Look what came in the mail the other day:
I decided to go with the full, packaged first grade curriculum from Sonlight. I mentioned before that I felt a little concerned about losing the fun and creative stuff I like to do with the girls if I bought an already planned/packaged curriculum. But, in my decision to go ahead with it, my rationale was that, by getting a program that has already laid out everything for me, I will actually have more time to come up with little extras and fun things to do with the girls, because I won’t be spending as much time planning my next week’s lessons.
At the moment, I’m in the process of packing up everything in our school room and turning it back into a dining room in preparation for putting our house on the market.
So I didn’t take the time yet to unpack and go through everything in the boxes (though I really, really want to!!). But check out the few things that I did pull out.
Isn’t it beautiful? And even more wonderful:
This entire box is full of books. I nearly fainted. My husband is making fun of me for how excited I am over these materials, but look at all those books!! The colors and the feel and the smell of them. Okay. I’m a big nerd. Moving on.
The girls will do most of the science and social studies parts of this curriculum (and our religion and art curricula, below) all together. I have lots of materials that I can use to make the reading more challenging for Miss and to do phonics, reading, math, and handwriting with Lass, as well as a beginning phonics program for Sis (she always asks for something to do during school time).
And speaking of the religion component of our homeschool, another reason I hesitated to pull the trigger on purchasing this one, is that Sonlight is a Protestant Christian curriculum. This is great, because it includes lots of learning of Bible verses and includes important Christian history. And I thought about and decided that I’m okay with the likelihood that we will need to have some discussions about what this curriculum has to say about things like the Reformation, since I think it’s good for the girls to know that our Church has historically had some bad times and people, and that others have different ways of viewing things, and why we still believe that our Church is the right one for us.
BUT, though I kept coming back to this curriculum as the one I liked the best, and I decided I’m okay with the fact that it’s not specifically a Catholic curriculum, I wanted to make sure I was including the teachings of the Catholic Church and the beauty and history of our Faith in our school days. I wanted to Catholicize our curriculum, if you will. So I bought some extra materials with Catholic teachings, a character program, and a Catholic art program from Catholic Heritage Curricula.
This is actually two art programs, one for art appreciation and one for art appreciation/production. They both incorporate teachings of the Catholic faith, and I think they’re going to be really fun. For example, the girls will see many images of Mary from different cultures, and then be able to make their own crayon resist Mother Mary.
We haven’t even finished up this school year yet, and I’m already eager for next year!
I always love when it’s time for the homeschoolers to reveal their curriculum! We have no plans to homeschool in the near future, but – like you – I want to find ways to add Catholic values and culture to what they’ll be learning at school. So I’m making note of the art and manners books you’ve picked up!
p.s. I’d love to hear a review of the Character book and the art appreciation in a few months. =)
Good idea! I’ll let you know how we like it 🙂
Exciting! I too am a book nerd 🙂 My stomach started to flutter when you revealed what was in the boxes! I love organized book shelves too — if only I could get my kids on board with that…
Haha! Yes, I love the butterflies that new books can cause. I wish I was better about organized bookshelves, though. . .
Eek! I’m so excited FOR you! I ordered the grade 3 Book Shark history/reading curriculum, which is the secular version of Sonlight. Our charter school won’t pay for sectarian materials, but I wanted all the lit. Anyway I am SUPER DUPER excited about it! Cannot wait for a big box of books!!!
Thank you. It’s killing me to not dive into that box yet, because we’re getting our house ready to put on the market. It’s just sitting in our front closet, calling my name 🙂 I hope your box comes soon!
We used the preschool package from Sonlight and loved it. I think there were only 2 or 3 stories out of the entire collection that didn’t become family favorites. I also thought a lot of the stories lent themselves to activities similar to the Before Five in a Row Series, but without quite as much structure or work…lol…if that makes any sense. Maybe I’ll post about our experiences with it someday….. but I’m excited to see you are using the 1st grade package and am looking forward to hearing your thoughts. We are tentatively planning on heading the same route. I’m very interested to hear what you think about Catholic Heritage. Right now we are playing with the Catholic ABCs curriculum from Catholic Icing, but are looking for what’s next…. Just out of curiosity as I check out different curriculum….what do you think or know about Seton? Are you still doing a combination home school and Catholic school plan with your eldest? Seriously, can we just get a cup of coffee at Edel, I’d love to chat….lol 😉
I’m glad to hear you loved Sonlight. That’s what I’ve heard from everyone who uses it so far. We liked the Catholic Icing curriculum too. I got a ton of stuff from Seton, and I didn’t really like most of it, to be honest. It’s kind of clunky. I’m thinking about perhaps still doing the homeschool/Catholic school combo, but if I do, we’ll cut down on the amount of thime she goes to maybe just one afternoon per week. She has recently started saying she doesn’t want to do it though, so we may not.