We have been homeschooling for five years and every year I have followed the same routine that most homeschoolers and even public schools follow.
In the fall I moved my children from one grade to the next, selecting new curriculum for the new grade.
But this year, we’re doing something different.
I’ve used Sonlight as our core curriculum from the beginning. I love it and I’m very happy with this choice. Sonlight has served us well and I foresee it serving us well for many years to come.
At the beginning of last school year, I made the decision to extend the core that I purchased for my oldest two girls past the traditional one year time period.
There were several reasons for this decision…
1. Since we began using Sonlight when my girls were preschoolers, using their P4/5 core, which was newly released at that time. Because of this, they were on the lower end of the age range of each of their subsequent cores. As we were advancing through History, I wanted to change this a bit and have them be more towards the middle or upper end of the recommended age range.
2. I needed some space to adjust to working Will into full time school. He was beginning his first grade year, which is when school feels really serious. I knew I needed extra time to focus on him.
3. It was much more cost effective to make Core D (which the girls began last year) last over a two year period. Because I did not purchase a core for my girls first grade year (I took a step away from Sonlight and went all classical that year, but ended up returning to Sonlight) I needed to purchase that for Will and extending the girls core prevented me for having to purchase two cores in one year.
I called a Sonlight adviser and spoke to her before making this decision. That was such a wonderful experience that I highly recommend! She walked me through how that would look in a practical sense. Basically, I took the weekly four-day plans and extended it out over two weeks. Two days = one week.
This worked great as I needed it so desperately during the beginning of last year as I was working Will into full time school. But, near the end of last year I didn’t need the slower pace as much. I was able to hold to the weekly four-day plan.
Thus, we are finishing up the core I purchased last year this week…about half-way through our Spring semester.
Core E Box Day
Instead of filling out time with other things and waiting for an official fall start to the next grade and the next core, I decided to move from one Sonlight Core right to the next. We celebrated our Box Day for Core E yesterday!
I love that every Sonlight core is filled with amazing, high-quality books. Reading through the list of books that are included in our cores as a compliment to our History studies, read-alouds, and as readers gets me excited. But holding the books in my hand and leaving through them….well, there’s just nothing else like it!
We’re all so excited about the journey we’re going to take through our second year of US History in Core E. I cannot wait to delve into these books with my children!!
MC is especially excited about reading the biography of Hellen Keller. She is my non-fiction reader who loves biographies of famous Americans. She is currently reading Miss Spitfire: Reaching Hellen Keller, a book focused on Annie Sullivan, Hellen’s determined teacher.
EA and Will had a grand time looking through all of the materials included in our new core as I put together the instructor’s guide. Earlier this week EA researched the Newberry Award and the criteria for books to be awarded this award. It was fun to point out to her the many books labeled with the Newberry Honor or Award Winner seal on them!
Even Jenny and Cupcake got into the excitement of our mid-Spring semester Box Day!!
Usually by this point in the school year, I’m feeling a bit burned out and unmotivated. It’s a struggle to keep on keeping on when the weather is dreary and life is a bit monotonous. Moving from one Core to the next is bringing new life to our year…I can feel it! I’m actually excited about sitting down with my lesson plan book and new instructor’s guide this weekend to plan for next week!
Embracing the Beauty of Homeschool
I love that as homeschoolers we don’t have to follow all the traditional rules. We don’t have to hold to doing a certain “grade” of work because we’re in a certain age. We don’t have to start in the fall and finish in the spring and wait for those parameters to move on. We don’t have to wait until we’re in Kindergarten to learn to read, write and count. We can to those things when we’re ready and progress as we need to.
In Understood Betsy, my current read-aloud with Will, the main character, Elizabeth Ann, goes to a new school after moving to live with new family members. When she attends the first day of her new school, all of her traditional understandings about school are pulled into question. She was in the third grade in her old traditional school in the big city, but as a very advanced reader, she is put into seventh grade reading. Being a bit behind in math, she is put into second grade arithmetic. She is totally confused and the follow conversation (which I adore!) takes place:
“Why–why,” said Elizabeth Ann, “I don’t know what I am at all. If I’m second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-grade spelling, what grade am I?”
The teacher laughed. “You aren’t any grade at all, no matter where you are in school. You’re just yourself, aren’t you? What difference does it make what grade you’re in? And what’s the use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you don’t know your multiplication table?
“Well, for goodness’ sakes!” ejaculated Elizabeth Ann, feeling very much as though somebody had stood her suddenly on her head.
“What’s the matter?” asked the teacher again.
This time Elizabeth Ann didn’t answer, because she herself didn’t know what the matter was. But I do, and I’ll tell you. The matter was that never before had she known what she was doing in school. She had always thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was ever so startled to get a glimpse of the fact that she was there to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so she could take care of herself when she came to be grown up. Of course, she didn’t know that ’til she did come to be grown up, but in that moment, she had her first dim notion of it, and it made her feel the way you do when you’re learning to skate and somebody pulls away the chair you’ve been leaning on and says, “Now, go it alone!”
I added the bold print there because that’s really the point of all of this.
Homeschooling helps us to look at learning in a much different way.
The purpose of school isn’t to pass from one grade to another.
The purpose of school is to learn how to read and write and cipher and use your mind!
This is what I want for my children in the end. I want them to love learning! I want them to love books that open up a whole new world! I want them to use their minds for great things!
I am so thankful for this life that we’re so blessed to live where we get to enjoy learning every day and we don’t have to be held back by traditional views of education.
Luke Holzmann says
Love this! The flexibility of homeschooling is great; I’m so glad you had a chance to chat with a Sonlight homeschool Advisor; I’m thrilled that you are all enjoying learning together … so awesome. Keep up the great work! Thank you for the encouragement.
~Luke