This is the introduction in a series of articles about why we used Sonlight Curricula in our homeschool. Here is a page that holds an introduction to the series and links to the other posts in the series. We bought core packages for what would be third through tenth grades in a traditional school. Kelly used the program from fifth through tenth grade. Christian used the program from third through eighth grade. This series mostly describes what we did for all the subject areas except math, music, and art. I have already written pretty extensively on this blog about what we did for math and plan to do a future series on our art art program. We bought most, but not all of our core materials from Sonlight and followed their curriculum guides with a fair amount of rigor. Like most other homeschoolers, we deviated in minor ways where we saw fit.
Are we qualified to talk about this?
We bought Sonlight Core Curriculum packages for what would be third through tenth grades in a traditional school. Our daughter, Kelly, used the program from fifth through tenth grade. Our son, Christian, used the program from third through eighth grade. This series mostly describes what we did for all the subject areas except math, music, and art. I have already written pretty extensively on this blog about what we did for math and plan to do a future series on our art art program. We bought most, but not all of our core materials from Sonlight and followed their curriculum guides with a fair amount of rigor. Like most other homeschoolers, we deviated in minor ways where we saw fit.
Results will vary…
We have no illusion that our kids are particularly brilliant (a BIG topic for a future series of blog posts) and the results are not all in yet so take our analysis with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, Kelly is scheduled to finish up high school this year with around 90 +/5 semester credits and an ACT composite score of 34. She is on track to earn a degree in Statistics at a National Research University about two years ahead of his peers. Christian is scheduled to finish up high school this year with 63 +/-1 semester credits and an ACT composite score of 27. He is on track to earn a BS degree in Applied Math about four years ahead of his peers.
Introduction
Part 1. Why we did not continue with Susan Wise Bauer’s The Well Trained Mind
Part 2 Why we thought it would be good for us before we knew too much about it
Part 3 Science
Part 4 History
Part 5 to be continued…
Hi,
This morning I began doing some research on homeschool curricula for Christian families. It is how I found your blog. My husband and I are Americans living in South Korea and we have two very young children (ages 4 and 1).
The two of us agree that Sonlight appears to be the curriculum for us. But we do have a few important things to consider before we make the decision to commit to homeschool.
Your blog (I’ve enjoyed reading for the better part of the morning today) has been a good encouragement for me. I am a professor at a local university and have some very (unfounded) prejudices against homeschooling that I’m hoping research will help to cure! As it is, there are very few options available to foreign families when it comes to schooling for our children here in South Korea….
Who knows: we may even consider opening a school of our own at some point. Certainly something to pray about.
Thank you for taking the time to chronicle your journey. I’m hoping your blog will be a resource for us in the coming years.
God bless you and Lorena as you consider new opportunities.
Keturah
Thanks for your wonderful note! It sounds like you are leading a very interesting life. We have close friends and connections to South Korea, so it was exciting to hear what you are doing over there. If there is anything we can do to be of help to you in all this, please do not hesitate to ask. If you blog your experience, we would love to read about it. It will be very interesting to see what you decide to do with the kids education. We, too, had some fairly strong prejudices against homeschool. In fact we still have those prejudices, but the further the kids get in college, the more grateful we are that we made the effort.
lease stay in touch!
Hi,
I just found your site this morning while googling TT Math compared to Thinkwell. I have a couple questions for you…what did you end up using for the high school years as far as math goes and for your daughters final years of high school after Sonlight? We are using Sonlight and TT Math. My daughter is in 8th grade this year and I’m trying to map out her high school plan.
Any help you can give would be so greatly appreciated! Thank you so much!
Susana
Hello Susana,
Kelly and Christian both went through Thinkwell pre-calculus. Kelly passed the CLEP test and was placed into Calculus. Christian took the Community College placement test and also placed into Calculus. We did something very similar to you, but Christian tested highly on the ACT at the end of his 8th grade year so we put him full time into the Community College. I would have done the same with our daughter if I was not just starting to figure this stuff out when she was in 8th grade. For her we did Sonlight literature, based our History on CLEP and some ancillary books (if you look at what I have written on CLEP you will see what we did–we were VERY happy with that) and Apologia Science. Kelly (Statistics) and Christian (Applied Math and Electrical Engineering) are both juniors (Kelly will be a senior next semester) and those programs served us quite well. I can go into it in more detail if you have some specific questions. Thanks for reading my blog!
Thank you so much for your reply and your help! I appreciate your advice. Thank you too for taking the time to post your homeschool journey so others like myself can learn from you and gain insight along the way.
I am going to scour your blog and your links in the sidebar, CLEP, and so forth. After I’ve spent some time reading these posts, if I have questions I’ll ask you.
Thank you for extending the offer to help with questions and for your time!