Our Kindergarten Review

For Kindergarten we used Sonlight. http://www.sonlight.com/ When I was searching the web last year for the "perfect" way to teach my oldest, I was so frustrated because nothing seemed well "illustrated" for me. This meant that I couldn't really view much or read much about how things were planned out. I wanted to see pictures of the plans. I wanted to read about what was expected for the day, week, and/ or even the year. I wanted see a day's worth of work. Many websites don't show you those things. They write a brief blurb about the authors or a synopsis of the general plan for the year, but nothing about the basics for your day. I even tried to look for used book stores to see some curriculum guides and that was a hard find in Hawaii. That's when I ran across Sonlight which is founded on Christian principles. YEA!
I loved Sonlight as soon as I went to their website. Everything was written out for you... the day, the week, and the year AND they showed examples of the lesson plans on the web. It was all in a binder with suggestions for extra practice in each subject area. You could choose from a few different math programs to go along with your History/ Geography and Language Arts programs. It was wonderful.... and, the best part, you didn't have to go hunt down all of the books that went with it. They sent all the books in your order as well.
Gabby and I were so excited when our boxes arrived and we went right to work putting everything together. It was a lot of work since nothing came assembled, but I got to organize it the way I liked it.
When we started last July, I was shocked at what they thought I should be teaching a Kindergartner... Martin Luther. Who the heck was this guy? I knew who he was, but not until Junior High School. Why should Gabby know him? However, we talked about him and she remembers, so it wasn't a waste of breath.
How are rainbows made? Well, this was basic and fun. It seemed age appropriate.
The letter "A." In my personal opinion, she should have known this in Pre-Kindergarten a year prior. She did and half the year we spent in phonics seemed almost a waste. When we started reading Fun Tales she started to enjoy things a bit more. Also, Gabby did really enjoy our first read aloud The Boxcar Children and one we read later on called The Hundred Dresses.
We loved the math program we picked, Horizons K.
Throughout the year I threw in some added activities such as a unit on Thanksgiving, Advent, President's Day, and Easter. Even though it was a Christian curriculum, there weren't any special studies on these things other than some read alouds in which the story took place around the holidays, but nothing was about the holidays themselves.
After a Christmas break, I slacked off in the science and "social studies" departments. They weren't really necessary at this point and some of the things were just either too boring or too advanced. We did do the unit on insects and butterflies in science, but didn't concentrate on most of the other things. The read alouds got boring and the handwriting we picked Gabby just didn't get.
I am not using Sonlight again. I would recommend it for those who like to do a lot of reading (as in listening for the early years) and whose children really enjoy history. It just didn't captivate us as much as I anticipated it would.
Here's my over- all review (for Kindergarten):
History/ Geography: Some was too advanced and some was very boring.
Mother Goose Book that is considered a "Resource": Too babyish for a 6 year old.
Read Alouds: Highly recommend the individual books The Boxcar Children and The Hundred Dresses; some stories were "old" and didn't capture any one's attention, including mine, and some were way too long and the girls wanted to just get to the end which never seemed to come.
Handwriting: We used Handwriting Without Tears, which I don't recommend. They use a two- lined format instead of the traditional three- lines and it made things very confusing when doing extra "fun" workbook pages which all had three lines. Gabby's handwriting went from bad to worse so we are starting from scratch this coming year (with some practice this summer).
Language Arts: BORING.... They learned one letter per week (and made a whole page about it)... yikes! However, the Fun Tales readers are a complete treasure. Gabby love them, Maddy and Cheyenne carry them around all the time. They are great first readers and are progressive. I do highly recommend these, but do not recommend waiting over 20 weeks to start them like the curriculum tells you to do.
Science: It was alright. Gabby liked learning about insects and butterflies. We also enjoyed some of the experiments and the DVD with explanations.
Math: LOVED IT! We used Alpha Omega's Horizons K. We will be using Horizons 1 next year.
So, all-in-all, Sonlight was alright for our first time in home education. I have learned a lot in one year and think that I have really discovered what is best for Gabby. Who knows, maybe Maddy will be different and we might go back to Sonlight. For now, next year is all about Alpha Omega. Thank you, Sonlight, for a good start on our path in our home schooling adventure.