2020 has been a year of cascading disappointments and cancellations. But there is still so much light shining in the darkness! And while we are all missing our in-person fellowship, homeschool co-ops, and volunteering activities, there are still tangible ways we can wrap our arms around the world and serve God by loving our fellow man.
The 2020 Fall Read-A-Thon is one example!
In this project, your children can raise money for missions, simply by reading great books. And Sonlight will match the donations up to $200,000.
Together let’s raise at least $400,000 to support the ministry of four participating agencies:
Far East Broadcasting Company
Mission India
Pioneers
Seed Company
John and Sarita Holzmann's Heart
Why a Read-A-Thon? In this brief video, John and Sarita Holzmann share their heart for missions and how this project can raise money to support the four partner ministries that are spreading the gospel worldwide.
September 14 - October 16, 2020
Ready to get started?
Your first step is to choose which of the four ministries to support with your participation.
Then set a goal for your reading.
Next find sponsors who are willing to partner with your children. We'll help you with this step by sending you a free toolkit.
Finally read great books, record your reading, and keep your sponsors updated on your progress.
Sonlight will double the funds you raise with a $200,000 matching grant!
Raise Even More Simply by Sharing
Share your participation in Sonlight’s Read for Missions Read-A-Thon on your favorite social media channels! For every tweet, post, or snap that uses both #sonlightstories and #sonlightreadathon, Sonlight will donate $1 towards our overall goal!
The suffering saint, the conquering hero, the beloved protector, and the caged bird are some of the favorite narratives for the human heart. When we hear them enough times, we insert ourselves as the protagonist and perform the stories.
As I get to know the motifs of Sonlight literature, I see a contrast with stories told on the big screen. When I weigh Sonlight and Disney, I see one set of stories rises above.
Joanne Shetler in The Word Came with Power, for example, contrasts starkly with Elsa from Frozen.
The Family Under the Bridge stands in high relief against the Disney interpretation of Pocahontas.
Sonlight tells stories, not only of greater interest, but also of more life-giving value.
Elsa vs Joanne Shetler
The character Elsa from Frozen is a troubled beauty who flees her her ignorant kingdom to get in touch with her inner power. In the song that enchanted millions in 2013, she finally casts aside the shackles of being, “the good girl you always have to be,” and embraces the “swirling storm inside.”
Joanne Shetler, in And the Word Came with Power also hears the distant call. But where the Elsa's kingdom was holding her back, it is the Kingdom of God that calls Joanne Shetler. She dreams of an idyllic farmhouse life, but God calls her to the Philippines to translate the bible into a local language.
The kingdom is more important to Shetler than the inner power of her dreams. Upon arriving, an older local man “proves himself to us,” (p. 45), and they follow his counsel, eventually calling him father. Not only does she give up her dreams in favor of a greater vision, but she also gives up her Western intuitions in favor of Balangao counsel.
Where Elsa finds herself outside the kingdom, Joanne loses herself inside the kingdom of God.
Pocahontas vs The Family Under the Bridge
In the Disney version of Pocahontas, the chief's daughter has a connection with nature which gives insight into both the savagery of colonial forces and the tedium of local life. Rejecting the marriage of Kocoum, Pocahontas follows “all my dreams,” “just around the riverbend.”
Armand, a homeless man in Family Under the Bridge, is also a dream-chaser. He has already given up the hum-drum life of a house and children to follow his dreams as a homeless person. In the first chapter, he eats an imaginary restaurant dinner and looks down on the playful children. “Twittering starlings,” he calls them.
Armand is confused. He chooses freedom and imagination over children, as if he couldn’t have both. It’s just as absurd as rejecting real food in favour of an imaginary meal. To have real food you must work, and to have real children you must commit. It is hard, and it is worth it.
Like Pocahontas, Armand wants to stay wild, but unlike her, he starts to find the wild in the twittering starlings. Children tie him up with commitments. But if the starlings are wild, than a commitment to them is just a commitment to the wild. Who would want to escape from the wild? When he starts caring for this family of homeless children, we cheer him on. What could one possibly find just around the riverbend to match this treasure?
Where the Difference Really Lies
The narratives of Pocohontas and Elsa say you must leave the ties of your home kingdom to find your inner power and insight.
But the Sonlight worldview is stranger than fiction. Armand and Joanne Shetler, like many of us who have traveled, find themselves needful of that which they left: family.
They find a meaningful life only when they give up on their own insights and dreams.
Value comes from sacrifice and service, not from the celebration of the self.
In other words, both the Sonlight and the Disney narratives encourage our children to be adventurous treasure-seekers, but the two worldviews disagree on where the treasure is found. Where Disney says that the ties of the kingdom-family are a hindrance to our inner treasure, Sonlight says we must leave the self to find the treasured kingdom-family.
Disney says leave the family and find the self. Sonlight says leave the self and find the family.
Why it Matters for the Homeschool Family
A homeschool child is tied to the commitments of home life. He is tied to all its chores and rules. If my child must free himself from all this to find value, maybe homeschooling is not best for him. If he must find himself, and Mom and Dad don’t seem understand his true power, he will look for someone who does. When they seem to forget his value, he’ll start the search again.
If he takes the Sonlight worldview seriously, he will see the vanity in this. He will not want to be where he is most glorified, he will want to be where he is most needed. Firstly, he will want to be in his parents' house, where they are warriors, and he is needed as an arrow in their quiver. After that, his course will be straight and true. It all depends on what story he is performing.
I, as a homeschool parent, must likewise choose my story.
Am I stuck at home, squandering my talents, passing up wild adventures? Am I an unappreciated hero?
I, too, must hear a more nourishing story. I’m not actually the heroic prince.
I am Armand: disenchanted by my own imaginary meals and caught up with my wild starlings.
I am Joanne Shetler, leaving my dream life to pursue something even greater than my dreams.
I have found the treasure outside of myself and it’s worth dying for. That’s a story that the homeschool parent can hold on to.
I have found Disney’s insistence on uninhibited self-actualization to be a bit like Armand’s imaginary meal: fun for a moment but hardly enough to live by. I love watching Disney flicks, but it won’t be the primary story my family tells itself. We want to hear the story that Sonlight curates, in which we lose the self and find the kingdom, ruled by a very great King.
Set aside a shelf for kids to showcase their treasures from nature walks. Add these books for easy reference, and their appreciation for God's creation will abound! Browsing these books can inspire field trips to nature preserves, zoos, and the park to see firsthand the nature you read about.
This book is an anthology of three Berenstain Bears' titles:
Almanac (seasons, weather, and astronomy)
Nature Guide (plants, animals, and earth science)
Science Fair (machines, matter, and energy)
You will find the book humorous yet factual, easy to read, and easy to understand. It's filled with full-color cartoon illustrations and diagrams to inspire a love of the natural world.
This is a gorgeous collection of poetry. Stunning nature-themed poetry is paired with superb National Geographic photography. Don't miss this one— a feast for the eyes, ears, and mind!
See how diverse animals eat, move, attack, defend, communicate and, generally, live their lives. This reference guide includes fascinating glimpses of the amazing, unexplained, and mysterious in the animal, plant, fish, reptile and insect realms. Your children will be mesmerized by the stunning full-color photography throughout.
National Parks is the only child-friendly, family-oriented book that covers all of the 59 U.S. national parks, plus famous monuments and landmarks. With a lively text and hundreds of color illustrations and photographs throughout, it offers fascinating, memorable information on every aspect of the parks, such as the history, geography, natural wonders, native wildlife and birds, and unique features that make each park special. Also included are dozens of activities, such as quizzes, word and picture hunts, and car games.
A thorough, fascinating and illustrated introduction to most of the plants and animals of the world: how they are classified and how they live. Discusses from a biblical perspective some of the problems with modern taxonomy (classification).
This biography tells the true story of Rachel Carson, a female award-winning author and marine biologist during the 1950s. Her love for nature and animals prompted the ecology movement.
How do tadpoles turn into frogs? What is the biggest frog in the world? Learn more about the wonderful world of frogs in this easy-to-read nature reference.
Ever wondered why the sea is blue, how water drives our weather, or how water changes the earth's landscape? This eye-opening guide leads you to look at this slippery substance in a whole new way.
Outstanding photography, helpful graphs, and spectacular fold-out pages explain topics from the water cycle to the water industry.
How do caterpillars turn into butterflies? What do they eat? Uncover more about these fascinating insects in this easy-to-read nature book for beginning readers.
Loaded with facts, dramatic photos and helpful graphics on all things weather. Learn about the formation of hurricanes and tornadoes, how we harness the weather as a power source, and more.
It’s time for some brutal honesty here...Chances are, you aren’t going to be able to do every single Sonlight level. I know! It’s a real bummer. They all look so good, and trust me, we haven’t found a lemon in the whole bunch yet! So when you begin this homeschool journey, how do you go about mapping out your Sonlight plan to create the very best education for your child?
Sketch It Out
A lot of Sonlighters begin planning in kindergarten or even preschool. At this age, it’s hard to know the course your child will take in life. Chances are fairly good that they aren’t leaning toward one profession just yet, and that’s perfectly normal! There is truly no pressure at this stage, so the best idea if you are just starting out, is to sketch out your plan in pencil, knowing it’s okay to change things.
This is a pretty basic map for Sonlight HBLs from early childhood through high school graduation.
Sonlight History / Bible / Literature from preschool through high school
Condensed Courses for Starting Mid-career
But what if you didn’t begin homeschooling or using Sonlight at the preschool/kindergarten level? Don’t fret! You can begin any time! One of my favorite tips for folks starting midstream is to use the condensed courses so you get the very best of two levels in one year.
As you go, tweak the plan! Make it fit your child. Take your cues from your child’s interests, get out that big pink eraser, and get to work tweaking your original plan.
If your child is laser-focused on school and wants to squeeze more Sonlight goodness into their education, consider alternative scheduling.
Schedule a level during the summer.
Schedule a program during a gap year after your child’s senior year.
Or work more quickly through a program so you can cover 2 HBLs in a year or maybe 3 HBLs in two years.
Remember, a whole education doesn’t have to fit in the typical 13-year plan. Everyone is different. Some kids need more time. Some kids want more time. Some kids can’t wait to move on with life! Having regular discussions with your child will help you identify what they need.
Allow Your Child to Participate in The Planning
Ownership is a huge step toward cultivating responsibility in our children. They must own their education to value it, and we encourage that sense of ownership by giving them a voice.
Sit down regularly with your child. Ask them how their education is going. Talk to them about what they would like to study in the future. Browse the Sonlight catalog with them. Let them help you make your Sonlight order.
Give them the task of organizing the books when they come in. Older children can set up their own learning areas. There are multiple ways that you can encourage ownership over your child’s education. Don’t make all the decisions by yourself. Invite them in to the conversation.
Understand That Learning Isn’t Over at Twelfth Grade
Your child is likely going to miss out on a great book or even a great course of study. Maybe they really wanted to take that Church History course, but they just ran out of time. I understand, but here’s what I’ve learned. When I began homeschooling, I had no idea that there was so much I didn’t know. That first year, I learned probably more than my kids did, and I absolutely fell in love. From then on, I developed an insatiable thirst for learning, and to this day, I’m still learning right along with my children.
Learning doesn’t end at 12th grade.
Believe it or not, I ordered the Church History level when my kids were much too young for it, and I did it for me. I’m sure there was a part of me that thought that I would save it for my children, too, but I wanted to learn more about Church History, so I did.
We aren’t cranking kids through a 13-year program and saying, “Okay, you have achieved perfection now. Go be an adult!” Instead, we are saying, “This is how you learn things that you need to know. Now that you know how, you’ll be able to do anything that God calls you to do.”
Learning is a gift.
Pass that sense of value on to your children by showing them what a life-long learner looks like. Don’t worry about the things you couldn’t give them.
If you gave them the knowledge to figure things out, you’ve given them the gift of an education.
Work The Plan. Don’t Let The Plan Work You.
Finally, know that there will be bumps in your plan. Every year will have its interruptions. If you miss a book here and there, simply put it in the summer reading basket. Don’t stress when your plan goes awry.
Also don’t allow the plan to dictate every minute of your day. A great education sometimes feels like being trapped in the picture book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Let me demonstrate. If your child wants to chase a rabbit trail of world history, chase it with them. If that leads them to spend a semester studying Adolf Hitler, let them. If that leads to another semester of studying Germany Then and Now, do it. It’s okay to go off plan sometimes. Don’t let your plan be your master.
You want to get it right, don’t you? We all want to get it right. The stakes are too high to mess things up. But guess what moms and dads? You’re not going to. The fact that you are planning for your child’s future tells me that you are invested in who they become. That is a great start. Keep planning, and keep learning. It will all be worth it.
Sonlight Advisors can help you choose this year's curriculum and scope out a comprehensive plan for the years to come.
To introduce students to the big picture of history and nurture your budding historian, the spines from various History / Bible / Literature programs are a wonderful starting point. A history spine is a reference book that is used for many weeks of a curriculum and serves as a foundation for your study, guiding you chronologically through your studies. Whether you are a homeschooler or not, whether you use Sonlight History / Bible / Literature or not, these are books for kids who love history and are a worthy addition to your home library.
My enthusiasm for the subject of art withered during art classes at a public high school in England. It took years to reinvigorate it. Now that I'm a homeschool dad, I think quite a lot about how to avoid smothering the budding passions of my children. In fact, I want to nurture my budding historians!
For example, historyis my seven-year-old’s love. I want to open every door for her expansive curiosity. With museums and home education groups closed, I’m getting creative with these history-boosters to encourage my budding historian.
1. Invite Another Enthusiast Over
On a walk with a church friend, I noticed he had a keen understanding of ancient Mesopotamia. Not his subject at university, he said, but a long-time interest. I invited him over for dinner and for discussion with the kids.
Over pasta, I told him I was confused about Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Persia. He helped us with the use of our whiteboard in front of which his dinner chair was strategically placed. My budding historian daughter didn’t enter the conversation, but the value in her seeing that the subject is meaningful for two adult believers is not to be underestimated.
2. Play with Timelines
A timeline is a precise thing, granted. But when we give no margin for error in our Timeline Book, it tends to come across as an object of the parent’s obsessive exactitude, rather than the child’s learning project.
Here are some activities to help budding historians interact with their timelines and consider it their own.
Write three recently learned facts on the whiteboard such as “Alexander the Great conquered Egypt.” Ask them to scribble a different color on a page for each ancient civilization, where the upper page is the earliest times, and the bottom is later times. You might, for example, notice the colors for both Egypt and Greece stopping as Rome continues, but there is no need for precision at this point.
Lay a card for each century on the floor, spanning across two rooms. Mark out two events in world history: say, the establishment of Rome and the battle of Hastings. Make up an action for each event, like the wolf of the myth of Romulus and Remus, and the clutching of the eye as in Harold II. Send them to each place on the timeline by calling out either date, the name of the event, or by modelling the action. Every day that you play, add an event and start bustling around with them.
Ask them to trace an illustrated timeline using tracing paper. Because the activity requires very little higher cognition, my daughter can trace while listening to a book. She can start familiarizing herself with the span of Egypt’s Pharaohs by tracing a little timeline in The Usborne Book of World History along with her favorite of the illustrations while listening to a description of one of their religious taboos in God King.
3. Play Index Bingo
Pick a common subject, like Greek mythology, and create a bingo card for every player. On the cards, write six categories, such as “A book beginning with T,” or “A book with grey on the cover.” The game is to find the subject of Greek mythology somewhere in books that fit the respective categories.
Budding historians will need to know how to use the index for most of these. The first player to find Egypt for all six categories (or for a row) wins. If you lack the relevant material for a subject, try playing at the library.
4. Perform Everything
Don’t let formal learning push out role play and acting out. The brain maps information onto our physical context. Let’s build a little creative world onto which history facts from our History / Bible / Literature curriculum can be projected like a theater. Budding historians can watch the projection back as they recall the dramas they took part in.
If you read about the myth of Romulus and Remus, act out the establishment of Rome.
Make a Roman road with LEGO.
Put a child in his castle-couch and ask for his taxes.
Construct Harriet Tubman’s freedom train.
Paint a crusader shield.
Write a script for a little drama based on quotes from Julius Caesar.
5. Structure the Questions You Ask
I have noticed that the students who care least about history are the ones who cannot see the shape of history. Instead they see an amorphous stream of historical factoids. I want to make sure that my budding history enthusiast is not just running into a lucky crop of appealing factoids, especially when she gets to high school. I want her to see a coherent structure that will outlive her current interests.
1. Genre
Herodatus tells a flawed history. Homer tells a fireside fiction that made history. The Bible tells true history with true poetry. Tolkein uses the tools of these ancient genres to get at something underneath history. The skill of connecting and distinguishing these not only builds a memorable big picture, but actually amounts to the skill of distinguishing truth in general.
2. Bad History
Not all historical accounts are created equal. Some are more significant and some yield more truth. Watch out for when a writer has a vested interest in his own story or for when he is the only source.
3. History That Matters
History is fun, but that’s not why we study it. There is one historical question in particular that is a matter of life and death: Who was Jesus? If our time with Sonlight literature does nothing but build the type of mind that can answer that question truthfully, it will all be worth it.
I want my budding historian to flower into a truth-teller. I want her to serve the world with her discoveries, not just consume factoids. It all starts with the kind of experimentation and play that will help her connect the dots and to hear the ring of truth.
It’s a common misconception that a literature-rich, playful, self-directed education becomes obsolete once exams loom in upper grades. As I reached high school age, however, I was growing into Sonlight, rather than growing out of it. Though we made less use of the Instructor’s Guides, it was the Sonlight skill-set that got me through college entrance exams and later allowed me to flourish as an undergraduate. Here’s how Sonlight made me a book lover in high school.
Household Literature
In school, students are usually assigned books based on principles that are unknown to them. They seem to be curated simply for the sake of academic performance, or occasionally for an abstract political point.
This was not my experience as a high schooler. Books were chosen carefully by my parents to stand for the causes of our household. I knew exactly what those causes were. They wanted me to be a wise ambassador for Christ, and that’s what I saw when I saw Sonlight on our bookshelf.
Books were not primarily an assignment, they were a life I grew into. They were an invitation into adulthood.
Books Were Mine and Aided my Goals
Because I saw the purposes of my parents in the literature they curated for me, I read more and more as I adopted those purposes. I wanted to reach the world for the glory of God, and I had to understand the world in order to reach it.
As I turned fifteen, I was reading Sonlight books of my own accord, sometimes even buying them with pocket-money.
I read because I believed the books I was reading. I wanted the adventure that my parents saw in these books.
Magical Books
It’s hard to read books when they don’t have a rhythm. Even great non-fiction has a sense of poetry to it. Grammar itself is an attempt to share a system that breaks information into predictable yet progressive parts, not unlike poetry. I was able to read fast and accurately because I had a sense of this rhythm that had developed from the earliest moments.
My mother read to me endlessly: poetry, stories that ran beautifully, and non-fiction that was crafted with love. I became good at hearing the magic in sentences, not just the facts contained there. It meant that I could be carried along in that magical flow rather than toil over decoding. Reading was enjoyable because I had heard so much of it.
The truth is that literature is a window into all other subjects.
Math, you’ve heard it said, is a language with which to speak about all of life. But math does not consistently light up a love for other routes to understanding all of life. Generally speaking, math leads to more math.But reading is a portal to the joy of mathematics, of engineering, or of politics.
That’s why I kept reading after my focus was not in English Literature. It’s also why I choose Sonlight for my budding engineer of a son. Great literature is the crossroads at which meaningful learning pathways are seen and chosen.
Practical Tips for Making Life-long Readers
Find ways to slow down. Reading is pleasurable but slow. It’s very hard to switch from a life of hustle-bustle, screen-based entertainment to the gentle magic of a novel. It may be worth cutting screen time to change the mental frequency in your household.
Read your own books in front of them. If you don’t read, why would they? High schoolers are discovering what it means to be an adult, and you're a model.
Allow some light reading along with more demanding living books. Man cannot live on cake alone, but life is rather dull without it. It’s the same with easy-reading.
Find book-lovers. Reading is social, but in surprising ways. A book club will help them to process and to see the impact of the books they read.
Have a discussion about why we read these books in particular.
Literature does not stop working in high school. Carefully curating your book-culture it is crucial for how high schoolers will find their way. I’d be a different person if Sonlight hadn’t filled my shelves as I entered adulthood. I prize truth and justice because of it.
