Sonlight

Jill's Journal: The Sonlight brochure and catalogue finally arrived. This is the homeschooling information I’d been waiting for so eagerly and I quickly devoured all 162 pages of it. If it was completely up to me, I would very comfortably say this is THE one for us. It has all the things I loved so much about Calvert, plus all the things I wished Calvert had. It looks wonderful, beyond outstanding, and simply perfect for us.

It’s a pretty traditional program, but literature-rich, which is right up our book-loving kids’ alley. It combines all the best things about regular school with homeschool and appears to meld them together beautifully for the optimal experience. The only downside (and I’m not sure this is a total downside) is that there aren’t traditional tests throughout the program. Sonlight feels you delve so completely into each subject that you immediately know how well the kids grasp the concepts and testing would be just an extra exercise with no benefit. I don’t necessarily disagree, but it does make me worry about the challenge of smoothly assimilating our children back into conventional school someday.

On the plus side, Sonlight seems to make school an exploration, almost like an expedition of learning for kids. The emphasis is on learning through literature, yet it has all the usual subjects. And as an added bonus, it has a strong basis in ethics and values and family connection. It’s everything I wanted.

Here’s the most bizarre part to me: Sonlight makes me want to start now. It makes me yearn to pull Erika out of the kindergarten class she’s scheduled to start in the fall and start homeschooling even before our RV adventure. It also makes me want to homeschool long after we put roots down somewhere. This is coming from someone who never wanted to homeschool in the first place!

Another plus: like Calvert, Sonlight has pre-packaged curricula “in a box” for preschool through fifth grade. This is designed for newcomers, people like me who are just starting out and not yet confident enough in their homeschooling skills to design their own program. Unlike Calvert, once I become secure enough in the process, I can deviate and design a program best suited to my kids, if I so desire. And, looking to the future, if we decide to RV for years beyond what we anticipate or even do decide to continue homeschooling after we once again have a fixed residence, Sonlight can take us all the way through the senior year (Calvert only goes to the eighth grade).

I’m in love with this program. Finding it makes me feel nothing but promise and excitement about homeschooling, as opposed to being overwhelmed and daunted like I was before. Sonlight appears to be everything I hoped and more.

Now to discuss with the husband, who listened attentively to all the great things I had to say about Calvert and has since become a great fan of that program…!