Sonlight and the Orthodox Homeschool Family
Sonlight has been my homeschool staple for nearly all the 16 years we have been homeschooling. But, that doesn't mean I haven't used other stuff or been frustrated with Sonlight. Like everything, it has it's Pro's and Cons. Also, where you are in the season of your life and your own strengths and weaknesses and your children's needs and abilities all play a part in the curriculum you choose.
First the Pros:
Having a Christian curriculum from a Christian company is just really important to me. The more I feel the modern culture drifting from God the tighter I hold onto this need. I know in some ways this is a bit irrational. Intellectually I understand that secular curriculum can be well made and even excellent. But academics has never been my top priority with home education. The relationships with my children, an enriching environment and Christ - centered have always been my top priorities. The exceptional academics one can get from homeschooling has sort of been the icing on the cake or the happy coincidence. So, choosing a curriculum that may be excellent but does not have that Christian component is not always my first choice, or even my second or third.
Literature as a strong component in the curriculum is also quite important to me. When I first started homeschooling I knew I was doing something very unique and special and I wanted to have a curriculum that looked nothing like what I had in school and what is similar to what is used in classrooms. Sonlight is most assuredly that. All the wonderful and living books that are used for teaching science, history and literature are just spectacular. Even if I don't particularly like a book, I just so appreciate this style of learning. The variety of books and quantity is how I want my children to learn for these subjects.
Language Arts for Sonlight is terrific. They have come a very long way with their language arts. I give them credit for just the sheer will to make this work. For years and years people would really complain about their language arts and some still do, and that's fine, we all have our opinions. But certainly in the last couple years they have made significant improvements. I love the gentle way of teaching grammar and English skills that happens with their weekly language arts worksheet. I love the simple spelling for language arts K-4/5. The additional workbooks are nice to have on occasion. Many times I will have my child work in a workbook while I put away breakfast dishes or stick a load of laundry in. It's nice to have a few workbooks here and there for them to work independently and have it scheduled out for me. The activities in the Language Arts K and 1st grade are really fun and enjoyable to do with your child. It just gives school that extra kick and makes me love homeschooling even more than I already do. I have also always been a fan of copywork and love that it's included. The writing assignments are creative and offer a wide variety of skills. They also include teaching your child how to do mini reports and eventually work on a research paper.
Sonlight science has a great variety of books and also fun activities. You can do anywhere from 3 or more activities and experiments a week. You obviously don't have to do them all, but kids love an active science curriculum and it's nice to have that option. The science worksheets are really nice, they go along with the readings and give some basic workbook and answering question sort of skills.
Usborne books work very well for my family. My kids seem to enjoy the pictures and it works well for kids who may struggle with comprehending being read to them books that don't have alot of pictures. My son was like this, he struggled with the Read Alouds but completely enjoyed the Usborne books for history and science.
For high school I love the literature. Most literature programs only have you read a few books a year and do extensive analysis. I want some literary analysis, but not so much we only go through 4-8 books a year. I could just come up with my own booklist, but than I would be stuck without any literary analysis unless I came up with it myself and that's a challenge. I love planning homeschool, but that would be too much detail for me.
I also love the literature for history. I love that I can continue to not use a textbook for high school. You sort of get stuck with needing textbooks for science in high school but it's nice to continue not having to do that with all subjects.
Humanities is very important to me. Learning about people and cultures. Encountering people facing struggles like war and hardships and feeling empathy for them and being able to use that to show compassion for people in real life that go through struggles. Learning about others who are different than us and giving us different perspectives with life circumstances is so valuable I think.
Payment Plans have been very helpful.
Now for the Cons:
The schedule and all the books can be overwhelming. Sometimes following that schedule on a day to day basis can feel stifling. There are years when I have just thrown out the schedule and just read the books. For some kids who are not fast readers it can seem to take forever to get through books. My son is a very contemplative reader and it can take 45 minutes to an hour to read his reader, when I myself would read it in 30 minutes or less. So, it can really take up time in your school day.
Some of the books can be boring or a bit dark and depressing. My son has really struggled with this. He loves fantasy and science fiction and so many of the Sonlight titles are not his first choice in literature. I will usually try to substitute a few books out and put in ones I think he would like. He still complains about the ones he doesn't....but that's just life!
Lots and lots of historical fiction. HBL D - HBL W has lots and lots of historical fiction and while this is great, I do wish there would be more of a balance and put in some classical books. I have just done this myself over the year. I take out the books that seem a bit dark or dry and put in a classical book.
The Creative Expression portion of the language arts can be challenging to use. Writing and Rhetoric by Classical Academic Press, is my absolute favorite writing program. I struggled and struggled to teach my son to write and when we stumbled on this it was like a miracle. Sometimes kids just can't get things down on paper and if your child struggles with that than I recommend Writing and Rhtoric. Some kids have a natural ability to just be able to write or even talk with just having simple writing prompts and for them Sonlight Creative Expression should work just fine.
Expensive. This isn't as big of a deal as it use to be. So many new homeschool companies have come out and when you add it all up Sonlight is not the most expensive anymore. Especially when many people are using online type classes or DVD curriculum. But, the payment plans they offer do help with this.
Here are a few tips and suggestions for using Sonlight for the Orthodox Christian Family:
Substitute, Substitute, Substitute!
The Bible part of Sonlight I take those books out and shelve them. I keep them to re-sell my Sonlight materials at some point. I than substitute with Orthodox books. I will white out or cross out with pencil in the schedule the Sonlight bible books and write in my own books and organize them for the year.
The missionary and other Christian type books in the Sonlight materials I substitute as well. When you get your pile of books you will know which ones they are by just reading the descriptions in the back. They usually include 2-3 of those each year. I have read some of them to see if they would work, but to be honest I have just sort of gave up and decided that I am just going to substitute. I need to embrace and teach my children our Orthodox faith and this gives me the opportunity to do that. So, I find a few books from various Orthodox book sources and substitute.
For the weekly notes I just read and than hi-lite information I want to talk about. Most of the time the notes are not going to really have anything in them that should be a problem. The high school notes may have more stuff in them that you would skip than the earlier Sonlight programs, but it's still not that big of a deal. It's good to sort of read through the weeks notes anyway regardless of what church you go to or don't go to.
This is why I love Sonlight and find it very Orthodox friendly because that is essentially all you have to do.
