Sonlight: Trying Something New

I am a devoted fan of The Well Trained Mind and absolutely love the classical method of education.  Last year my oldest entered the logic stage and for history I chose History Odyssey by Pandia Press.  I am quite pleased with it and so this year we are continuing to use it to study the middle ages.  For the grammar stage my two oldest used The Story of the World by Susan Bauer and I have no complaints.

So you may wonder why this year for 4th grade my 2nd child is doing Sonlight?  There are a few reasons.  One is my middle child devours books.  Depending on the length of the book this kid could read more than one a day.  We go to the library weekly, but even with the vast quantity of books it can be hard to find good quality reading material.  I believe the publishers of Sonlight not only have picked great books, but with its 50+ book list I shouldn't hear as many complaints that there is nothing to read or the more comon "I'm bored.".

The second reason for choosing Sonlight this year is my middle child likes to learn through literature.  My oldest is the complete opposite:  the facts and only the facts is what drives child #1, but as we parents know no two kids are alike.  Now, I do believe that to get a good overview of history, one does need to read a textbook or at least an encyclopedia, but after that I do think some kids, and adults too, learn and retain more if they read a good story.  And so I chose Sonlight this year for that reason.  There is required encyclopedia reading everyday (this covers the facts), but there are so many great books that coincide with the time period and, for an avid reader, nothing can replace a good book.

Another reason is the core itself.  For 4th grade I picked Core F: Non Western Cultures.  Our family has ties to the region and I thought what a great way to learn about the area.  When I was 8 or 9 my parents adopted a girl from Korea.  My sister now has kids of her own and has even traveled back to S. Korea to visit her brothers and I wanted my children to learn about the place and culture of their aunt.  Also, we have relatives who have been teaching in India for a couple years now.  We are doing a pen-pal correspondence with them, and now my child will have many things to discuss with them and, more importantly, will have an understanding of the people, culture, religion, etc.  My father-in-law has been traveling to China for business the last year and will probably be going to Australia.  My hope is by the end of the year my middle child will be able to have a meaningful conversation not only with those who have traveled the Eastern Hemisphere, but also with the rest of us here at home.

And the last reason is I think Sonlight is just a really fun curriculum.  For 3 years we have kept our noses to the grindstone, but I thought this year it would be fun to do something different. And after 4 weeks of school I can truly say this has been enjoyable.

I am not doing the Bible part of Sonight so I have nothing to say about that and for the Language Arts side of Sonlight the only thing we are doing is the dictation and subsequent grammar that goes with the dictated paragraph.  I still am not sure if I think the LA is a great program.  I really like Writing with Ease and I question the effectiveness of Sonlight's dictation and grammar exercises. One concern is the dictation itself.  I feel as if the publishers of Sonlight just put in any old paragraph without considering if it is quality writing.  But my main concern is how the grammar is all over the place.  Twice a week we are discussing parts of speech, types of paragraphs, why something is italicized, etc. and I feel we are covering too many concepts with not enough depth.  For this reason I am still using First Language Lessons.  But for the history and reading side of things, I believe Sonlight is a wonderful program.  I hope at the end of the year I will feel the same.