger child.

[abrightmom]

You're such a hoot! I don't fully understand your plan, but I'm glad it's coming together for you! :)

 

And yes, I'm planning today too, hehe... I've got the ipad and plan to head back out to the SUNSHINE. I should have gotten this thing YEARS ago. They should have INVENTED it years ago, lol. With the spreadsheet and wordprocessor functions, you can sit wherever you want and make your plans and still be with your kids, not cooped up! Love it!!

 

PS. Congrats on getting your dh on board! So great when that happens. :)

 

I killed my iPad battery this morning so I am upstairs on the iMac, my First Love. :D Not a whole lotta sun yet but it will be here later....

 

ETA: WHAT SPREADSHEET on the iPad?

 

My plan is to start VP online with OT/AE and let the boys take it at their pace. We will start soon because they want to and why not? We live in OR. It rains a lot, even in summer. We don't have a yard (so sad) so they don't get to be outside just playing like they really should be. Gotta have some indoor structure. I don't care how fast or slow as long as they complete it within the year. My oldest will fly though. Then, we'll pick up with NT/GR after that (maybe there will be another group buy by then). I don't have to DO a whole lot other than sit with my younger and watch with him. I'll make sure they are doing the follow up reading as well and we'll read some chapter books from the catalog. Easy peasy for Mama.

 

We'll enjoy Sonlight Core D starting this fall (we'll be in a VP groove by then and have summer fun winding down, ready for more indoor reading time) but I don't CARE about the pace since we can take 3 years to finish D and E (their Am. History cores). Basically, I guess we'll have two history streams but it gives ME a framework for reading good books to them and not missing the wonderful American history books before my oldest is past them or out of time to enjoy them.

 

If it doesn't make sense, oh well. My brain loves this plan and my kids will too. The VP/SL combo was DH's idea. He LOVES it and sees it as feasible and ideal for OUR kiddos and this family. It's how we roll I guess.....

[Donna T.]

I used the combined year (D/E) with my boys for 3rd and 6th grades. My oldest son is the more sensitive one. All of us really loved it and I'm glad I did the combined year. I didn't finish the last couple of months. I'd have to look back to see just when we stopped, but I know we didn't finish all of it. The combined core is very full and it is alot of reading. We love to read and we like Sonlight very much, but it was alot and when we got to the more serious tone towards the end, I just dropped it.

 

All in all, it worked well for us. I knew I wanted my youngest to do Bigger Hearts anyways, so it didn't bother me to skip some of the content at the end with him. He has used Bigger Hearts with the extensions this year for 4th grade. He likes Bigger Hearts but he LOVED Core D/E and has literally begged me to do SL with him again. My oldest, a huge bookworm, did great with it and we all learned a ton.

 

I think you could go either way and have it work out. We ended up adding all of the books from Core D that were omitted from D/E into it because they didn't want to miss any of it. It really just depends on how much time you want to spend on it. And even though there are some serious books, there are also plenty of fun ones. It's kind of ironic that the books that I was most concerned about were the ones that my youngest loved the most! Those were Walk the World's Rim and Johnny Tremain. But, he loved them all.

[PeterPan]

You asked what spreadsheet. I assumed I was going to get the Numbers app and then the reviews were SO horrible, I didn't spend the $10. Cheap me. So I spent the day use a table in Pages. I got the Pages app when we got the ipad, and while it's fine sometimes it's frustrating. Like today I couldn't find a way to tweak features of the table that I should have been able to tweak. So I guess I'm going to have to haul it into the imac, beautify, convert to a pdf, then pop it into notability to let her check things off.

 

Maybe I'm missing something? Have you tried making tables in Pages? If Numbers has more features, I'd be happy to buy. I mean it was basic stuff like not figuring out how to slide the column widths or fix them, how to change the font size, etc. Surely that's in there somewhere?!?!

 

I did look at some other spreadsheet apps, but nothing really jumped out at me as being popular. I'll keep looking. Wish those Well-Planned Day people had their app done. I'm just doing my summer planning right now, so it's nothing major (12 1/2 weeks, just a few things). What I wish I could do though is take my lesson breakdowns for each subject and turn them into daily checklists. Maybe the WPD software (computer) could and then I could print that out or export it as a pdf that I could import into notability? That would take care of it for me.

 

We're at the place in our lives where some things are becoming non-negotiable. Before it was limited non-negotiable (just within a week, whatever). Now I have this bigger stakes thing because the one subject sets you up for the next, ugh.

 

Oh for pity's sake, was it well-planned day software or Olly??? Now I'm totally confused, lol. I'll go look. :)

 

I'm back! It was Olly. I think I'm going to finally download the trial and see what I can do with it. I was pretty overwhelmed at first, but I think planning out my summer stuff using it is a fabulous thing to try. Watching the videos on their site, i'm seeing where it could have done everything I did today with my crunchy table but then made it easy to drag onto a calendar and bump lessons and more. What I'm HOPING is then I can generate some sort of pdf file that she'll enjoy using. I don't really know how it works and whether it gives printable output or helps you make daily or weekly checklists. We're pretty dependent on weekly checklists...

Edited May 6, 2012 by OhElizabeth

[kolamum]

My 8.5 year old is currently doing E & it's not an issue. I don't consider this student advance, but I also don't have him read any of the books to himself as we've got two students right now in this core so rather then have children fighting over books I'm reading it to them.

 

For me the choice would come down to will you stick with Sonlight here on out? You'll probably find that you'll need to separate them down the road due to the age difference. How much of the American History that you've all ready covered has your younger one participated in?

[Dinsfamily]

You asked what spreadsheet. I assumed I was going to get the Numbers app and then the reviews were SO horrible, I didn't spend the $10. Cheap me. So I spent the day use a table in Pages. I got the Pages app when we got the ipad, and while it's fine sometimes it's frustrating. Like today I couldn't find a way to tweak features of the table that I should have been able to tweak. So I guess I'm going to have to haul it into the imac, beautify, convert to a pdf, then pop it into notability to let her check things off.

 

Maybe I'm missing something? Have you tried making tables in Pages? If Numbers has more features, I'd be happy to buy. I mean it was basic stuff like not figuring out how to slide the column widths or fix them, how to change the font size, etc. Surely that's in there somewhere?!?!

 

I did look at some other spreadsheet apps, but nothing really jumped out at me as being popular. I'll keep looking. Wish those Well-Planned Day people had their app done. I'm just doing my summer planning right now, so it's nothing major (12 1/2 weeks, just a few things). What I wish I could do though is take my lesson breakdowns for each subject and turn them into daily checklists. Maybe the WPD software (computer) could and then I could print that out or export it as a pdf that I could import into notability? That would take care of it for me.

 

We're at the place in our lives where some things are becoming non-negotiable. Before it was limited non-negotiable (just within a week, whatever). Now I have this bigger stakes thing because the one subject sets you up for the next, ugh.

 

Oh for pity's sake, was it well-planned day software or Olly??? Now I'm totally confused, lol. I'll go look. :)

 

I'm back! It was Olly. I think I'm going to finally download the trial and see what I can do with it. I was pretty overwhelmed at first, but I think planning out my summer stuff using it is a fabulous thing to try. Watching the videos on their site, i'm seeing where it could have done everything I did today with my crunchy table but then made it easy to drag onto a calendar and bump lessons and more. What I'm HOPING is then I can generate some sort of pdf file that she'll enjoy using. I don't really know how it works and whether it gives printable output or helps you make daily or weekly checklists. We're pretty dependent on weekly checklists...

 

Totally OT but...I love Numbers on my iPad. I use it more than Pages for hs scheduling. I love having folder inside Numbers for each of my boys which contains their scheduling and progress for different subjects. I also created a spreadsheet with check boxes to keep track of our weekly process. I'm very dependent on weekly checklists too. I think most of the bad reviews are from people looking for something as robust as Excel on a PC. It isn't close to that and I do wish it had a few more features, but it gets the job done for now.

 

Now off to check Olly. I'm not sure I need an in-depth scheduler yet but I would like something that's specific for school with a few dedicated features.

[abrightmom]

Thanks Elizabeth for spelling out the issues with spreadsheets.

 

I might look at Numbers and I'm glad to hear a favorable review. :001_smile: Olly looks promising but I would *prefer* to have the super duper accessibility of the iPad. :001_smile:

[PeterPan]

Totally OT but...I love Numbers on my iPad. I use it more than Pages for hs scheduling. I love having folder inside Numbers for each of my boys which contains their scheduling and progress for different subjects. I also created a spreadsheet with check boxes to keep track of our weekly process. I'm very dependent on weekly checklists too. I think most of the bad reviews are from people looking for something as robust as Excel on a PC. It isn't close to that and I do wish it had a few more features, but it gets the job done for now.

 

Now off to check Olly. I'm not sure I need an in-depth scheduler yet but I would like something that's specific for school with a few dedicated features.

 

Oh Taira, bless you! I didn't want to spend the $10 if it wasn't going to work, but I think you're right, that it's perfectly adequate for *our* purposes. So an easy question hopefully. If I make a spreadsheet in Numbers on the ipad with my lessons in sequence and then another spreadsheet that's the checklist for the week, can I just drag between them? That would be perfection. :)

 

I played with Olly last night and liked it, but it doesn't get me all the way to IMPLEMENTED, kwim? It's not enough to have their SL-style weekly schedule on my big screen. I need a checklist on my ipad. Non-negotiable must. We've spent all day with dd wondering what she was doing and me going "but it's all on the big screen in Olly!" Won't cut it. Gotta be a checklist on the ipad.

 

Well cool, I'm so glad you shared that. Thank you! :)

[PeterPan]

Thanks Elizabeth for spelling out the issues with spreadsheets.

 

I might look at Numbers and I'm glad to hear a favorable review. :001_smile: Olly looks promising but I would *prefer* to have the super duper accessibility of the iPad. :001_smile:

 

I think they're going toward having Olly sync with the ipad at some point. We'll see. It's just not there yet and I need workable now, not later.

[abrightmom]

I think they're going toward having Olly sync with the ipad at some point. We'll see. It's just not there yet and I need workable now, not later.

 

:iagree: I will try Numbers.

[Dinsfamily]

Oh Taira, bless you! I didn't want to spend the $10 if it wasn't going to work, but I think you're right, that it's perfectly adequate for *our* purposes. So an easy question hopefully. If I make a spreadsheet in Numbers on the ipad with my lessons in sequence and then another spreadsheet that's the checklist for the week, can I just drag between them? That would be perfection. :)

 

I played with Olly last night and liked it, but it doesn't get me all the way to IMPLEMENTED, kwim? It's not enough to have their SL-style weekly schedule on my big screen. I need a checklist on my ipad. Non-negotiable must. We've spent all day with dd wondering what she was doing and me going "but it's all on the big screen in Olly!" Won't cut it. Gotta be a checklist on the ipad.

 

Well cool, I'm so glad you shared that. Thank you! :)

 

You're welcome! I almost didn't buy it because of the reviews either. I still miss some of my Excel functions, but I can live without them.

 

You can't drag in between spreadsheets. It works more like pages in that way. The best you can do is cut and paste. I do wish they had a cross-referencing function. That would be nice.

 

I'll still be on the lookout for a dedicated hs program to replace Numbers, but I'll be pretty picky as I don't need much more than Numbers has to offer for now. I do wish someone would create the perfect program that creates a SL-style schedule for me. An automatically updated SL-style schedule including all my subjects that would be customizable by day, yet isn't too fussy... Any programmers out there?

Edited May 7, 2012 by Dinsfamily
Clarification

[PeterPan]

Taira, the weekly schedule Olly turns out is similar to SL. You can download the trial and see what you think. I'm at the place in life (hear my old woman talk, hahahaha!!!) where I really want to drag from one column to another. Olly does that in a pretty nice way. It's actually about 85% of the way there. I had a few quirks. If they get checkboxes onto that weekly schedule and a couple other little things, I can overlook the rest while they fix 'em.

 

Now to go ponder Numbers! :)

[hearts4homeschooling]

We really enjoyed Cores 3 and 4 (D and E), doing each for a year. I can't imagine zipping through that much history in one year as a combined core. My children were 8 and 11 during Core D and 9 and 12 during Core E. They loved it.

 

And we are likely back to Sonlight Core F this coming year for my now 11 y/o daughter!