Sonlight Curriculum

I have been thinking about writing this post for a long time.  I've been putting it off.  I don't know why, I just have.

I just have to say that I do LOVE Sonlight.  I have not tried out any other curriculum, but I never have felt the need to.  Well, that's not entirely true.  In the area of Language Arts, I definitely have been trying out different curricula.

I'm going to start by listing what I love about Sonlight.

The literature - hands down, this is my favorite part about Sonlight!!  I love reading the books, and my kids (for the most part) love listening to the books.  If your kids don't like listening to you read a lot...then Sonlight is not for you.

The integrated subjects/books - Handwriting Without Tears, Explode the Code, All About Spelling, Teaching Textbooks & Horizons are just a few of my favorites that Sonlight includes in their curricula.

Scheduling - Sonlight schedules for you and gives you tips and notes along the way.  A huge help!  (more so of a help when teaching only one grade, when I got to multiple grades at the same time, I used their schedules as a guide, but ended up making my own.)

Forums - If you buy a core or are an heirloom member (buying 4 cores or more), you get access to their forums.  A great help if you have any questions about how to teach something.  Buying a core gets you 1 year free access; heirloom is lifetime membership.

History - Sonlight pushes world history in the first few years (K-2).  I loved this because we learned so much about other countries, cultures, beliefs, etc.  It was a great learning opportunity for my kids. (& me!!)

Bible - The last (but definitely not least) of my favorite things about Sonlight.  Memory verses are listed every week.  They have scheduled daily Bible readings.  It's a great reminder to keep my kiddos memorizing and reading.

Now onto what I don't like so much.  I think this is the reason why I put this post on hold for so long.  I love this company and truly don't want to say anything 'bad' about it...But my thoughts and opinions are what they are, and I just want to share them.

Grade Levels - I don't like that they call Core A, Kindergarten; Core B, 1st Grade, etc.  Especially since the age spread for Core A is 5,6,7.  Then you have Core B at 6,7,8.  Core C is 7,8,9 .  And then at Core D it is 8,9,10,11.  I believe the ages for each core refer to the maturity level in regards to their history books and activity sheets.  I don't know this as fact, but that's what I tend to believe.  And that is where my trouble started.  Two of my kids began Kindergarten at the ages of 4 & 5. (During the same year.  I did this for ease and because my four year old was advanced).  So, in 1st grade (Core B) I had a 5 & 6 year old.  In 2nd grade I had a 6 & 7 year old.  Everything was running fine. Books seemed to be age appropriate for the most part.  Although, my kids would have preferred more pictures. Keep in mind, my one child was an age below the recommended, but was doing well.  The real trouble started with Core D (3rd grade).  My oldest was at the bottom of Core D's age bracket.  Still in the age range.  But some of the material that we were reading was more for 11 or 12 year-olds.  We were learning about the Aztecs, Incas & Mayans.  Let's just say, we didn't make it far before we had to quit the core.  The books got quite grotesque.  Personally I don't even think an eight or nine year-old should be listening to the stuff we were reading.  Yet my oldest's age was included in the Core.  Why didn't I start them in a Pre K core you ask???  Well, back when I ordered from them the name of Core A was Kindergarten and since my son was starting Kindergarten, that's the core I purchased.  So all this to say, if you do start with Sonlight's cores, I highly recommend starting with a Pre K core for Kindergarten (History), but use all the non-Sonlight subjects that were intended for Sonlight's Kindergarten. (ie Handwriting, Math)

Confused yet? or are you ready for more?? ;)

Activity Sheets (Language Arts & Science) - This kind of coincides with the whole core issue.  Since the cores are made for multiple ages, the activity sheets are made for the highest age for that core.  I have just gotten to the point where I ask the questions and don't expect them to write essays for every answer.  This is more of an issue in LA than it is for Science, but we'll get to that next.  Science has some questions that are 'younger age for core' friendly.  So the kids find it fun sometimes.

Language Arts - Oh boy.  Sonlight's Language Arts.  I have to say that this part of Sonlight is absolutely lacking.  They take the mindset of natural learning, but I find it to be 'no learning'.  In Kindergarten, it's workable.  After that.  Pointless.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm all about natural learning.  The kids ask what a word means in a story, I'll re-read the sentence and ask them what they think it means.  If they still can't figure it out, they go to a dictionary.  (Ooooo, that reminds me.  I LOVE the American Heritage Student Dictionary!  Very kid friendly & real dictionary-like!!)   From 1st grade on, they found the LA extremely frustrating.  There was crying...by them...by me.  We also found Sonlight's spelling miserable.  We tried it for three years.  My kids did not know how to spell.  It was only after All About Spelling that they did better.  Sonlight includes optional workbooks that are excellent (Explode the Code, Wordly Wise) though.  But watch out for Wordly Wise & MCP Phonics!  Sometimes Sonlight has a grade doing too high of a level for those workbooks in a particular grade.  Do your research.  Try to look it up on Amazon and see a sample or go to a local bookstore to get a hands on view before buying.  But again, with Sonlight's LA program, Core A (Kindergarten) is workable.

Okay, those are my thoughts, experiences, and what-not.  We are going to do Core D next year (with a 5th & 4th grader, minus the book about Aztecs, Incas & Myans)  I don't really know what I would suggest to Sonlight regarding the Cores and ages, but I do know I don't like the way it is done.  I have been thinking about this for years and haven't come up with a solution yet.  So I thought the best thing to do, was to make people aware that when ordering from Sonlight, definitely pay attention to the ages and not the grade of the Core.  My suggestion would be to go with the higher ages on the Core.  But that's just me.

As a side note: My good friend suggested for me to try "First Language Lessons" for Language Arts.  From what I have seen of it, it looks really good.   I'm interested to see how that goes next year.  Sonlight does not sell First Language Lessons.

Field Trip Day Three

The field trip trilogy ends at Oak Mountain State Park.

We spent the afternoon taking hikes around Oak Mountain's lake and down to the bottom of Peavine Falls.

We saw lots of butterflies, caterpillars and other fun insects, beautiful rock formations, trees, creeks.  We loved being out in God's beautiful creation.

The kids got a chance to wade at the bottom of Peavine Falls.  They wished I would've brought their bathing suits, but to be honest with you, I didn't expect the water to be flowing that hard.  We haven't had rain in a while.

Anyway, we had a great time and we're all a little sad for the field trips to end.  But, we need to get back to the classroom and do some bookwork.

Plus Flat Stanley needs to go back home (his visit was the whole reason for all the close together field trips).  That announcement made my kids sad, and my oldest started to cry, "I'm going to miss him so much!"  I reassured him that we will always have the pictures and the memories.

Below are all the pics that were taken of just the kids...Flat Stanley's vaycay will be posted next week. =)

The boys trying to sneak up to the bottom of the waterfall.  It was a little slippy.

So Kaidin tried the other side.  Yep, it was still slippy.

Court played it safe in the shallow end.

Playing in the water and not getting their shorts wet.  Yeah, right. ;)

Hiking back up out of the ravine.  They did great!  That was a hard climb!

Field Trip Day Two

Today we went to The Heart of Dixie RR Museum.  We had tons of fun.  They opened the museum especially for us.  We also walked all around the yard looking at all the locomotives, passenger cars and boxcars.  

Just like yesterday, this is just a glimpse of the trip.  

There will be more pictures to come in my future Flat Stanley post.

In fact you'll get a sneak peek of Flat Stanley below.

Garrett clung onto the rail as he stood on the little ledge.  He was being so brave.

Kaidin was a little more daring.

The kids sat on many locomotives and climbed lots of boxcars.

Garrett at the helm.

Field Trip Day One

We have a very sweet house guest, Flat Stanley.  He came to see us two weeks ago and will be leaving at the beginning of next week. We have been trying to show him a good time while he is staying with us in Birmingham.  Since he will be leaving us this next week, we want to make sure we take him as many places as possible that will showcase B'ham.  In order to do that, we have made today (Monday), tomorrow and possibly Thursday too (weather permitting) field trip days.  Flat Stanley's visit will be in a later blog post with all the details of each place we visited.  For today, we're focusing on a couple pictures of the kids during their field trip.

At the Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Statue of Liberty replica - She's 1/5 the actual size - She was donated by France and put together here in Birmingham.

At Liberty Park (The Boy Scouts of America Wall)

At The Vulcan - K put this magnetic puzzle together.

These were at the Vulcan gift shop and K (our Auburn fan) just HAD to have his pic taken with them.  War Eagle!

Standing on Red Mountain while being blinded by the sun - The city of Birmingham is in the background.

Looking south of Birmingham from up on the Vulcan Statue Observatory Deck

Stay tuned for all the field trip fun and fun facts with Flat Stanley.  I will post it, once Stanley makes it back to his classroom in Columbus, OH.

Published!

SONLIGHT

April 2012-March 2013

Bible Section - Page 89

The kiddos proudly pointing to their picture in the new Sonlight catalog.

Caterpillars & Fruit Flies & Nymphs! Oh my!

We waited.  And we waited.  And then we waited some more.

And they finally came!

After the Fed Ex truck came by our house this morning, but did not stop, we were a little concerned about the welfare of our new biological arrival.

Ten hours later he came by again.

Come to find out, our package was in the back of the truck, and he needed to unload before he came back.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't care.

But this package was one of those packages that you had to be home to receive.  Otherwise they wouldn't deliver.  So I ended up staying home all day waiting.

I'm a little bummed about that, but glad they arrived safely.

Our perishable package finally arrives and filler goes a flyin'

Posing with the fruit flies, egg cases and caterpillars

Gently placing the egg case on the bottom of  the habitat.

Another egg case goes into the habitat.  The nymphs will not emerge for 2-8 weeks.

Checking out the little caterpillars.  They will form their chrysalis in 7-10 days.

The egg cases.  An egg case is called an ootheca (oh-uh-THEH-kuh). There are up to 200 praying mantis nymphs hanging out in there.

Fruit flies: a hearty meal for a nymph.

It is suggested that you hang the ootheca from a stick so that when the nymphs come out, they will suspend themselves on a silken strand and descend to the bottom of the habitat.  It's just plain fun to watch!

2012-2013 Schedule

Yes, I'm already working on my schedule for next year!

I have always used my Summers to prepare for the next school year, but this year I have decided to work on it in the Spring.  My hope is to get the scheduling aspect of it done before the 2011-2012 school year has ended. (Crossing my fingers for mid-May for that!)  During the summer, I'll work on making copies, preparing projects, making up worksheets, etc.  I'll do those things on some of those 100 degree days, when I want to be indoors with the central air.  We'll see how that goes...

In the past few years, I have tried many different ways of scheduling.  I have done the separate schedules: a schedule page for LA, a schedule page for History, a schedule page for Science, etc.  One year I did a Kindergarten schedule and a Second/Third grade schedule.  This year I have done three grades on one sheet.  It's been working okay, but I get some of the subjects mixed up between students.  All three of my kids are doing All About Spelling, so I have it listed on there three separate times.  Sometimes I check off the wrong students box and it just gets confusing.

This coming year, I will be teaching four separate grades - K/2/4/5.  I have been feeling very overwhelmed about that, but know that many a moms have done it before me (with more kids too)!  So I know I can do it.  It's just a matter of finding what is comfortable for me and my kids.  I started by making History, Science, Bible, Geography & Read-Alouds all combined subjects.  It's something that we can all do together, everyone can learn, and it cuts down on couple hours extra work.  Next, I scheduled more than one grade per subject.  I have a feeling this is going to get confusing, so there is a pic below.

Areas with a white blank, signify that I need to teach a lesson that day, but I cannot specify exactly where I will be.  For example: Keys for Kids are in the book under the date.  Since  I don't know the exact date that Week 1, Day three falls on, I have an open blank so I know I need to do a lesson for that day and can do the it according to the specific date it falls on.  Make sense?  Another example would be TT4.  Sometimes my student gets the new concept, other days I need to redo the lesson over and over again.  I don't want to feel left behind or feel like I need to push forward to keep with my scheduled lesson plan, so I leave it blank.  I place an X on that blank to signify that we did it that day.  Another great thing about blanks, is you don't feel like a failure if you didn't get that particular subject done that day, and as an added bonus you're not screwing up your schedule.

Areas with a gray blank, signify that that subject/lesson/book is not taught on that particular day.

Spaces with multiple boxes/numbers are used to separate the grade level in each subject.  In Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) I will be teaching K and 2nd grades.  After each grade I have the page number, because in that particular subject, I want to make sure we keep up with it and not unnecessarily miss too many days.  (It's incentive for me not to get too lazy when it comes to hand-printing, especially since I have a Kindergartner.)  In math, three students are doing Horizons.  Therefore, I have a box to check off for K, 2nd & 4th grades.  The boxes pretty much show me who needs to do work in each particular subject.

What I love about the schedule system I came up with, is that all my subjects are on one piece of paper.  I hate flipping through papers trying to figure out what I need to do next.  Although, I am going to make a 'note page' after each week.  It will just clarify things on the schedule, give me reminders, have a list of supplies and extra worksheets that I need etc.  But that will be used more for preparation, rather than the actual school day.  So little to no paper flipping should take place. =)

What I don't like about it, is that it looks overwhelming and daunting.  When I look at that piece of paper, I start a mini panic attack! I ask myself, "How am I going to fit all of this into one day??? - especially while teaching Kindergarten, a very hands-on, intense grade."  I got a couple of things to help me.  For one, God & lots of prayer.  And two, my daughter is an excellent helper when it comes to school.  She loves to teach her younger brothers and often will listen to her brother read for me, or offer to read a Read-Aloud so I can get other things done.  I truly do think it's going to be okay.

This coming year will be a test ride for my new schedule.  If it doesn't work, then back to the drawing board.  If it does work with hiccups, then I'll just have to make a few adjustments.  If it works great, then Yipee!  I solved my problem of an overflowing lesson binder!  I'm hoping for the latter.

So where do I keep extra papers??
I have a lesson binder that is always open on my desk.  I have a worksheet binder that I keep on the book shelf and pull out to get any necessary papers at the beginning of the week.  I place them behind that week's schedule and pull them out on the days that they're needed.  Besides that, I really don't have any other papers or folders that I use.

If you have any ideas or comments, leave them below!  I'd love to hear how others schedule their days and what works for them!

Box Day!

I was able to order next year's curriculum a little early this year.  Most of it arrived today.

Fed Ex guy bringing the first box to our door.

Hugging the first box to come into the house

K receiving the second box from our friendly Fed Ex man

Excited to open the boxes, but we have to wait...

After a crazy busy day, we're finally ready to open the boxes

Pulling out filler

Checking out their new books

Posing with their school stuff.  And check out that microscope!  We're so excited to use it!