sonlight users: what you like/hate about it - Page 2

[True Blue]

First Language Lessons, and maybe adding Writing With Ease next year.

[elizawill]

we own a lot of the books and we love them. i just don't have any sort of schedule or instructor's guide. i bought them for fairly cheap at a sonlight yahoo swap board.

[Rev1053]

Originally Posted by Reebekah

for those who arent using or dont like the sonlight language arts, what are you using instead?

Total Language Plus.

DS1 loves to read.

[TanyaMT]

Originally Posted by Reebekah

for those who arent using or dont like the sonlight language arts, what are you using instead?

I use the Explode the Code and Wordly Wise from their LA and the readers if he is interested in that particular book. We supplement with narration exercises, Draw then Write and Writing with Ease. A cobbled together mishmash but he is doing okay.

[Copper]

I have used Abeka in the past but am not sure I will continue with them for Language or not..decisions, decisions!

[jejamison]

I am currently doing the P3/4 with my 2 and 4 year old daughters.  They love the books in this!  I did Hooked On Phonics Preschool with my 4 year old when she was 3.  I absolutely recommend this to anybody that is struggling teaching the letter sounds to their kids.  This year, I am doing the Kindergarten Hooked On Phonics with my 4 year old and she is still loving the program.  Next fall, I am planning on doing Sonlight K with her.  I am looking for advice as to what to do about the language arts though.  I don't know if I should switch to Sonlight's language arts or stick with what has been working, the Hooked On Phonics.  I've heard that the SL language arts has a lot of writing in it, but I am planning on beginning A Reason For Handwriting next fall also.  Any advice?

[kittie313]

I am doing core 1 with my oldest 2 girls, and adding in P3/4 for my youngest two.  I've done P3/4, P4/5, core K, science K, LA K, and am now doing core 1 and LA 1 and LA K with my 4 girls.  I'm not thrilled with their lang. arts, and if I hadn't gotten LA1, LA2reg, and LA2int used for a total of $20 I wouldn't use it past LA K.  For us, it is just too structured and focused too much on writing, and that isn't something I want right now.  We're just trying to get my girls READING fluently with my 6yo able to print at all, so the writing portions aren't really used so much.

We're super relaxed about how I do our lessons too.  I'm pulling in books from the science parts of P3/4 and P4/5 to do this year as the starting point for science with all 4 kids, and it is just fun.  My 2nd grader is NOT bored by the P3/4 science book we're reading and discussing right now (The Flip-Flap Body Book) and my 3yo and 4yo think its cool too.  It has been a nice relaxed pace for us with the science how I'm doing it, and in the fall I may buy their science 1 or science 2 but I haven't really decided yet (btw, the science K that I own is their old one, they completely redid the lower science levels a couple years ago so I have NO experience with the newer science program, but I didn't care for the old science K at all which is why it is sitting pretty much untouched on my shelf).

The core for history was really what we wanted most though, my girls got a taste of history from k12 last school year for grades K and 1, and they wanted to go deeper than what we could with k12.  I am really happy that we chose to go with core 1 and start at the beginning of world history again, although I don't particularly care for A Child's History of the World.  But I heard that a lot of people do Story of the World instead, and then when they get to cores 6 and 7 they do Mystery of History when SOTW is put in as the spine for the history portion.  Also, some of the read alouds even in core 1 tie in to the history.  I've heard that one read aloud, I think its The Year of Miss Agnes but I could be wrong, they are reading about greek myths in that story and if you are reading the read alouds to the same schedule as the history then when that read aloud is talking about the kids reading about greek myths you are also reading greek myths in the history section.  It is a neat little parallel at this level in the cores, and I think core 2 starts to integrate more of a tie-in with the historyad read alouds before core 3 ties the history, read alouds, and the readers all together.  It has been really fun for us so far, and I've had to change things a bit in the guide to fit our family better (like we do the bible reading, but not the rest of the bible program, and I'm not big a fan of the missionary stories book so we dropped it completely for now, we'll add it later maybe if the kids are interested in it), but we really like Sonlight.  It works well for our family dynamic and needs.

[kittie313]

Originally Posted by jejamison 

I am currently doing the P3/4 with my 2 and 4 year old daughters.  They love the books in this!  I did Hooked On Phonics Preschool with my 4 year old when she was 3.  I absolutely recommend this to anybody that is struggling teaching the letter sounds to their kids.  This year, I am doing the Kindergarten Hooked On Phonics with my 4 year old and she is still loving the program.  Next fall, I am planning on doing Sonlight K with her.  I am looking for advice as to what to do about the language arts though.  I don't know if I should switch to Sonlight's language arts or stick with what has been working, the Hooked On Phonics.  I've heard that the SL language arts has a lot of writing in it, but I am planning on beginning A Reason For Handwriting next fall also.  Any advice?

I think that the writing in SL LA is a bit much for kids compared to the reading level.  Although, I found when I pulled my oldest out of PS to start 1st grade, she would be able to do the amount of writing in LA 1 but she wasn't reading at that level, while right now my second girl could do the readers 2 intermediate easily but struggles with the amount of writing in LA K.  It isn't a good match-up of writing and reading level in my opinion, although I do share a lot of the philosophy that Beechick and Sonlight have with their lang. arts program.  We love copywork and creative writing, but at this point I'm more interested in teaching my girls to read well and be able to write.  If I were in your position (which I really do NOT like HOP, it doesn't work in our home for our kids) since you know HOP works well, I'd stick with it instead of Sonlight for lang arts, and add in the handwriting program of your choice.  You are doing HOP K now right? So when you do core K, if your plan is to do it in the fall (which I'd be inclined to suggest P4/5 instead of K since you have the younger one also, and trust me P4/5 is not too light for a K year I promise) with HOP grade 1, I'd order core K with readers 1 and skip the lang. arts.  Get the reader package since it is part of the core, and then go through them at your child's pace with the HOP and a separate handwriting program.

[lmonter]

OP, what decision did you make?  I just noticed this is an aged thread.  :) 

We're halfway through Core K this year (as 1st grade) for my 7yo.  Mostly for the history/world/core spine.  We add in math and handwriting and grammar and such as I see fit.  Sometimes we do the suggested activities, more often than not we do our own thing.  I do really like the IG as my record of doing something (that whole covering my rear end thing).  Check off things we've done/read, scribbled on additional readers and activities, etc.  I'd really like it if I could get an edit-able digital IG so I could put in our own Bible/grammar/science/math stuff all on one page (instead of half a dozen sometimes), but eh, that's a pipe dream.  So far my 7yo boy has loved the read-alouds...  the Living Long Ago is a bit sluggish for him, but he loves the fiction stuff - Couldn't get enough of Dr. Doolittle ("keep going, mommy!  I want to see what happens next!"), My Father's Dragon, etc.  I've enjoyed most of the stories as well, which is good since I have three more kids that'll get to rotate though the stuff.
 

[mmmmochi]

I did look into Sonlight, but decided on Calvert. I find their language arts, literacy and phonics program to be very good. My daughter`s reading and spelling has come on in leaps and bounds since starting homeschooling.

I do not like the science or math very much and have to alter the schedule to make it a bit more challenging and interesting for my child. We are doing 2nd grade for everything apart from math, which we are doing the 3rd grade workbooks and curriculum.

[Kindermama]

I ended up really only using some workbooks that came with 4/5 with my 4yo and 5yo. We did read the books that came with 4/5 but now on the recommended schedule and we basically read through them by November. We read aloud chapter books now and sometimes go back to the 4/5 books just for rereads. My 5yo is doing the K Language Arts (beginner reading level). That has been right on for her! My 4yo likes to do the Explode the Code workbooks as well so I ordered more for her. It didn't take long for my 5 yo to read the short tales! I'd say by November she had it down---I've actually skipped a bit ahead to keep her interest level because she picked up letter sounds pretty fast. The program is fun! I should add that my 10yo is using Language Arts Grade 5 and we both love it. It's very thorough and the book titles are outstanding! I highly recommend it!