I just received, unexpectedly, a complete Sonlight core 100 curriculum from a very generous friend. I had asked her about it months ago, before I bought all kinds of other materials at a Curriculum fair! But now that I have it, I am in a quandary. I don’t yet have anything for history, and I thought I could combine my 9th and 7th graders with this. We have never done in- depth American history. But there are so many books!!! And if I also try to use all the literature books as well, I just don’t know how I will schedule it (I can’t use sonlight’s schedule because of omitting books here and there). Should I try to use it? Should I just consider it a bunch of books and use them as I want to, not using the Sonlight teacher’s manual? AnyoNe else overwhelmed by Sonlight???
I think most people are overwhelmed at first by Sonlight. 🙂 I’d just pick out the books you wanted and schedule those, stick the rest in a basket for free reading, and be thankful for the gift!
Thanks, Ladies. It just makes sense to use them in a CM way and not get pushed into a different way of educating just because it was free! Can I tell you how many crazy things I’ve tried to make work because it was free 🙂
Could you use some of the literature alongside the corresponding SCM Module, adding to, or substituting some of the titles? The last Sonlight core we tried here was a few years ago, and I ended up using the books in a much more CM way after I ditched the SL spine and schedule. Everyone learned so much more this way – CM knew what she was talking about! We also have several cores leftover from my daughter’s years of homeschooling, and I pull these out to assign as independent reading or to use as read-alouds.
I am switching this year after using Sonlight for the last few years. I didn’t like the schedule but I was thankful to have things laid out for me so that I knew what readers/read-alouds correlated with which history topics/readings (when they did). I used it at the pace that worked for us and tweaked whenever necessary (which was often!) to make it work for our family. I came to realize I was making it much more CM friendly by doing what I was doing. Having that schedule for the first few years gave me the confidence to choose something different this year that requires more planning on my part but will fit our family perfectly. All that to say I would definitely use those resources and even refer to the schedule IF it helps you organize. If it stresses you out, ditch the schedule completely and use those great books however you wish! 🙂