Sonlight

Making Memory Work too Hard

I have, now that we’re well over half done with our first year, one major beef with Sonlight. (And really, if that’s all the problems I have with it, I guess I’m pretty fortunate!).

The way memory work is set up drives me crazy.  Let’s put aside the fact that I’m very particular about Bible translations for a moment (read: I can’t stand translations such as The Living Bible, which is used quite frequently). The number one thing that makes me insane is the way they jump around from translation to translation…you know, if you’re going to go with an “easier” translation, then just stick with it.  Use it for all of all of the memory assignments.  Jumping from translation to translation (which is a *huge* pet peeve of mine in Bible studies for adults, as well), just smacks of trying to get the verse to say what you want it to say, instead of letting Scripture speak for itself.

I had already planned to use my ESV Bible (can’t wait for The Lutheran Study Bible to come out this fall, by the way–shameless CPH plug!) to write down our verse every week, so it’s not a huge deal to me that I can’t just copy it out of the teacher’s guide.  But, I have discovered that some of the verses just don’t make sense in the context they’re given outside of The Living Bible.  And this is where I see a major fault of that translation.  If that is the only translation out there where a half of a verse by itself makes sense, I don’t think it’s very good (or accurate).

I get that the good people at Sonlight are probably trying to find a child-friendly way to memorize Scripture, especially in the lower cores.  But, I think (actually, I know, from personal experience), that children are way smarter than we tend to give them credit for, and I also think consistency is crucial.  Have all the memory verses come from the same translation, so they become familiar with one translation. I may not like the one you choose, but at least I’ll respect you for being consistent!

So, I’ve had to substitute verses a few times, which may mean we overlap a few by the end of the year, but that’s OK, right? It’s not like you can learn a Bible verse too many times…

Warehouse Sale-ing

I had the opportunity to go to the CPH warehouse sale this weekend.  It was awesome!  Given that we’ve lived in this area for the better part of seven years, I can’t believe I’ve never gone before, but now you couldn’t keep me away for anything.

I really had no idea what to expect.  I went in with a list of things I was hoping to find, but in all honesty, I wasn’t really expecting to get any of it, because I had some very specific homeschooling related needs.  I found it all, though!  They had every single thing on my list, and some other stuff I had no idea I wanted. Each of the children also got to pick out two Arch books, which they were ecstatic about.

This was great for us.  Going into homeschooling, the one thing I knew after choosing Sonlight was that eventually, we would have to part ways when it came to their Bible curriculum.  A big part of the reason we chose to homeschool was so that our children could receive a Lutheran education.  While Sonlight is fine in the lower grades, once the children are a little older, it’s important to us to teach doctrinally correct religion lessons.  Knowing this, I’ve been nosing around CPH’s website, looking for ideas for religion curriculum starting at about grade two.

Well, I’d come up with five years worth of religion curriculum based on what I saw there, and after looking at all of them at the sale, I decided on three of them for our use.  So, now I have my religious curriculum planned out for grades one through four.  Next year, for first grade, we’ll be using the Egermeier’s Bible Story Book that Sonlight schedules, and then in second grade, we’ll use A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories (which my mom has had in Braille since she was a little girl, and read to me as a child) and the My First Catechism that CPH publishes.  We’ll bounce back to Sonlight and The Awesome Book of Bible Facts for grade three (and that will be the last Bible curriculum that we’ll use from Sonlight), and go with 100 Bible Stories from CPH for grade four (another book my mom read to me). I also got a junior high level curriculum called A Bible History that I haven’t quite decided when I’ll be using.  So, I still have a few gaps to fill in here and there (I’d love to find a curriculum about church history, but I don’t know if that will happen), but I have a good start for the next few years, and I saved a ton of money!

I also found a few more Christmas resources to use in our “Christmas School” unit.  One is a book called The Three Wise Women of Christmas, which tells the stories of Elizabeth, Mary and Anna.  I’ve been interested in this book since it came out, but I’d never had an opportunity to get it.  The timing is great, because I needed another story book to use at Christmas, and it can be so hard to find a book that’s different, but that also doesn’t go into the whole Santa thing.  I also got a book called Sacred Songs of Christmas, which I’d never heard of before, but is really cool.  It comes with a CD, and has the lyrics for 19 Christmas hymns, as well as a lot of beautiful pictures and Christmas quotes from different sources.  Very cool.

I also got two texture-y books for Moose:  Touch and Feel Creation and Touch and Feel Christmas.  These are two other books that I’ve been looking at getting for a while, and now, knowing about his sensory needs, they will be even more useful to us, because not only will he hear the story and look at the pictures, he interesting textures to feel on each page.

The warehouse sale was a great experience.  The selection was beyond amazing, the prices were unbelievable, and it was run very efficiently, so that check-out was a breeze.  I wish everyone lived close enough to go to this sale every year.  You can pick up so many great things, for family use, for your children, for Bible study or other personal use, and even for homeschool!

Lesson Planning

My love for Sonlight is two-sided, I’ve discovered.  First of all, and most obviously, I love their curriculum because I don’t have to worry about writing lesson plans.  Back in my early childhood ed. days at CURF (am I still allowed to call it that?  Or do I have to go with the somewhat irritating, and, in my opinion, horribly inaccurate, CUC?), and even into my DCE studies (you’d be surprised how many lesson plans DCEs in training have to write!) I hated writing lesson plans, unless it was a topic that I was really interested in or passionate about.  I just dreaded sitting down and putting in the time and effort (but mostly the time!) it took to make a good lesson.  Now, if I taught full-time, or even if I was still working as a DCE, and writing my own Bible studies, I’m sure I would have gotten better, or at least more efficient at it, but still…

As it is, though, I’m glad I don’t have that task to worry about!  Sonlight has provided me with fantastic (in my opinion, at least) lesson plans for all my subjects.  I just review what we’re going to be doing the week before we do it, and I’m ready to go!  Such a burden lifted…I doubt I’d make it as a homeschooling mom if I had to write all my own lessons (or at least I wouldn’t be doing a very good job of it!).

But, the flip-side of that is this–because I’m not bogged down with daily lesson plans for things like history, math, and language arts, I can use my time to create lessons for the extra stuff I actually want to do.  Like my Olympics unit, which I basically put together by myself, that we did before school started.  Fun holidays, extra topics we want to study, more in-depth religion (and doctrine, if you will–gotta raise those little Lutherans right!), those things I actually enjoy planning lessons for.  Yeah, they’re probably not formatted “correctly,” and I’m sure I’m not covering all the things I’m supposed to.  But I don’t have to worry about that, because I have 36 weeks of good, solid lesson plans for all the subjects prepared for me, and anything else I add to that is just icing on the cake (good thing we’re inclined toward year-round schooling, because I have a feeling I’m going to be tacking on a month or more of my own lessons!).

Between now and the end of the year, I have a special one-day unit on the Reformation planned (another fantastic thing about Sonlight–because of the way the curriculum is organized, it’s super easy to compress five days worth of lessons into four if you want to or need to–as a matter of fact, if I understand it correctly, I’ll have the option of having four or five days worth of curriculum starting next year.  Still planning on using the full five, but it’s nice to have the option…), a three-day Thanksgiving unit (along with an extra five days of Thanksgiving readers in place of our normal Little House readers the week before Thanksgiving), and a five to ten day Christmas unit.  (What can I say?  I love Christmas, and I have a ton of ideas involving the history of Christmas celebrations, world cultures, and, of course, the birth of Christ. And no Santa!  Another plus to homeschooling!)

So, I can love Sonlight both because I don’t have to plan lessons, and because, since they have prepared the lessons for me, I have extra time and I get to plan the fun stuff.  The best of both worlds–I love it!

Thought I Had It Figured Out

So, I’ve settled into a routine with school, and am very happy with the choices I finally made.  Anyone who has read my blog knows the deliberation that went into choosing the curriculum for our first year of homeschool. And it wasn’t even a matter of choosing a company, because it didn’t take much comparing to realize that Sonlight was right for our family.  So, I finally decided–Sonlight Core P 4/5, with Readers K, A Reason for Handwriting K, Pattern Blocks for math, and extra Read-Alouds in the form of the Little House and Rocky Ridge series (and I know that most of that probably only made sense to those of you that are involved with homeschooling, because when I first started looking at this stuff, it sounded like a foreign language to me!).

So, we have our materials, and I’ve even planned long term what cores/readers we’ll use each year, God-willing, as long as this continues to work for our family.  And even though we’re only in week seven, I’ve especially started looking to what we’ll be doing for first grade next year, because I still think we may finish this core early, and even if we don’t, we’re looking at a more year-round approach to school, so I’ll need the new materials sooner than the average family would.

But then today, it hit me–spelling.  We should probably start some kind of spelling program next year, and that hadn’t even occurred to me before now.  What to use?  Sonlight offers two options, but neither one of them is “theirs” as far as I understand, so I don’t really feel any particular loyalty to them, and frankly, I’m having a hard time getting excited about either offering.  

I did, however, stumble upon A Reason for Spelling today.  I had forgotten that the company that makes A Reason for Handwriting does anything else–I haven’t even looked at their website since we first decided to homeschool, and I was trying to decide on a handwriting program.  But, on a message board I frequent, someone mentioned A Reason for Spelling in passing.  So, I looked into it, and I have to say, I’m impressed. I already love A Reason for Handwriting (as do Turkey and Bunny).  I love the Bible focus, I love the treehouse approach to letter formation, which seems to be really helpful in teaching children how to properly write letters, and I love the fun page that’s included with every lesson (as, again, do Turkey and Bunny).  

So, I’m thinking that since I’m already impressed with the company, I should stick with it, especially as it appears that the spelling and handwriting books starting with Level A at least try to have complementary lessons, which would be beneficial.  After looking over the placement test, Turkey and Bunny would already be well suited to Level A, although I’m not planning on starting them on it now…apparently, they’re better at spelling than they are at reading (is that normal?  I have no idea–I’m still new to this!).

So, does anybody have any experience with A Reason for Spelling?  Fell free to comment, as I’m still open to suggestions!

Awesome!

Can I just say again how fantastic Sonlight’s customer service is?  I had a couple problems with my order–one missing item from my shipment (and with how much stuff comes in an order, I think having only one item missing is actually good!), and some confusion on my part, which turned out to the result of a computer glitch.  I contacted customer service on two separate occasions about these issues, and not only were they quick in responding, they were also quick in shipping, and went above and beyond in fixing one of the issues for me.  Good customer service can be so hard to come by these days–these examples make me even happier to be doing business with the good people at Sonlight!

Getting Ready

I have now purchased all of my “need” items for our homeschool (I, of course, still have a list of “want” items a mile long, but I’m taking it one thing at a time!). Most of it I have in hand–I’ve been to the parent-teacher supply, and gotten a calendar and an alphabet line (and a fantastically loud, old-fashioned school bell, to ring at the beginning of our school day–not a need, I know, but I just had visions of taking a bell in hand every morning, and since they had one, I couldn’t pass it up!). I got our basic supplies from Target and Wal-Mart–everything ranging from an extra bookcase to safety scissors to finger paints. I’ve placed three (I think) orders from Amazon, and have all but one–I’ve received all of the Little House on Rocky Ridge chapter books already (and my very own copy of The Well Trained Mind, which I can’t wait to take a highlighter to!), and am just waiting on my classical music compilation and a new printer cartridge (so I can print the Olympics lesson stuff I found online). Ryan picked up my CPH stuff for me, so now I’m just waiting on my Sonlight order (which may arrive as early as tomorrow–woo-hoo!) so I can really delve into my materials and get organized!

Speaking of getting organized, I’m planning on using my evenings next week to set up the school room (also known as the guest bedroom, but I think I can make it work for both). I have to set up the new bookcase (which has a great, no-tools assembly–thank you Target!), and get all the books and CDs organized between the two bookcases we’ll have in there–I’m thinking of using one for core materials and school supplies (I got a nifty little storage box for crayons, glue, scissors and such, which conveniently fits perfectly on the bookshelf), and one for “fun” books and CDs (but aren’t they all fun?!? I love books!). I have to hang up the clock I got (and it would help to remember to put the battery in first, I’m guessing–better put that on the to-do list, too) as well as the calendar and alphabet line. What else? Hmmm–need to drag up the card table and chairs, as that will be Turkey and Bunny’s desk, at least for this year. Also need to move the bed and changing table into their new locations, and set up the surge protector so that it’s in the right place for the lamp, CD player and phone. I think that’s all…but I’m probably forgetting something! Anyway, I’m really looking forward to getting it all set up, and if I’m feeling really ambitious, maybe I’ll post a photo of it when I’m done (read: maybe I can get my kind husband to do it for me, since I don’t know how!)

Finally!

I have placed my first order with Sonlight! For now, I decided to go with the P 4/5 core, with the K readers and language arts, and K handwriting. I also added Get Ready, Set, Go for the Code from Sonlight, and some extra chapter books and a classical music CD from Amazon. I’ll decide within the next few weeks whether or not I’m going to go ahead and order the K materials as well, to supplement what I ordered tonight, but I wanted to order the stuff I knew I’d be using right away, so I can work on getting our classroom organized.

Some of the books I’m most looking forward to reading with Turkey and Bunny (and Moose and Ladybug, if they want to listen in) are A Family Treasury of LIttle Golden Books (there must be stories in there I remember from my childhood!), The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit, The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook, Usborne Stories from Around the World, the Children’s Book of Virtues, Family-Time Bible in Pictures, Then & Now, The Berenstain Bears’ Big Book of Science and Nature, and The Year at Maple Hill Farm. This is only a small sampling of the books we’ll be reading together in the coming months, but they’re the ones I’m most excited about, whether from reading them myself as a child, or from the way the descriptions in the catalog made them sound!

I don’t know who is more excited about our school year–me or the children. Turkey told me today that he wants to start school in three days! That’s obviously not going to happen, as I’m not ready for it yet, (I have some other shopping left–have to hit the parent-teacher supply store, Target and/or Wal-Mart and CPH, not to mention rearranging and setting up the guest bedroom/classroom) but I don’t know that we’ll make it to my original plan of Labor Day week. At the least, we’ll be doing a special unit that I’m putting together about the Olympics and China, which should be tons of fun. I’m really looking forward to this new adventure that we’re about to embark on together!

Considering My Options

I hope there will come a day when I am not obsessing over curriculum. In fact, I hope that day will come soon, because I really hope to place our order for the coming school year within the next two weeks. I, for one, am just grateful that I was able to choose a company from which to order so quickly. If I had to compare different curriculum packages within *and* between companies, I would be completely looney toons by now. I suppose, depending on who you ask (read, my husband!) I already am, as I cannot put the Sonlight catalog and/or website down in the evenings, but it is what it is. Decision time approaches, so hopefully I will get this figured out, and fast.

The way I look at it, I have three options. I’ve basically eliminated one of those, but it was my gut instinct as to what I should order, so I have to keep it on the table, just in case. I was initially just going to order the Core K, with K readers (Option One). Switch out the handwriting for a different style, but keep everything else in the package basically the same. I was going to add the Get Ready, Set, Go for the Code set for some extra reading help, but the rest was going to be the K suggestions–math, science, Bible, electives, etc. However, after talking to some people who have used Sonlight, I started to worry about starting Bunny at the K level too young (she’s four). Now, anybody who has met her can attest to the fact that she is quite bright, and rather advanced for a four year old. I wasn’t at all worried about her being able to pay attention or keep up with the work. But, some moms who have been through it mentioned that as we got into Cores Two and Three, the subject material might be a little heavy for her if we started a year early. Actually, some of them even recommended starting at the P 3/4 Core, but I think that’s ridiculous, and not an option at all–we’ve been reading a lot for the last three years, we need something more structured.

Anyway, those comments got me to thinking. Looking at the P 4/5 Core, I initially thought it would be too boring for Bunny and Turkey (who is five). We have read some of the books, and there isn’t really any structured math or electives, and no learning to read, so I couldn’t really see how that would work. But the thing about Sonlight is, you’re supposed to look more at the age ranges than the Core level, and doing that, Core P 4/5 makes the most sense, as it’s for four and five year olds, and I will be teaching, well, a four and a five year old!

So, Option Two was born. After considering to myself how I could tweak not only this year’s program to make it more advanced, but not set us up to get into too heavy subject material a few years down the road, I came up with what I think is a good compromise. I would get the P 4/5 Core, but with readers K, as well as language arts K, as planned in option one, which is an available choice from Sonlight (up through Core Three, you have the option of either advancing a core level in the readers, or an advanced set of readers within your core). Even though neither Turkey nor Bunny can read independently yet, they seem to be ready to learn, so this would be a good place to start. I would also get the handwriting and Explode the Code that I had planned to do with Core K, as that stuff is easily switched around in future years, and would provide them with an extra challenge. I would then also plan on getting the Classical Kids Collection of CDs (volume two, as volume one makes an appearance in an electives package in Core One or Two, I think) to add a little music appreciation/background of classical composers. I can also add a pattern blocks kit, which introduces some math concepts such as counting and geometry, and will help Bunny with spatial thinking (Turkey sure doesn’t need help in that department!)

This option is looking pretty good. We’ll be able to work ahead in reading, and from what I can tell, the readers are not so much the problem in regards to heavier content. That comes more from the book selections for the history core, and if we do the P 4/5 now, we’ll be more on track with the ages recommended for the cores later. Bunny will still be at the low end of the spectrum, but at least she’d be on it, unlike if we start with K now, and she’d always be a year “too young”–and like I said before, she’s advanced, so I think she can handle it. The other nice thing is the way the readers are laid out in coming years. We’ll be a year ahead, but once we get to Core Two, we’ll have the option of regular readers (which, in theory, we’ll do with Core One), as well as advanced and intermediate. So, even if we’re a grade level ahead for a little while, it’ll all catch up by Core Three.

Then, there’s Option Three. I honestly think that in an ideal situation, this is the best option we’ve got, but finances make it basically impossible. I haven’t discounted it altogether, because I honestly believe it’s the best solution, but I also don’t think it’s really going to happen. My big concern with the P 4/5 core is that we’re going to go through it faster than scheduled. Knowing my children, and their desire to learn, I have a hard time believing it will take a full school year to get through, even with the tweaking I have planned. So, ideally, I would like to do option two above, and order Core K with Readers One. If I do this, we can spend at least half the school year (which is what I’m estimating it would take to do the P 4/5 Core if we do it at the pace I think we’re going to want to) on the P 4/5 Core, and then move right into the K core without a break. This will give Bunny especially a little more time to mature, as opposed to jumping right into Core K, but will also (hopefully) prevent them from getting too bored. I would then get handwriting for Core One to go along with it, because it doesn’t really matter if they get ahead in that, as well as Explode the Code 1, 2, 3, which is scheduled to go along with the readers and language arts for Core One, which we would be upgrading to.

I see option three as the best of both worlds. We can ease our way into homeschooling (and school, in general) with Core P 4/5 and work at our own pace. If it goes fast, we can jump right into Core K. At worst, the P 4/5 really does take a full year, and we have the K curriculum ready to go next year when we need it. I don’t know–such tough decisions to make, when it’s in regards to your children’s education. I guess option two will work out OK as long as we don’t go through it too fast, and the bonus is, it’s the cheapest of the three options!

Wow, that was really long and confusing! If you’ve never looked at a Sonlight catalog, I’m sure it sounds like a foreign language. Actually, it’s taken the better part of three weeks for me to understand what I’m talking about, and I’m not even sure about myself half the time!