Sonlight and CM

Hi, Tammy and welcome. Ditto what Gina said about SL and the Planning book and dvd here on SCM. Well, I’ve used Sonlight and it did not work out for us. But I do still use their booklist, mostly for readers. I did not like several things about them. I did not care for some of the book choices or how they were scheduled. My son did not do well with the language arts activity sheets. Some of their science books were Usborne and included millions of years and evolution, as the author believes in an old earth.

There is more on the SL topic on this SCM forum, including here:

http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/talk-me-out-of-sonlightplease

I just went through my planning book and dvd and I was so overwhelmed because I wanted to plan too much, really. And I have so many books now that it is hard to decide which ones to use! So I called a dear friend of mine who is a hs mom using CM methods and she helped me relax and not plan out quite so much. She helped me to decide which books to use this term for science and how to do our bedtime readings. So then I planned week 1 only and although the planning book helped me to think out the big picture and how to get there, I think I am better off planning the details of each week only one week at a time.

For example, my ds7 read Greg’s Microscope for science today (on the Sonlight reader list), and now we are changing science for this week to include a day or two to use our microscope and look at the same things Greg in the story looked at…plus whatever else the kids find. That got me excited about science again, too. It is so cold outside this week, that there will be no nature walk. So my friend told me to put up a bird feeder and let nature come to us for our nature notebook. That will have to be next week after I get the bird feeder set up though.

In my opinion, the way to merge Sonlight with CM is to use their catalog for some of the book selections that fit your family. Plan your big picture and year, but don’t over plan. Provide lots of good books and things.

This is my 3rd year using SL. I have used Cores F, G, H , 100 and 300. I am looking at switching to SCM for next year. I will tell you why I am doing this and maybe it will help you. I love the book selections that SL has. I was less impressed with the choices in the upper level cores. Core 300 had by far the most objectional books (in my opinion). My main reason is with SL I don’t have time to add the variety that SCM provides. The Nature, poetry, composer and artist studies. We just plow through the books one right after another. Hardly, stopping to enjoy them. The amount of reading per day does not fit with the CM short lessons philosophy. I think at this point I would rather read less books in a year, read less in a day and accomplish a wider variety in our homeschool.

When I choose books for next year I will probably use the SL book list in addition to SC, but I will not follow there intensive schedule.

There are many things that I love about SL.  We used the first five cores, adapting them to fit our familiy better.  Many of the books that they’ve selected have become favorites here.  I think that SL can be adjusted to fit a CM-style education and there are times when it’s valuable to have a schedule laid out for you.

As my children got older and younger ones were added to “school” I found it more difficult to use SL as written since the subject matter of the older one’s books could be too mature for the younger ones.  Then I felt like I had to do so much tweaking to accomodate all the ages that I wasn’t really following the SL schedule at all.  Also, I discovered that I really preferred a chronological history study with all ages studying the same time period.  We still use many of the books suggested in SL though.

I break them down into catagories. I usually run History and Geography together and take it one time era on a continent at a time. We are in Africa so I did Ancient Egypt first. We went by era. We took all the books that we love and incorperated them into areas of the map or time we are studying. I use “All through the Ages” and “Around the world in 180 days”  as a guide to start me off. They have books that they suggest. Using the timeline you work with the other books to figure out what you want to teach next. Then use CM books, Library, or your favorite Son Light or what ever books you have around your house that you forgot about. 🙂 I have other books that I picked up that I thought were great Living Books and I want to read them to the kids. I hold off until we get to that era or continent with that era. I plan on doing Genesis-Deut. Ancient Greece and doing more Art with sculptures and structures. When we get further into modern times (A.D) I plan on doing more composers and Music  and Art with paintings. I think the kids will get more out of it if we can just take it one era at a time. This is just an example of what I do. I also incorperate some Science that relates with our study and some that the kids are interested at the time. Like right now we are studying about the Atlas Mountains and Mt. Kilamanjaro. We have been doing a study of different rocks and minerals. We did a “grow your own minerals” kit by the Smithsonian. My son wants to do his own valcano. He already knows how he wants to do it. He has thought it out on his own. We have already done an experiment with baking soda and peroxide so he is going to do that to make it erupt.

    Reading is the same. You just pick the era or continent you are working on and get books or Literature from those eras.

If you are a box person then you can use the CM planner. There are other planners/software out there that can help you break it down. Basically it is a chapter a day for the days you schedule it. unless you see the buggy eyed look. I leave a day or two open for catch up. Some people just do it by checking off booksthey have finished. They know what they want to cover. Write down the books for the year and check them off as they finish them. One for each subject. Then, You get the books you covered and you don’t have to feel pressured to make a deadline if it wasn’t met. Then, the children learn at their own pace and you can look up questions that come up. Either way everyone is different. You just have to find out what you like to do and how structured you want to be about it. Some of us can only handle so much structure before we go bananas. 🙂 I guess that is why I do a more relaxed way. I decided to go all year. This way if I didn’t get everything done on my list I  just keep going until I am satisfied with my accomplishments instead of a yearly deadline.  🙂

Yes, you do still use a schedule for CM. I’ve heard great things about the SCM Organizer, but I wanted one on paper to print out for the week, easily able to change it where needed and when needed. I keep my big picture, year, and term in a 5 subject paper notebook to jot down book lists and ideas of when we’ll study this or that. Sometimes it is more like: read this book after finishing that book. I made a schedule in excel for the week that works well for us. PM me your email and I will be happy to share it with you. You can change it to meet your own family needs. I usually print out enough for a month at a time and note changes with pencil to make before I print out the new one. I also use correction tape and change things that week very easily. I love that it is flexible and the book choices fit my personality and my family’s interest and level. If I start a book and find it to be over their heads, I can easily shelve it for later and use a different book. So I do have it planned out and I do have our days planned out on a weekly schedule/record keeper, but I have flexibility to change it to fit our family.