sonlight p3/p4 users?

[onyxravnos]

so i am thinking ahead for the comming year. I am a very waldorf-ish person in general and still will be using littleacorn as my 'spine' but ds1 has been a little anti crafts recently so I was re looking into sonlight p3/p4.
I figure even if i dont end up using it much the guide is only ten bucks and then i just have added a bunch of books to the book shelf and thats okay with me but most of the books i've never heard of....

anyone used it? do you like the books it comes with? why / why not?

[kittie313]

I have core P 3/4. I'm doing it this year with my 4yo and 2yo girls. Although, I admit that we originally bought it out of desperation to try and interest dd1 in reading, we thought that having a bunch of books with lots of pictures may be beneficial to us. It really is a fun core, we don't use the guide AT ALL and have probably read most of the stories at least 3 times by now. lol I'm a big fan of Sonlight for preschool, its a gentle approach at this level and is just great fun for reading. I really do enjoy all the books in the core, as well as *most* of the books in core P 4/5 (which I also own lol) Even if you decide not to stick with Sonlight after the P cores, it really does help to build a good collection of great fun books I think. We are definitely enjoying all the good stuff in P 3/4 as a family, my oldest 2 enjoy the books more than their little sisters do in fact sometimes.

[Zuzu822]

We are using SL P3/4 and love nearly all the books. I was an elementary librarian, so I was familiar with most of the titles and owned quite a bit. We just read the books; I haven't looked at the guide since the day it came, lol. I found most of the suggested activities pretty silly actually. For example: read Goodnight Moon and make porridge. However, as a starting point for (mostly) great children's lit, I really recommend it! I also used Winterpromise Journeys of Imagination for book ideas. They have a few selections I didn't know as well. Hope that helps!

[ChinaDoll]

I WISH I had done that for preschool rather than A Beka. We're doing Sonlight Core K now, but when we visit the library, we often check out a few of the preschool core books, and have enjoyed ALL of them. I think it would be a wonderful start to your child's education and library whether or not you continue with SL.

[Reebekah]

i just finished up with sonlight p3/4 with my just-turned-4 yo ds...and my 2 yr old ds also listens in sometimes..........and now we are reading all of the books all over again as bedtime stories. the guide really is just a suggestion of which order to read the books, and it jumps from a few pages of one to a few pages of another, which some people dont like. although i didnt love every single story (i'm just not big on fairy tales), my kids LOVE to hear every one of those stories over and over, and the stories are really memorable for them....and i guess that's all that matters. we plan to continue with sonlight.

[kgianforti]

Originally Posted by ChinaDoll

I WISH I had done that for preschool rather than A Beka. We're doing Sonlight Core K now, but when we visit the library, we often check out a few of the preschool core books, and have enjoyed ALL of them. I think it would be a wonderful start to your child's education and library whether or not you continue with SL.

How do you like the Core K? I'm thinking of using that as a filler until 1st grade. I did buy the Science K and it should arrive by Fed Ex today!

[Momma Aimee]

subb

[kittie313]

Originally Posted by kgianforti

How do you like the Core K? I'm thinking of using that as a filler until 1st grade. I did buy the Science K and it should arrive by Fed Ex today!

I have core K and the *old* science K (bought them used, they redid science K I think last year, maybe the year before) and for us personally, Sonlight will NOT work with my family at this point past the pre-k levels. We felt that core K was too broken up for us, and the girls didn't really enjoy the books even close to as much as they liked the P 4/5 books beforehand. We really loved the P levels, but core K was a whole different matter. None of us could get into it really. I can't really explain what went wrong, it was just so different from what we were used to (but then I didn't use the guide for P 4/5 either LOL it didn't have a guide before a few years ago so we just ditched the guide and read the stories, marking them each off a checklist I made for that purpose)

[Momma Aimee]

what can you tell me about teh teacher's guides .. for the pk4/5 and kindy levels.

we can't afford to buy the packages -- and have a number of the books already --

i was thinking of buying the teacher's guiide to use ...

but is it jsut a schdule of when to do stuff? or is there extra infrmation? like about book authors and the histopry of the books and so on ??

[kgianforti]

Originally Posted by kittie313

I have core K and the *old* science K (bought them used, they redid science K I think last year, maybe the year before) and for us personally, Sonlight will NOT work with my family at this point past the pre-k levels. We felt that core K was too broken up for us, and the girls didn't really enjoy the books even close to as much as they liked the P 4/5 books beforehand. We really loved the P levels, but core K was a whole different matter. None of us could get into it really. I can't really explain what went wrong, it was just so different from what we were used to (but then I didn't use the guide for P 4/5 either LOL it didn't have a guide before a few years ago so we just ditched the guide and read the stories, marking them each off a checklist I made for that purpose)

That is one thing I've heard about Core K - it's very broken up. Maybe I will just stick with getting books randomly. I wanted some "purpose" and more discussion to our reading.

I just bought the Science K and I heard that it's a lot better than the "old" science K...I hope!

All in all, Sonlight is really not for us because too many of the reasons NOT to buy apply to me. But I keep going "on the fence" because I also keep hearing the "reasons not to buy" apply to the older cores.

[kittie313]

Originally Posted by kgianforti

That is one thing I've heard about Core K - it's very broken up. Maybe I will just stick with getting books randomly. I wanted some "purpose" and more discussion to our reading.

I just bought the Science K and I heard that it's a lot better than the "old" science K...I hope!

All in all, Sonlight is really not for us because too many of the reasons NOT to buy apply to me. But I keep going "on the fence" because I also keep hearing the "reasons not to buy" apply to the older cores.

I know a lot of people that do Sonlight buy the core and then use the guide as more of a book list for an ORDER to read stuff in, then they do the mapping, timeline, and discussions listed in the guide for the book. But for me that is just too much work to redo it that way. We've considered trying again with core 1 in the fall, but our experience with core K has us hesitating a LOT. Especially since we know that k12 is working well for us and we are making progress with the girls' lessons and they are learning a lot. We really are attracted to SL because of the literature, but in practice with us it really just doesn't work well at all. And the thing is that the reasons NOT to buy don't really apply to us that much, while the reasons TO buy do apply to us. It is a strange thing................... lol

[kittie313]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee

what can you tell me about teh teacher's guides .. for the pk4/5 and kindy levels.

we can't afford to buy the packages -- and have a number of the books already --

i was thinking of buying the teacher's guiide to use ...

but is it jsut a schdule of when to do stuff? or is there extra infrmation? like about book authors and the histopry of the books and so on ??

P 4/5 doesn't have anything but a schedule for the books, and really it didn't even HAVE a schedule until a few years ago. It was only created because some parents created ones to use and started distributing them for free though a Yahoo group called SL Preschool. The core K one though, it has discussion questions and mapping activities and other stuff in it, beyond just saying what to read and when. If you were to buy just the guides, I'd skip the one for P 4/5 because there really isn't much in it at all, I'd just get the core K one. But don't get the binder, just the guide without it. You can buy a binder at WalMart for much less to be honest..................

[ChinaDoll]

Originally Posted by kgianforti

How do you like the Core K? I'm thinking of using that as a filler until 1st grade. I did buy the Science K and it should arrive by Fed Ex today!

We love it - I'm using it as Kindergarten for DS and First Grade for DD. She could have gone into Core 1, but I'd prefer to keep them together for now. The topics may be a bit chunked up, but the formal core title is "Introduction to World Cultures," so the goal isn't chronological history but just a basic overview of cultures, which was great for us, especially with a 5 year old in the mix. I'm looking forward to Core 1 (Intro to History, Part 1), where we'll introduce more formal, chronological history, but I'm in no way disappointed in Core K.

Science K is great; we have the old and the new, and like them both. Some complain that the experiments don't always line up with the readings. This is often true, but hasn't bothered us at all.

[ChinaDoll]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee

what can you tell me about teh teacher's guides .. for the pk4/5 and kindy levels.

we can't afford to buy the packages -- and have a number of the books already --

i was thinking of buying the teacher's guiide to use ...

but is it jsut a schdule of when to do stuff? or is there extra infrmation? like about book authors and the histopry of the books and so on ??

From what I understand (didn't use them) P3/4 and P4/5 have guides but they're unnecessary and most Moms abandon them. Most kids seem to love reading those books over and over and over again, alongside anything you might be doing for reading/math/etc.

Now for Core K, the IG is invaluable, but I feel compelled to tell you that despite the title, it is NOT kindergarten level work. It's for an age range of 5-7 years, so yes, some use it for kindergarten (I am) but it doesn't compare well to traditional kindergarten scope and sequence. If you're considering it, definitely check out Sonlight's Choosing Forum, which is free access, because many find their 5 year olds struggle through it, and several Moms recommend it for age 6/first grade.

[kittie313]

Originally Posted by ChinaDoll

From what I understand (didn't use them) P3/4 and P4/5 have guides but they're unnecessary and most Moms abandon them. Most kids seem to love reading those books over and over and over again, alongside anything you might be doing for reading/math/etc.

Now for Core K, the IG is invaluable, but I feel compelled to tell you that despite the title, it is NOT kindergarten level work. It's for an age range of 5-7 years, so yes, some use it for kindergarten (I am) but it doesn't compare well to traditional kindergarten scope and sequence. If you're considering it, definitely check out Sonlight's Choosing Forum, which is free access, because many find their 5 year olds struggle through it, and several Moms recommend it for age 6/first grade.

That is very true about core K. Last school year we tried to do it with my oldest for K while her little sister just kind of hung out and listened in, and she couldn't do it at all. Little sister did better with it, and she was 4yo at the time. We're going to attempt it again here this summer with the girls at going into 1st and 2nd grades, hopefully my oldest will be able to keep up with it then.

[kgianforti]

Originally Posted by ChinaDoll

Science K is great; we have the old and the new, and like them both. Some complain that the experiments don't always line up with the readings. This is often true, but hasn't bothered us at all.

I'm most likely going to pass on the Core K but I opened the science and briefly looked through it and I think it will be very nice for us. I bought the 4-Day package and will break the week up into two weeks so this will last until fall 2011. I think my big girl will get a lot out of it even though I'm not worried about mastery or anything.

Thanks for the discussion and sorry to the OP for the hijack!