Is Sonlight a good program?

[sjwhit]

I realize that's a broad question, but here's the thing. I have gone back and forth between whether to continue with a full core from Memoria Press (which is what we've done for 2 years now), or to just use MP for the 3 R's plus Latin and use Sonlight for everything else. I've only got one child, so I have little homeschooling experience, which makes it difficult for me to make a decision. I got the Sonlight IG in the mail and it *seems* great, albeit not as cohesive as MP from what I can tell. I love classical pedagogy, even if I am very much still learning about it all. The problem with SL is that you can't find much on the internet about whether or not it is sufficient and rigorous enough to stay with throughout a child's education. That's one thing I'm BIG on -- choosing a curriculum and STICKING with it. The thought of jumping around and second guessing myself for the next 10 years stresses me out.

To sum up, my line of thinking goes like this:
- MP is wonderful but I worry that there's not much "delight" in the program
- SL seems delight-filled, and I love the emphasis on exposure to other cultures, but also seems a little disjointed, and also the Usborne books as history spines really throw me. Ha!

Thoughts? 

[freesia]

I loved the years we did Sonlight. I can’t see your child’s age from my phone, but, especially in the early years, do what brings you joy. It is most important to be consistent and make progress in math, learning to read and writing. The rest is honestly gravy. Sonlight is full of rich books. Even after we “left” Sonlight for  my oldest, all my youngers read our favorite Sonlight books and used parts of the Cores.  It is definitely rigorous and rich enough to use through your child’s education. We only switched to join friends in a co-op which my oldest needed at the time. 
 

I would also encourage you to try to take a deep breath. There’s no perfect out there. The curriculum is not what will define your homeschool. New things will pop up. You and your child will change and need new things. I used to make pages of long term curriculum plans. I found that, particularly in high school, we never followed them. (And I am a huge planner.)

[Laurel-in-CA]

We loved Sonlight, but always did Rod & Staff grammar and IEW writing. But the books were wonderful and my kids are still readers!!

[8filltheheart]

Seconding @freesia.  Curriculum is a tool.  It should not control what you do.  Kids change.  They accelerate.  They stall.  They develop interests.  There is no such thing as a great option all the way through graduation bc pre-packaged curriculum is designed for the mythological avg student with avg criteria defined by the designer or the state.  Homeschooling CAN be so much more.  (Unfortunately, the current trend amg homeschoolers is not to take advantage of homeschooling but instead simply turn it into school at home checking off the exact same boxes as every other classroom educator.)

In terms of MP, they are brick and mortar education packaged for the home.  I personally do not believe that public schools represent a quality education, so I wouldn't want to replicate that at home. (My kids graduate from high school having never filled out a single worksheet. 🙂 ) Sonlight's approach is a good one for "teaching" one how to create courses as a teacher.  Reading lots of great books, teaching writing across subject matter....that approach is easy to adjust to individual reading levels and interests.  It opens up a world of opportunities for learning just about anything they want to learn and there is no ceiling to content.  (Textbooks are limiting.  The information is preselected by a textbook committee, taught in completely synthesized snippets, and then typically regurgitated in workbook form.)  Sonlight is step up from a workbook approach.  

[Clarita]

8 hours ago, sjwhit said:

That's one thing I'm BIG on -- choosing a curriculum and STICKING with it. The thought of jumping around and second guessing myself for the next 10 years stresses me out.

Originally I thought so too. Now DS is only 7 and sticking with it in terms of an all-in-one curriculum feels overrated. When we left it and found other stuff it wasn't stressful. Some subjects we are even "doing our own thing". The thing is the all-in-one curriculums do similar things over and over again through the year and the years. There's a routine to it all. So we leave because maybe our children have different interests than the assigned reading every year (that's why we didn't stick with ours because DS really likes dragons, mystery and action and a lot of the all-in-one curriculum has a lot of nature/farm books). DS is also advanced in math so we had to find a math curriculum that fit how he prefers to learn and his speed. 

It's not stressful because deciding is about what makes learning more enjoyable (sometimes just more tolerable). You don't second guess because you see the evidence of progress or stress right in front of you every day. 

[Ellie]

A friend said that Sonlight changed her life (for the good, of course!) and she wished she had done it from the beginning (she started hsing before Sonlight was invented). Her ds was older, maybe middle school age, maybe high school, when she started.

[wendyroo]

My kids are part of a shared time program through the public school that pays for extracurriculars and requires that we primarily use Bookshark (secular Sonlight). I put up with Bookshark because the public school funding ($3000 x 3 kids) is worth a lot of aggravation. But, for us, Bookshark is not rigorous or delightful, and we do as little Bookshark as possible so we have time for more individualized education that is more enriching and less busywork.

This year we are using Bookshark History B and G, ELA 3 and G, and Science E. My kids find the history books boring, and I don't like that they don't seem to include any differing perspectives, primary sources or logic stage thinking skills even in History G. I find many of the ELA assignments ridiculous, boring and counter-productive. We are entirely doing our own, separate ELA on top of Bookshark's, and doing the Bookshark assignments together as practice in how one can create meaningless, teacher-pleasing drivel quickly without fixating on the inanity of the exercise. The science is so, so dry, simplistic and surface-level, and every year more or less covers the same topics. I agree entirely with Clarita that, "all-in-one curriculums do similar things over and over again through the year and the years".

[sjwhit]

17 hours ago, Laurel-in-CA said:

We loved Sonlight, but always did Rod & Staff grammar and IEW writing. But the books were wonderful and my kids are still readers!!

Love this, and also loved reading your signature and seeing everything your kids are doing. It's so fun seeing all the cool and varied things homeschoolers are doing as adults! It's such a testament to this lifestyle.

[Masers]

Sonlight is fantastic, IMO. We don’t follow the instructor guide, because I can’t stick to it with four kids at all ages. But we have done the cores from preschool through now Core D, and will do Core E next year. We just read through the books at our own pace. But the books are rich, and we really enjoy both the readalouds and the independent readers. My kids do separate math and language arts. If I had just one kid, I would probably follow it more closely. I have a friend with an only child and they have done it for years, and love it. I feel like it’s definitely a full education. It’s honestly pretty rigorous, considering how many books they read (and great books, too). And then of course you can go as advanced as you want with math and science.

It’s solid. 
 

But also…don’t get married to the idea of sticking with one curriculum no matter what. Kids change, circumstances change. I love that we can make the curriculum work for us…homeschooling is wonderful, because you CAN make things flex and adapt to fit your family. 

[AnneGG]

It was a no for us. My kids zone out with hours of reading aloud. I also lost my voice. 😂

I love the idea of only reading books and just snuggling up and spending time together and it all being school. It sounds dreamy. My boys like to do things though. Worksheets, projects, whatever. FWIW Memoria Press didn’t work out for us either, so take my experience with a grain of salt. 

[Clemsondana]

I haven't met any families who do the same curriculum for the entirety of their kid's schooling, particularly if they are using an all-in-one.  I have a senior and a freshman, and I've had some things that we did for many years, some things that I knew wouldn't work after a few weeks, and some that I did with one kid but not the other.  I have a friend whose (now grown) kids had great success with Sonlight for their history/geography.  It was a fantastic fit for their family.  My older read many Sonlight books for fun, but I found that the intended grade level mattered.  My kid was an advanced reader and often read books above grade level, and some of the books were too intense, although they would likely have been fine when kid was the age that the book was written for.  My older also really struggled with the idea of learning history through fiction, because kid couldn't figure out what parts were real and what parts were fiction.  

[Laurel-in-CA]

I will add that Sonlight is great for the books and the Instructor Guides help make things easier but there was almost never a year when I didn't tweak something...because that's what homeschoolers do. I've tried Memoria Press and could not handle more than a semester of their "read and regurgitate" workbooks. It's a good pattern for kids to learn, but to *keep* doing it in all subjects all year...not for us. I tried Abeka grammar workbooks - the kids could fill them out without really learning the lesson...and the teacher manuals were too much $$ and hassle when you have 3-4 kids doing them. No thank you. Rod & Staff grammar was much easier and less expensive, good teacher helps too. But we also tried other stuff...even a little MCT Fireworks Press essay writing and grammar in the middle grades, IEW, Lightning Literature. And, in middle school, I felt the kids needed to learn to learn from a textbook as well as just from reading literature. With my youngest we did put out the $ for a couple online classes in high school, plus local dual enrollment. Both were useful in building study skills and classroom skills.

[seemesew]

I have only used Sonlights history and literature but I really love it! Its feel so relaxed and the stories are the best part! Like others have said don't be a slave to to whatever you use, let it be a tool!