Sonlight lovers please help me decide...please?

[Caroline4kids]

I will admit right off the bat that I am not much for schedule following, but...with my critera as follows do you think Sonlight would be a good fit for me anyway? We follow CM methods.

 

1. We read lots of books aloud after supper and do not have TV. I get tired of having to stop books that are not that great or do not hold their (kids and dh) interest. Library trips are hit or miss and it wears me out searching for good books.

 

2. We travel A LOT for the military, thousands of miles every year and I like to own books, just in case they get lost.

 

3. My kids are not avid readers...yet. I think they have had too much twaddle (Captain Underpants, Calvin and Hobbes, and the like) and I want books that they will like but have no idea what to suggest to them.

 

4. I love the concept of hands-on projects, but I don't really like them! This has taken me six years to figure out.

 

5. We are focusing on Latin and Math for 2+ hours a day. Can Sonlight be integrated without me losing my mind?

 

6. Ok, really the last one... I have a little girl that is 4 and loves to sit on my lap while I read. This may be the only pre-school she gets and I really want her to be part of her older brother's school day.

 

Help Puleeeeze! :confused:

[Donna T.]

I mostly follow CM methods and use SL. I am currently teaching from two Cores though my youngest son actually prefers his brother's Core. I also want to own the bulk of our books. We enjoy going to the library but I don't want to have to depend on it for our "school" books. Both of my sons love books and would rather be reading or listening to me read than anything else. We often do our SL read-alouds at bedtime. We also read at meal times and enjoy eating lunch outside while reading SL. My oldest son is a real "book worm". He reads all the time. He wakes up reading and goes to bed reading and I've always attributed that to the positive experience he had during his K year when we used SL Core K. My youngest son isn't reading fluently yet but he still loves books.

 

Adding activities to SL is easy but not necessary. There is map work and a timeline.

 

No need to lose your mind with SL! It is very easy to use. I use the schedule though alot of CM moms don't... they just read the books without the Instructor's Guide. SL is very flexibile. You can read as much or as little as you want each day. You do not have to read everything in any given day. I follow the schedule but I read at our own pace. I go in the order that SL lays out but I may not read everything they schedule, and only that, for that day. We may do two days worth of reading from a book and not pick it back up again for a few days. That kind of thing.

 

There is a yahoo group for SLers who use CM methods.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sl-cm/

 

Because my oldest son reads so much, I really needed something like SL - just to keep him supplied for his day to day reading. We still use the library, but he has a good bit on his book shelf already.

 

For us, SL is not a nine month a year curriculum. The books are books that we want to read, so it's not like we are looking forward to the end of the school year so we can be done with it. You can lighten your daily load by reading some of the books in the summer or during vacations. We always take SL books with us wherever we go.

 

Good luck in your decision! It does sound like SL or something similiar would be a good fit for you.

[KellyGirl]

:iagree:With Donna that Sonlight is very flexible and easy to use. I'm not all that familiar with CM, but have been using Sonlight for a few years. I am confident that Sonlight is the reason my boys love to read. You will have no shortage of good books if you buy a Sonlight core.

 

As for schedule, I think we spend about 45 min each morning on Sonlight core, not including the read aloud. We tend to do the read aloud at bed time and it takes 20 to 30 min. I'm also using Sonlight LA 3 and that doesn't take more than 15 min most days.

 

It is very helpful if you can allow yourself to not be bound by the schedule. Sometimes, if I get behind on read alouds, I pick up one as a book on tape. Other times, we put Sonlight on pause to explore something more thoughly (we just spent 2 extra weeks on Jamestown).

 

My younger 2 are preschool age, and they have gleaned A LOT from sitting in on Sonlight. My 3yo can't count past 5, but she can name the continents and states on the eastern seabord of the U.S. Some of the read alouds are over their heads, but some they really enjoy. And the history can easily be brought down to their level.

 

I feel you on the projects. I always wanted to be the mom that is into all the cool projects, but I often lack the motivation to do them. But I have found some great resources on line for when I want to suplement a project with our Sonlight studies.

[Caroline4kids]

I really appreciate the insight you ladies have presented. I think it would be a perfect fit. I am going to join that yahoo group and glean what I can there. I have been looking at Sonlight for years, but have always thought I could just put something like it together myself. I am now realizing that that time and energy could be better spent.....actually reading books!

 

Thank you! :001_smile:

[birchbark]

I am trying SL for the first time this year. My opinion so far is that I love the books-- hate the schedule. I discovered I am not a schedule-follower either. When you purchase a SL core, some of what you are paying for is the Instructor's Guide, which has the schedule and supplementary quizzes, maps, etc. For me, the IG has turned out to be more of a burden than a blessing. As I've heard others mention, there is a bit of flipping around if you want to get all the bases "covered."

 

I think it will be different for everyone, but I'm thinking that it would be cheaper and easier for us to simply purchase the books and read them on our own schedule. My son enjoys them so much, I don't need to worry about them getting read!

[siloam]

Caroline,

 

The only think I would add to what has been said is that if you are going to get caught up in doing all the levels in a certain amount of time, then it might not work for you. I also have a LA/Math focus and only allot about 15-20 mins of history reading a day (though the oldest two read more independently), but it was hard for me to finish a SL Core in less than a year and a half. While it was MY problem I also couldn't help but get frusterated about not being able to finish all the cores. At least for my oldest who loves history.

 

BUT the real reason why SL didn't work out long term was because I have several hands on learners. The rest I was living with. I don't do hands on well either, so adding it was like pulling teeth. Ugh! SL is now what I plan to do on my own when the kids are all out of the house. :D

 

Heather

[chiguirre]

My opinion so far is that I love the books-- hate the schedule. I discovered I am not a schedule-follower either. When you purchase a SL core, some of what you are paying for is the Instructor's Guide, which has the schedule and supplementary quizzes, maps, etc. For me, the IG has turned out to be more of a burden than a blessing. As I've heard others mention, there is a bit of flipping around if you want to get all the bases "covered."

 

I think it will be different for everyone, but I'm thinking that it would be cheaper and easier for us to simply purchase the books and read them on our own schedule. My son enjoys them so much, I don't need to worry about them getting read!

 

:iagree: I'm glad I bought old IGs because I've never been able to follow the schedule for more than 2 weeks. We get ahead in some books, behind in others. Finally, I ended up typing up a list of all the books I had for a Core and added the new ones from the catalog and used that as a checklist. This was much more doable for us. We're almost done with Core K and we do it a bit at a time between other studies, but it's worked much better! IMHO, if you're not a strict schedule follower, make your own list and save yourself the aggravation of the IG.

[HollyBee]

So then, other than the schedule, does the IG add anything? I'm thinking things like discussion questions (with answers)? Or is it just reading the books and the IG gives you the schedule?

 

Holly

[chiguirre]

I bought both a 1999 K and a 2004 K to really compare them because I was pretty sure we'd be SLers at least until Core 100 and I wanted to know if spending extra on the new IGs was worth it to me. There are maps, vocabulary and discussion questions in the 2004 IG (which is very similar to current editions, but I bought it in 2006 when I was planning ahead to K, then it sat on the shelf for a while :D). Both 1999 and 2004 contain notes to parents and suggestions for practical activities for 5/6 yos. In fact, quite often they are exactly the same.

 

We ended up just using a globe or our Walmart placemat map of the USA to look for places and IMHO the b&w maps in the IG weren't that great. I tend to just discuss vocabulary as we go (whenever the kids look lost) and just ask them to narrate at the end of a section, so for us the IG wasn't very useful. But, it's usefulness depends on your teaching style, so if you don't feel confident leading discussions or explaining vocabulary, you might love the IG. If you're used to reading aloud already, it's probably not as useful.

 

I want to love Sonlight and Winterpromise, but I've finally come to the realization that they are not a good fit for us if I try to follow their schedules. If I use them as a list of resources, then they're wonderful. On the plus side for me, both companies post their catalogs on their websites and I can usually buy the books for a core used for about half price. I do think it's worth buying the books you're going to read so that you don't have to rush to return them to the library and you can consult them again, especially the Usborne books.

[KellyGirl]

Admittidly, there is not much to the guides. But I find the maps and vocab (and sometimes the questions/discusion guides) helpful. For example if we are reading a book about sailors and there is lots of sailing terminology - rather than go for a dictionary or computer everytime I find I word we don't know, I open the IG. It will have all the words my kids should need help with given in context and then defined.

 

The same with the maps...I admit that I didn't know exactly where Barbados was so I just checked the Sonlight map then showed my kids the same spot on the globe.

 

With core 3/4 you will also get answers to the questions in History of the USA. The LA gives you answers to the Word Study books. That makes life much easier when correcting the days work. Not that I can't sit there and figure out if the answers are right, but it goes MUCH quicker with an answer key.

 

So, I guess I would echo the idea of buy it used. Esp. if you don't know if you want to follow the schedule.

[Caroline4kids]

I went to our homeschool consignment store and I bought the 3+4 IG for $15. I bought the LA for $6 (although I am going to use Queen's). I thought for 6 bucks I could beef up Queens if I feel like it.

 

Then... I went to hslibrarybuilder.com and bought all the books I wanted but I left out 10 of them which I didn't think I would use anyway, like the Landmark History of American People and the USA workbooks. I think I want to use a different spine. They didn't seem very cm-ish and I didn't really want to go through and edit a book at length anyway.

 

Any other American History spine suggestions ? :bigear: