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Love to Learn Guarantee
- no other curriculum company allows you to actually use
up to half of the program to determine whether it works
for you!Listen to my Sonlight workshop
(broken into segments for quick download)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
As you are considering your options in the selection of one or more Core programs to use for your family, you may find it beneficial to use
my planning sheet.
Print as many of these as you need to "map out" different options.
If you have questions in the process, contact me by
e-mail. I can help!
Once you have made your selection and placed your order,
you will soon experience the joy of "Box Day" when your
order is delivered. Not sure what to do with all
those great materials? You can start with some
video guidance and then read my article,
Getting Started Right with Sonlight.
Language Arts
Children learn to speak by hearing parents speak to them and by responding. They they learn to read by being read to and by practicing with easy, familiar books. Likewise, children learn to write by observing good writing, and by imitating those models - listening to good writing, looking at good writing, copying good writing and then writing on their own.
Sonlight's Language Arts programs offer a natural and
effective approach to developing your child's skills.
Unbelievably Understandable Math with a Fun Twist!
Sonlight offers a variety of quality Math programs so
that you can choose the one that best fits your child's
learning style. Whatever the program may be, I
highly recommend that you also order
MathTacular
DVDs. This supplemental series can help turn basic
understanding into a natural ability to remember and use
what your child learns.
"Professor" Justin and his friends get into one
hilarious situation after another, unlocking concepts
and building skills with great creativity. Apples teach
fractions, cars serve as rulers, a bear hunter shares
his snacks and your children just may get hooked on
Math!
Budgeting for Sonlight
Curriculum Purchasess
Purchasing Sonlight's program packages provide many
benefits - saving time and effort in locating books,
building a great family library, cost benefits in
discounts, non-consumable materials that can be used
again for younger students - but many families struggle
with the cost of the purchase. There are two good
methods for spreading out the cost of your purchase:
1) Purchase Sonlight
gift certificates on a regular basis throughout the year
- no shipping charged -
which can then be compiled and used to pay for your order. A
$50 gift certificate purchased each month will not put
too much strain on the budget, but will provide $600
each year to apply to your Sonlight order.
Gift certificates
are available in a variety of denominations to match your
budget. These can also be a gift suggestion for family
members.
2) Use the Time Payment option
that Sonlight offers! Sonlight charges no fees or
interest to those who choose time payments - it simply
spreads your order total over 4 equal payment. Visit the
Time Payment page
and you will find a payment calculator and further
details.
Recordkeeping
I am a firm believer in not recreating what is already
available to me. Rather than maintain a lesson
plan or grade book for my children's studies, I use the
weekly schedule pages in our Sonlight Instructor's
Guides for recordkeeping.
Sample Schedule
(not the best image, but I think you'll
get the idea)
By filling in the date of the
week in the upper left corner, I know when the week's work
was completed. I provide a highlighter for each of
my children to mark off the assignments as they complete
them, which helps me determine with a quick glance how
much has been done. For subjects that are not
included on the Core schedule page, I extend the
gridlines down into the "Other Notes" space at the
bottom of the page. Adding horizontal lines
provides spaces to record these other subjects (Math,
Science, Foreign Language, Music, Art, etc.) so that all
educational activities are recorded and your student
knows what is to be done during each day or week.
Product Use Hints
There are a number of modifications that I have made as
I use Sonlight products that have simplified or enhanced
the process.
Developing the Early Learner
- these workbooks can be used repeatedly if you cut the
workbooks apart and put the pages in plastic page
protectors. Your child can then mark on the
plastic page protectors with markers, which can be
cleaned off so the page can be done again. This is
especially helpful when you are starting with a very
young preschooler who may need repeated attempts at the
page in order to practice the skills being developed.
Book of Time
- after
years of having a timeline on my dining room wall that
really messed up the decor, I was delighted to discover
Sonlight's Book of Time that offers the opportunity to
assemble a timeline in a compact place. The
timeline figures that are available in each Core program
tend to blend in to the cream-colored pages of the book,
so we have incorporated Sonlight's Core color scheme to
label the figures on the pages. We outline each
figure with the color that relates to the Core in which
that figure was studied...red around Core 1 figures,
yellow around Core 3 figures, etc. This can be
done either by mounting the self-stick timeline figure
on the appropriate color of construction paper, cutting
it out with a thin border and then gluing it onto the
page, or mounting the timeline figure directly into the
book and using a marker to outline the figure.
Doing this adds color to the Book of Time and provides a
reference for your studies as you review the timeline
figures. You can see a sample picture
here.
Spelling Power
- comes as
a thick, soft-bound book that is rather awkward to use
on a daily basis.
You can have a local printer cut the binding off the
book and then put it in a 1.5" 3-ring binder for easier
use. The inside pages are already punched for the
binder, and the book lays open much more cooperatively
when installed in a binder. If you are using the
program with several children, mark each child's current
page with a different colored paperclip, moving the clip
along as you progress through the word lists.
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