At Cedar Hill Academy, we want to help you have the most successful homeschooling years with your children. We offer support to you by having classes each week to help lighten your load all the while giving your children the social interaction they crave and fun learning experiences.
Additionally, if you choose to supplement our classes with at home curriculum, we want to give you resources to help support your decision. This is the first in a series of blog posts that will give you an insight on different curriculum options from the viewpoint of veteran homeschool moms. When we were choosing the women we asked to share, our criteria was that they had to have used a specific curriculum for over two years with successful results. All of these women also have Christian worldviews.
First up, Chesiree, who is a homeschool mom to three children. She has graduated her oldest son and he is now a flourishing college student. She has a high school aged daughter and an upper elementary aged son that are still using Sonlight with great success. Here are her thoughts on Sonlight and how it has blessed their family (The children's names have been removed for privacy):
CHA: Why did you initially choose this curriculum?
Chesiree: Our family has used Sonlight since 2008. Up until that point, we were struggling to put together something for our oldest son, who did NOT enjoy reading in the least. He was only just beginning to read and to even ask him to read had me bracing for a battle every day. I was finding it difficult to be consistent and I had a strong sense of being overwhelmed. E* and I were often at odds and just struggled to work together without daily conflict. As with a lot of new home schoolers, homeschooling was not what I had imagined it would be. I was researching several options when I came upon Sonlight. I had a few very strong, supportive friends who had chosen a Charlotte Mason approach and so I began to look into literature based learning. Being a literature based curriculum, I knew it was risky at best to consider this for E* but it had so much to offer for me. It sounds selfish but I reasoned that if I could find something that worked for me as a parent/teacher then I would have a better chance at consistency and a more joyful, relaxed atmosphere (which had not been our mindset to this point..lol). I just prayed that the literature based approach would gently encourage E* to learn to love to read.
CHA: Was there any cost involved in purchasing the materials?
Chesiree: We chose to make the commitment. It was a pretty costly initial investment for us. We chose to use their Core (which includes Bible, History, Language Arts, Reading, and Grammar) along with their science Core. I had used Math-U-See up to this point and Sonlight actually had this option as a suggested math curriculum, so we continued on with this math curriculum. The initial cost was about $1100. I do believe there are ways to cut that cost, using your local library, online sources, and other tips and tricks but I knew myself well enough to know that honestly, it must be easy and convenient for me to be consistent. The yearly investment is significant and varied from about $800-$1000 but with K*, our daughter only 3 years behind E*, we could see that the pain of writing that check every year would soon decrease. Sonlight offers a payment plan WITHOUT interest of 3,6,9, or even 12 months to pay with installments which we used every year. With Sonlight, once the initial Core is purchased, only supplemental items are needed for additional student. This made our investment for K* when she began so much less. I would say we would spend about $300 a year on supplements and for her math curriculum which is purchased separately. They do update their readers yearly and I would say that on average we have to buy 3 new books yearly for the updated schedule to match up. They are a minimal cost. Ordering from year to year can be slightly confusing with new reading material updates that have to be incorporated into what you have already purchased. For this, we just contact the online chat representatives and their take a look at our cart to make sure we haven’t missed anything. It works so well.
CHA: What are some of the best attributes of this curriculum?
Chesiree: Your schedule is absolutely laid out for you day by day. You have a choice of a 4 or 5 day curriculum. Notes for each section, tips, maps, extra materials, and online resources made it very easy to begin. I could walk to my big blue binder every day and know that my day was prepared, my week was laid out, and I had 36 weeks of lesson plans ready to go. It was priceless to me at that point. I really was in love from the beginning and we dug right in. From the beginning, you could see E* really sink into these books. I think it was totally unintentional on his part..lol..but we could see it working and that was an amazing answer to prayer for us. After all our struggles, he was 8 years old at that point and we knew we needed to find some answers. This was our answer. We had much success that year. We watched him transform into what he is now, which is a voracious reader who is taking advanced literature classes in his college courses and is a lover of classic literature.
CHA: Are you still using it for the same reasons or have your reasons changed?
Chesiree: We still use Sonlight with our middle daughter (15) and our youngest son (11). It has done a wonderful job preparing our oldest son (20) for his college career, not to mention he was more than ready to participate in a program here in Washington called Running Start for his Junior and Senior years which allowed him to receive his High School Diploma and Associates of Arts 2-year degree from our local college. We have watched it turn all 2 out of our 3 children in to avid readers (that 3rd one is on his way though..lol).
CHA: How was this curriculum a good fit for your family? How would you recommend it to be used?
Chesiree: As business owners, we still use Sonlight for the reasons that we began using it 11 years ago...convenience and thoroughness...it is all done for me. You can work the curriculum to its fullest potential or you can back away and pick and choose what you participate in. For anything to work properly, it has to be the right fit for your family and you must be honest enough with yourself to look at your strengths and weaknesses to discern what would work best for your children and yourself.
Thank you so much for you wisdom and knowledge Chesiree!
We have a lineup of other wonderful curriculums to highlight so make sure you sign up on our mailing list so you don't miss one!
Do you have a specific curriculum you would like to see featured here? Please leave a comment and we will try to do a feature for you!
