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Does anyone use Sonlight and enter it into the CMO?
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If you use Sonlight, how do you like to enter everything into the Organizer? I’ve had to switch up my plans this year and we are going to be doing Core G. I’d like to set it up in here but I’m not sure the best way. I’d like to keep to the schedule in that I want everything done in order, however, I don’t care how long it takes to do that. Just everything on Day 1 needs to be finished before moving to Day 2, etc. Hope that makes sense.
Thanks in advance,
Cynthia
I have not entered Sonlight, but did enter two Winterpromise programs.
Originally (after looking around) I added it as Day 1, Day 2, , then added all the books that accompany it as a “start beside …WP program” and scheduled them for a Saturday (making it so I could tick off the book when read, but it not taking over the daily plan). But after doing this for a bit, I realized this was not like the case the other person was talking about (whom I got the idea off), but was a whole curriculum of books, thus a “Saturday” or “not scheduled today” was a foot long. It was a bit ridiculous.
So I just removed the side books (they are after all on the Sonlight schedule) and just left it as Day 1, Day 2. This way I could “work” on the particular day, if we are short of time, or “finish” that day.
My weekly schedule for anything is also just attached to a clipboard. So no carting binder around just to tick an item off.
Hope that helps, xxx
By scheduling individual books to the CMO, you would be able to have reports printed that showed actual book titles. I think that you could enter each Sonlight book in the CMO and modify the divisions in each book by adding Week #, Day # to the list of lessons/chapters. (Did you know that you can copy books from the bookfinder to modify and use ISBN # to bring up book info from Amazon?) You could then use the feature in the scheduler that assigns books to start with or follow another book. Then do all of Week 1, Day 1 readings one day, then Week 1, Day 2 readings the next day, then Week 1, Day 3…Does that make sense?
I did something similar for AO – I copied the books we used, and added an AO Week number. Then, it has varied from year to year what we do….
Last year, my kids could pick anything from their “weekly” list – so I would schedule every book for every day. On Sunday, I could close all the books that weren’t used that AO week. I’d click on “show upcoming assignments” on anything that was done on more than one day. Then I could print the “Daily Plan” and use it as a “weekly” to do list. I would mark off each day what the kids actually did. (They had to do so many AO readings each day.)
This year, that wasn’t working as well – so I have changed it up – I do assign specific books on specific days this year. I do close up anything that is for a different AO week. I use Friday as a “catchup day”.
It does sound similar – except it is daily “modules” instead of weekly.
Thanks everyone.
When you say you close it up, do you mean you just don’t expand it so that it shows all the readings for the week? Or is it something else?
Beside each item on the to-do list (Daily Plan), there is a little triangle by the title. If you click on that triangle, it closes up the resource so you only see the title (and it is in a gray font too) – you can reopen it the same way. If you print the daily report, any resource/item that is closed up is not included on the printout. – Which is perfect for this!
I find it handy as the day goes by to close the items as they are accomplished, so I can easily see what is left.
Wow, why did I not know this before?
That may work out very well. I thought of just putting Week 1 Day 1, etc. in the first field and then listing out each item I want them to do in the next field, but I’m not sure how that will work. Plus it wouldn’t keep track of each individual book which would be nice.
I think I’ll have to play around and see what works best. Thanks for everyone’s advice. I love seeing how others do it so I can glean ideas and learn new things.
Cynthia
When you copy a book from the bookfinder or make your own resource, the CMO will archive that resource in your “Added Resources” section of your account. If you were to customize your Sonlight books in the CMO by adding the Week #, Day # to each division in the books, you would be able to use these resources again in the future by simply adding the core’s titles to your CMO. And then, like Suzukimom described, close all the resources you won’t be needing for the current day.
just a thought: You are probably still going to refer to your Sonlight guide so you may want to simply enter your books into the CMO without specific week and day info. I like using the CMO to document what we actually do each day (your the instructor’s guide is the plan and the CMO is the actual record of work done).
Yes, that is true. I enter in the AO week numbers because I don’t want to have to look at a weekly chart – but it IS a lot of work adding the week numbers.
If you do add the week/day numbers make sure you COPY the resource/book that is the SCMO, then edit your copy – instead of editing the main resource….
(With my AO ones, I added the words “with AO weeks”, and clicked to share the resource – just in case anyone else wanted it that way too…)
I’m doing Sonlight this year and entered it all in. I am proud of myself because I have planned out the next two years and going way more CM!! can’t wait. Anyway, here what I did…. and for the most part worked great and I love love love the reports!
I entered in each book as it’s own resource into CM. I just put everything as M-F except certain things that only were on one day or only on two days…We are doing core B+C so our poems are on tue & thurs without fail so I did those like that, but the history is hit or miss on which day you read or not, I still use the Sonlight paper scheduler for those, but you could take the time and put beside each chapter week & day, but if you ever get off schedule, there would not be an easy fix.
Now for the Sonlight Language arts readers, I entered them in and just had the next one in line start once the current book ended so they were super easy and I did the same for the science books.
we’ve gotten off schedule and back on and off so much, that I personally wouldn’t do the week & day info unless you know you wont or cant use the paper sonlight schedule, like if you have older kids and just wan to print out each days/weeks work and have them check off. Then you are looking at more work on the entering side, but the reports are so nice and if you do miss something that assignment is always there waiting on you.
I did enter the whole whole year and so far so good! Hope that all makes sense and helps you. If I had it to do all over again…. I would just label each assignment with a week and not a day. That way when I expanded the week’s assignments I could see how many for that resource I had and I could decide what day to do it.
With my AO weeks, if we get behind, I just note what week we are on…
For instance, we are ‘supposed’ to be doing week 19.
My son is on week 18…. actually many of his readings are in week 17… so for each day, he is doing any readings labelled 17 or 18. (If there happen to be too many, we will pick…) On any lighter days, I add a ‘catchup’ item from another day, to help us ‘catch-up’.
My daughter is on week 16… same thing.
If we got too far behind my plans, or if trying to catchup was beingtoo stressful, I would just pick an AO week to plan to finish the year at, and continue the next year where we leave off.
All this to say that having the week numbers entered in doesn’t mess me up if we are ‘behind’ schedule…
I haven’t tried this yet, but here is sort of what I’m thinking, please let me know if this might work or if it is crazy:
I could have one resource – Sonlight Core G
Then I would have each entry be Week 1 Day 1, Week 1 Day 2, etc. In the second field, I would enter each reading, for example: STOW pp. 1-8, Mara, Daughter of the Nile Ch. 1, Read Aloud Golden Goblet Ch. 1, etc.
Would that be too messy? See I really don’t care which week/day we are on, I just want them to do it in order (all of day 1’s readings, then all of day 2’s, etc.). I also don’t want to have to refer back to my guide every day. I want to be able to hand them their schedule and they can work off of it.
I would rather have each book entered in on it’s own but I don’t know how to organize it so it all comes up properly in order. I think I’ve confused myself again.
That may work out very well. 
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