I have been homeschooling now for 3 years and I am still trying to find a good fit. I have thumbing through the Sonlight catalog and really like what I have seen so far just not the price. Holy Moly is it expensive! Is it possible to use this curriculum and get the majority of the books from the library? Can you just buy the teacher planner? Thanks for any insight you can give me! Teresa
I really want to use Sonlight as well, but the expense is just not feasible for us at this time. I decided to check the library to see if I could get the books from there to reduce the expense, but unfortunately even though I live in large metropolitan area with access to a large library system they don't carry all of the titles. The titles that they do carry have waiting lists so I'd be afraid that I wouldn't be able to get the books at the correct times for the lessons since it would be a toss up as to when my name comes up on the waiting list.
I guess that this is a popular thought. I just recieved the new cat. as well. I would love to use it, but the price is way out of range for us. We would like to save about 1k a year for college for the kids, or we could use it for Kindy. I would like any suggestions as well for alternatives, or things like that.
I use Sonlight for History/English. Check for 2nd hand curric; they do have their own forum. I haven't used it but I imagine you'd get sellers there. Have you thought of a partnership, thus sharing costs? You can get extra work sheets but if you ask children to space their dictation work well there is plenty of room for diagraming ~ & the photocopy machine is a wonderful thing. I'm not sure of your rules but here we can use 10%. I rarely buy all the books & do use my library heavily but I don't have a sequential learner so don't fuss if we learn things a bit out of order. Sonlight is not the only curric with excellent reading lists: Winter Promise, Veritas Press, Charlotte Mason all give really good lists of books ~ especially history books.
We are using it right now and love it. To reduce the cost, look for the Guides used. (Ebay) Also, I did not buy all my books from Sonlight. Most I have been buying used. VegSource has tons of the Sonlight books for sale used, and often you can find them at local used book stores if you have them. I just take my catalog to the bookstore with me Sonlight does have a forum that people list used Sonlight for sale, but I've found it to generally be more expensive there than other places. Another thing to keep in mind is that it is VERY reusable, and you can combine grades into the same core. So if you have multiple children, it can often be less expensive over time.
I agree...also Ambleside Online (Charlotte Mason). To answer the first question, yes, you can just buy the teacher planner. (Instructor's guide.) And yes, you can get most (but not all) of the books from the library. I find it more convenient to have them at home though. We use Sonlight and I have been able to get the books used for 1/2 the price (or less) of new from Sonlight. I check all over, bookstores, library sales, yard sales, amazon, ebay, our local HS group. I keep my catalog with me all the time and buy a year ahead. If you keep them in good condition you can resell them for about the same price as you bought them when you finish your year. I buy my instructors guide new since Sonlight specifically asks people not to resell it. (They have to make some $ for all their hard work.) Usually there are one or two things I have to bite the bullet and buy from them. If I don't have a big order, I try to combine with someone else so we can get free shipping. I spent just under $300 getting everything for Core 5 (5 day). I think it sells for about $650 retail. I use it for both my kids at the same time. Best wishes.
I follow Charlotte Mason and didn't really spend that much this year. I get books at Amazon, eBay, or the library. We also have a used book store near me. There are tons of Sonlight books on ebay but they are in high demand so they won't be dirt cheap but still much cheaper than from Sonlight. The library will have all the reading books so no worries there. Just keep in mind that if you buy Sonlight materials you will, without a doubt, be able to resell them. I am only getting some things from Sonlight for next year and the rest from Amazon or ebay most likely. I don't follow the Sonlight curr. anyway...I do my own thing just using the CM method.
I think you could totally just buy the guide and then use a library for the books - especially if you have a GOOD Library. I would that would be best for using the read alouds - but there are some books that you'd probably want to buy (used, ebay, whatever) because they are used the whole year through (i.e. in Cores 1, 2 and 1&2 they use "A Child's History of the World" and a couple others EVERY DAY or near every day). It's easy to find out if your library has the books b/c you can look at the details of the package and the do a card catalog search (our library's online, so I can even do it from home and put a hold on the book when I want it!!!). I have a hard time with preprogrammed schedules which is I'm afraid of Sonlight.... LOL ....BUT I'm planning on supplementing with their read alouds this year. I'm using Abeka as my spine, but then using the read alouds for L/A purposes and the great thing is that we can get a lot of the books from the library! HTH you!
Thank you for all of the wonderful ideas. I had never looked at some of the other curriculums that were mentioned. I will have to check those out. This board is a great resource. I really appreciate all of the feedback. Teresa
I use the sonlight science and love it! I borrow it from my sil so it's cheap for me. It is a well fit for my ds but I know it wouldn't be for my dd.
wow Sonlight is popular eh? WHen I first started otu I looked at it and it seemed like the binder it kept the teacher stuff in and then the lesson book for the kids was SOOOOOOO HUGE that it really turned me off to it. Just curious, has it changed? It wasnt so expensive in the past but we found AOP then and it was cheap and reusable so we went with it, plus had scope and sequence... so does Sonlight have that? I actually talk to a lot of people around home town abotu home school stuff so Id be interested in your info. thanks!
I know it does still have the big binder. I am not sure about the scope and sequence being contained in there.
That is why I bought the Bigger guide (Heart of Dakota) last year for my daughter. It is similiar in how Sonlight a few others are put together. It was cheaper too.
I do not know if a scope/sequence would follow with their approach. I will be using Sonlight next year for dd. I was looking through someone's binders the other day. It looks really well planned out. I do not mind spending money on books. We will resell the ones that are not our favs and keep the others. I love having a huge library at home at our fingertips.
I know that a couple of people mentioned Ambleside Online and I'll second (or third, as the case may be) that. Another one I didn't see mentioned is Old Fashioned Education. http://www.oldfashionededucation.com and another good one for resources is http://www.jennifererix.com. OFE lists MEP as the free math of choice but I think you can find the link to another free math, with a more American flavor than the British MEP math, at Jennifer's site. Hope this helps. Both of those sites offer a scope and sequence and have yahoo groups to go with them.
My oldest daughter is a "Sonlighter" and the younger 2 will be using Sonlight for the first time next year. Finding the books at our library isn't possible. For Core 3, I purchased everything from SL. The younger 2 will eventually use it but even if they didn't, it would have been worth the expense. My DD loves it. She is currently using Core 4. I bought the Instructor's Guide and many of the books for Core 4 from SL and then a few at the local bookstore with my educator' discount card. I did this because there were several things we weren't interested in doing (to the tune of $100 worth). Still, it was harder to do it the way I did Core 4. I just purchased Core 1+2 for the younger 2. Some of the books are similar to what Core Alt 7 uses, so I'm hoping to recycle some of them for the oldest in a few years. With multiple ages kids, you can definitely get all the benefits from the expense even if the kids just read the books for pleasure down the road. You can buy everything separately.
