christy7177
- Reviewed on Saturday, January 30, 2010
- Grades Used: k,1,5,alt7
- Dates used: 2008-2010
I have used K12 (way too rigid) in the past and have since been making my own curriculum. I recently needed something that was laid out for me because of time restraints in my life right now.
I really liked what I saw of the Winter Promise and Sonlight curriculums. I decided to use Sonlight as our main curriculum and try adding on some of the Winter Promise (plus some other misc materials). -- Ps. I am a huge fan of Winter Promise as well as Sonlight.
My biggest fear was that I would end up with something too rigid for my liking. I wanted room to add to the curriculum. I also am not a fan of too many worksheets. I love hands on activities, wonderful books, educational videos, lively discussions, writing assignments and so forth.
Sonlight gave me a wonderful guide and plenty of freedom. My younger kids get bored if we stay on a topic for too long (but love to revisit topics), so Sonlight had a wonderful pace for my kids. Sometimes I slowed it down, if my kids wanted to spend another day learning about something. I loved that there were not many worksheets. I wished there were more hands on activities incorporated in the curriculum at times. However, I am really good at adding this element to it. I love the books included, but we also added a lot more (especially with my younger kids). I love the current events, timeline... there is just so much that I love about this curriculum.
I didn't find this curriculum difficult to use at all. You just put in the pages divided up by weeks. Each week is tabbed and has your History/bible, English/phonics and Science guides together under that tab. It will have a schedule for each one, a few pages of notes and any worksheets. There are reader notes (Q&A's for each book), some other misc stuff like field trip forms and etc.
You turn to the (let's say) week 1 tab. Depending on what order you put the subjects, (mine's history, english and then science), you go to the first subjects schedule. It will say day 1, day 2... across it. List going down is each book, workbook (or what not) that you will use - and the page numbers you will use. If they added a note to help you, then there will be a N next to that assignment. You find that note on the page behind the schedule. After you go down the list (schedule) and complete those things (in any order you want), then you turn to the next subjects schedule and repeat the process. You can easily look at the schedule for each subject, for that day and see what materials you will need. Very easy to use after you spend a few days looking it over and getting comfortable with it.
On the weekends, I look ahead and see what the kids will be learning about. I print out related stuff online, look for resources online, look at videos on Netflix, preorder books at the library, make notes, think of added projects, and so forth.
You do not have to buy the suggested add ons for English. You could pick your own grammar, spelling, vocab programs. You get to pick your own Math program. You could easily add onto their existing History program. It's all very flexible.
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hsschool
- Reviewed on Thursday, July 30, 2009
- Grades Used: 3+4, 100,200,300
- Dates used: 2007-2009
The thing that I liked about Sonlight is it is possible to teach several levels of children from one core. Sonlight is a complicated program to learn to use when beginning to homeschool. You need to add Science, math, and other enrichment to their program. The teacher manual has to be put together by the parent.
You also need to read the books before letting your children read them as some cover topics that you do not want to cover with your child.
I ended up pulling the core program books from the 3+4 core because they were not what I wanted to teach my child about American History. I felt the books were very biased in how it left out many thing that I felt should be in American History. For example Jamestown was briefly mentioned as was Yorktown. I felt the focus was too much on religion and not enough on history.
Yet the other books in the 3+4 core were wonderful. Which we ended up using as a supplement to Calvert's program.
If you want a large selection of readers then choose Sonlight.
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mommyof41/2
- Reviewed on Saturday, July 04, 2009
- Grades Used: k and 1st
- Dates used: 2008
I am personally not a fan of sonlight at all. This was our first year of homeschooling and I quickly relized that although I had paid over 800 for my sons curriculum I had to supplement it a great deal so he did lose many basic skills he already knew. On the plus side I returned the level K curriculum and they quickly refunded my money. Also, I would love to know if anyone looked to see which scripture they assigned to a 1st grader. One assigned scripture was the story of Lot and how his daughter tricked him into sleeping with them, totally unacceptable to read to a 7 year old. Luckily, I reconized where the story was going before I had to do any explaining. We will be using primarily Horizons next year, this is what i supplemented the sonlight with and am very pleased with.
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kandbzmom
- Reviewed on Monday, June 15, 2009
- Grades Used: K
- Dates used: 2008-2009
I have really mixed feelings about Sonlight. I bought this curriculum because it was my first year to hs and I wanted something all ready laid out for me. Like other reviewers, I was really excited about it when the box came. I couldn't wait to read the read aloud books to my son. Then I discovered there were definitely pros and cons to this:
Pros:
1. The read alouds are excellent. My son still raves about "The Apple and the Arrow" and "Dr. Doolittle." Our whole family loved this portion.
2. The Bible stories were great. The internet link that allowed me to download pictures from the stories we were reading helped my son remember the stories.
3. We all ready use HWT so it was nice this was included as a handwriting aid.
4. The reading books were great as my son learned to read.
5. I liked the Usborne books.
Cons:
1. We hated the science. It started off okay, but my son got bored with it quickly. For a large portion of it, the experiments had nothing to do with what we read the rest of the time. We eventually just watched the experiment video and chucked the books. It was a shame since my son has a love for science.
2. History was disjointed. For a week or two we'd read about people who were missionaries, then we'd switch to learning about living in the jungle, then go to the types of clothes people have worn through the years. My son got bored very quickly.
3. The readers are great for really new readers, but once he progressed from one syllable and short vowel sound words, I had to go to the library and get him readers.
4. Some of the read aloud questions were tough for my son to answer since he didn't understand them. I had to do a lot of explaining so he'd understand the question. Eventually, I just picked the questions I thought might spark discussion.
We did not use their reading program (I used a Janet Wise Bauer program) or their math (we used Math-U-See).
Overall, I was disappointed in the program. I won't be using it next year. I am leaning toward Winter Promise or My Father's World.
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