Free shipping on USA orders over $129!
Talk me OUT of Sonlight…please!
- This topic has 24 replies, 20 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
Hello. I really like the Beautiful Feets Senior High U.S. and World History Guide (pdf download is only $12.95) because it has quality literature, suggested essay prompts, and a loose schedule. Actually, it just lists the books in the order to read with vocabulary, notes, and a few questions per chapter. http://www.bfbooks.com/US-and-World-History-Study-Guide_2
We also enjoy the David McCullough history books: John Adams, The Great Bridge, Mornings on Horseback (Teddy Roosevelt). Paul Johnson’s History of the American People and his Modern Times books are good. Ambleside Online’s 9, 10, and 11 grades are something to look into which includes these books. http://www.amblesideonline.org/curriculum.shtml
We use the SCM organizer and that acts like our instructor’s guide…customized. My children always know what their next book will be. We like to have a mix of literature not always synchronized with history.
For writing help, I like Susan Wise Bauer’s Literary Analysis and Writing for High School audio downloads ($3.99 each), The Lively Art of Writing ($6.99), and the Invitations to the Classics (for essay ideas…$16.95).
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/store/audio-products/audio-lectures.html
Janell
Writing is our big stumbling block. I just don’t want it to be a separate subject. “Tell me about what you learned,” just doesn’t give either me or the kids enough direction, I guess. I know my youngest especially needs more hands-on than we have done also.
Have you seen our list of narration ideas?
My children are much younger than yours (9 & 10) but I agree with you on the writing issues. What I have found is that I (as the teacher) either have to be really good at writing and grammar or have a very detailed resource to help me teach the kids. I like Susan Wise Bauer’s writing program and the MP3’s are really helpful. Her method will allow you to integrate writing with other subjects, but she gives you more details about HOW to help the children with their writing. I needed that help.
As far as planning, I like SCM’s Planning System + a binder for me + file folders for each week of the school year stuffed with what we need. This way I can pick what I want to use for each subject and get it all set up at the beginning of the year. I do tweak during the year, but the bulk of the planning is already done for me (and by me).
I have never been able to find a full curriculum that I am happy with, and I’ve tried just about everything. I use a good mix now and we are happy.
I use SCM for history, picture study, composer study, and science. I use some of Queen’s books for science and character building. I use Susan Wise Bauer’s language and writing curriculum. We like Christian Light for math and I use Spelling Power for spelling. LOL!!
Hope you can find some peace of mind and get your plan together soon. I know how frustrating it can be trying to figure it all out. 🙂
Amanda
My kids LOVE the Sonlight books, but I would not recommend the Instructor Guides. They are overwhelming and extremely time consuming. Don’t waste your money. The books, however, fit very well with Charlotte Mason style. We have found many of these at used book sales. Blessings, Melissa
@ AussieMummy,
I have one child who’s spelling is so rotten {and he knows it and hates it} I’ve decided to use Spellwell with him. I feel it has a bit of CM flare to it and I wanted to give him that extra boost because of his own concern.
How would you say Spellwell has a “bit of CM flare to it?” I’ve only briefly seen a one-paragraph product description on a bookseller’s site, and it didn’t give me much of an idea about what it’s like. I, too, have one who does not spell particularly well–she’s an artistic daydreamer who has a lot to say, but she just doesn’t know how to spell it all out, so to speak!
Sue
This is a very interesting topic. We used SL last year (Core 1) and actually liked it pretty well, but I was very disappointed with the reading and language arts. I felt it was very contrived. Of course, my daughter was only 7 when we started, so you’re at a different stage in the game. One of the main reasons we’re leaving SL is because I wasn’t happy with language arts. The other biggie is that it finally dawned on me that by the time all of my children are school age, I’ll be dealing with at least 3 different cores (my first two are 4 1/2 years apart, my second 2 are almost 3 years apart and my 3rd and 4th will be exactly 2 years apart, so using the same cores with all of them is a bit unrealistic). I much prefer to group everyone together as much as possible. Also, and this seems contrary to most posters, but I felt that even though I had the core, we were constantly adding resources, mostly because many of the books in the history core mimic each other (Usborne). I resented this a little bit, because I had paid for a curriculum that was “all planned out”. Be advised though that I am not the type who feels bound to an IG. I see the “assigments” as suggestions, and work them as such. And truly, this is what Sonlight intends for us to do, if you listen to their podcasts and really get into their method. HOWEVER, why pay for that when you either feel you won’t use it all or that you’ll add/substitute other things? That being said, I still keep the catalog around for book ideas, as many of the literature and history selections are very good. We are, for example, keeping A Child’s History of the World and several others from the core, even though I’ve decided to sell the bulk of it. (We’re not keeping any of the language arts or readers) We also enjoyed many of the read alouds. I will also say that the year with SL gave me the confidence to say “man, I can do this on my own. I don’t need (almost wrote “knead”, you can tell I’m craving bread…) someone else’s IG!” That’s a big deal because in my daughter’s first year of school, I tried to put it all together myself using another CM method site as a guide, and failed MISERABLY. This is why I’m so thrilled to be using SCM: There’s enough “get me started with the spine” to start my wheels turning, but enough flexibility to build it the way I see fit for my family.
It all comes down to personal preference, what you are willing to pay FOR, and where your strengths and weaknesses lie.
I know it’s frustrating to choose, (that whole “decision is the greatest effort in life” thing), but you’re doin’ good Momma!
Blessings,
LillyLou
Sue, you can check out SpellWell more in depth at Cbd.com they give you quite a bit of a peek inside each book.
I say it has a CM flare to it based ONLY on keeping like words grouped together. Perhaps I’m off and that isn’t a CM thing, but I know when I was looking for spelling help {before locating Spelling Wisdom} I was reading through the CM Companion by Karen Andreola and she spoke of a daughter who spelled just like my son!
She then gave ideas on how to help the child conquer the problem. One was to group similar words together to help them, words like: Feet & beet might go together because they have the same sound and spelling save one letter. So we started with words that had long e’s on the end. simple words like come, home, some. I had him write them on the driveway in chalk, we played tic-tac-toe with them, etc.
When I discovered Spellwell I debated it for a long while before purchasing. I’m now waiting for my book{s} to arrive in the mail. Despite being a 4th grader I’ve purchased well under his level because I feel his spelling is so poor AND to give him a boost. Interestingly enough since using Spelling Wisdom I’ve noticed many of the notes he leaves around the house are now spelled correctly.
I think just the dictation on their own have inspired him to be a better speller. In other words he’s stopping and seeing words we’ve practiced before with other methods. The other evening, for instance, he wrote a sign and taped it to his grandmother’s front door. It said something down the line of, “Come in..” and went on with instructions. The point was I was giddy because come was spelled correctly. He was equally proud of it and said, “Hey check it out! I spelled come correctly!!” 😉
Anyway, while we plan to continue using Spelling Wisdom 3 days a week, I’m also going with the spelling book just to help give him that extra boost. We’ll reeveluate at the end of the year and see what happens. The Natural Speller is a CM spelling book, but nothing major.
She has lists and ideas in it. No dictation. No workbook”y” stuff. Just ideas for how to practice the spelling words, and lists of words most children can spell at varying age/grade levels. I was hoping for a little more from it and had it not taken so long to arrive to me I most likely would have returned it.
Oh, and the other thing I liked about SpellWell was that it not only grouped words together and taught say only 10 words a week it also helped them see prefixes and suffixes that would fit with the words. There was also a lot of hands on and ink to paper stuff happening. This child needs that. The more he uses and sees the better he does. 😀
Last year was my first year homeschooling and I used Sonlight’s Core 1/B for my first grader. I purchased the 2nd grade readers and the Science to go with the Core. The Instructor’s guides have too much information and fluff for CM. The questions and worksheets went unused. I found myself flipping back and forth through the guides a lot as they are parceled out, which annoyed me. Also, the IG’s will have you do a huge chunk of material for a few weeks, then I find weeks where there is practically nothing to do. It seemed particularly unbalanced.
I agree a lot with LillyLou, especially about the redundancy in some of the books, even in Science. I scrapped Usborne World History because the artist renderings were graphic (nudity, gore) and they elevated certain pagan stories that I didn’t want to include. I tried to edit, but it just got to be too much.
I am not returning to SL, but will continue to utilize their Read Aloud/Readers booklists because they are really good for the most part. My children all loved the Science Discover and Do DVD, which is a video demonstrating all the science experiments for the year. Very low budget, but very fun. I plan to scoop those up as educational videos for downtime.
I’m holding onto a Child’s History of the World too. Its a great book and I think it can work well for us instead of Oxford’s Ancient History during our first run through the SCM modules.
For next year, I am blending booklists from SL, SCM and AO and using Apologia and Outdoor Secrets for Science. Now, I am burdened with the task of finding the lesson planning style that will work for me. But that is another discussion item for another day 🙂
I really liked what I saw of Winters Promise at a friends house last year. She was excited, the kids were excited and the books looked great. They had a great idea of writing down all the narration options on pieces of paper and putting them in a narration jar. The kids choose one and do their narration in that format. I wonder how the high school years are laid out. This is interesting to me, how to take the best of CM and give it a bit of structure for the high school years..
- The topic ‘Talk me OUT of Sonlight…please!’ is closed to new replies.