Jun. 4, 2020

30 Years. 30 Blessings to Celebrate.

By Sarita
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Sonlight officially sold our first piece of curriculum 30 years ago this month. 

Back then, there were no complete curriculum programs available; parents had to assemble products piecemeal. After talking with our missionary friends, we learned that this problem was far worse overseas. This was such a problem that many missionaries were forced to leave the field of service because their children's education was suffering. I wanted to help those missionaries stay as long as they could. I started to gather, create, and compile the best-of-the-best educational materials for those overseas, and here in the States, too. See more of our story in the video below.

To celebrate Sonlight’s 30th Anniversary, I wanted to share and celebrate thirty blessings God has allowed over the years. God is good!

  1. Daily Prayer - Every morning we gather at Sonlight to pray. As a company, we pray for our customers, each other, for an unreached people group, and the world around us. I count this a strategic and huge blessing. 
  2. Sharing the Sonlight Secret - We believe children respond more positively to great literature than they do to textbooks. We love to come alongside so many families as they learn together using great literature. 
  3. Fundraising for Missions - From our inception, Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd. has donated a minimum of 10% of gross income to mission organizations, and since 2005 we have been able to increase our missions giving to more than 50% of company profits. We count this a huge privilege. 
  4. Fostering a Love of Learning - We hold helping families love to learn together as a great joy. I’m grateful that families who use Sonlight love learning and are equipped to continue learning throughout life. 
  5. Exceptional Employees - Sonlight is filled with fun, talented, skilled, and devoted people in every position, which makes our work environment friendly and enjoyable. We truly care about our customers and each other.
  6. Raising Globally-Minded Children - One of our goals at Sonlight is to help raise children with God's heart for the world. We’re grateful to provide children an education that helps them understand their role in what God is doing throughout the world. 
  7. Prepare Ambassadors for Christ - Children are being raised up to become effective ambassadors for Christ and the people and culture around them through Sonlight’s history and Christian focus. 
  8. Meaningful Conversations - Sonlight has been able to help families facilitate meaningful conversations that equip parents to pass on values and worldview to their children. 
  9. Support Missionaries - We’ve been able to support missionaries all over the world continue their important work with the support of a full Christian education for their children. 
  10. Homeschool Conventions - We are blessed to attend conventions and help families on their homeschool journey by meeting them in person and sharing about Sonlight.
  11. Excellent Professional Support - Over the years we’ve partnered with great professionals who continue to support and guide us in our business decisions. 
  12. Charitable Mission Support - Sonlight has given millions to reputable missions organizations like the Far East Broadcasting Company and the Seed Company over the years. When families buy Sonlight, each dollar helps fuel the gospel in the far ends of the earth.
  13. Reading Books - Quick math tells us that over the years there have been billions of words, millions of pages, and hundreds of books read by families using Sonlight. What a blessing. 
  14. Customer Advocacy - Sonlight thrives and grows thanks to customers sharing their #sonlightstories with their friends and families. Over the years we’ve received thousands of testimonials and photos of happy, thriving children using Sonlight to help potential customers see that our approach works. 
  15. Sonlight Customer Support - We have the best customer support team in the business. Sonlight’s Customer Service team truly cares about Sonlight’s mission and the education of each student, and  Sonlight Advisors are experienced homeschooling moms dedicated to helping you homeschool successfully. 
  16. Replaced Prayer Books - Over the years we’ve been able to replace 2 prayer books because unreached people of the world have been reached. Praise!  
  17. Sonlight Graduates - Sonlight graduates are remarkable and poised to make a difference in the world and eager to serve the Lord. They are competent and qualified graduates in a wide breadth of majors and fields. 
  18. Second Generation Sonlighters - As we enter our 30th year, we now have many second-generation Sonlighters. We are blessed to provide everything needed for two generations of children to have a life-long love of learning, a strong Christian foundation, and a solid academic base. 
  19. Sonlight Headquarters - When I started Sonlight in our garage thirty years ago, I never imagined we would be in the state-of-the-art facility we are in today. 
  20. The Sonlight Catalog - Our team works so hard on the catalog every year and it really shows. May you look back as fondly, as we do, at catalogs of the past and continue to send pictures and testimonials to fill future pages. 
  21. Equip Children to Fulfill God's Call - Sonlight has been able to provide a well-rounded education from which students can launch in any direction that God calls. We seek to help you nurture the hearts and minds of your children to live for Christ. 
  22. New Books - Occasionally, we have to replace a book in our curriculum. Maybe a book goes out of print or maybe a better book comes along. This is an exciting opportunity to keep providing new literature!
  23. Sonlight.com - Can you believe that we used to only take paper orders? The website has allowed us to be nimble in our offerings, automated between our departments, and helps us provide you information about Sonlight and general homeschooling.
  24. Sonlight Blog - The Sonlight blog gives us the opportunity to provide encouragement and advice on everything Sonlight homeschooling. Whether you are new to homeschooling or a veteran, the Sonlight blog is a resource for everyone.
  25. Literature-Rich - As the original literature-based curriculum, we are in a unique position to be able to define what that means. As more and more companies continue to develop curriculum, our customers stand by the literature-rich model and help it thrive within the homeschool market. 
  26. Publishing Books - Sometimes, good books go out of print. Through our own publishing house, we are able to keep good books in print.
  27. Launched Multiple Brands - Through the years, we’ve been blessed to launch multiple brands to help homeschoolers meet their individual needs. The most recent brand is Happy Cheetah Reading, a remedial reading option. 
  28. Employee Safety and Health - At any given time we have a number of Sonlight Curriculum Consultants and employees traveling to conventions, to work, and to important meetings. Praise the Lord that traveling has been conducted safely!
  29. Sonlight Grad Working at Sonlight - That’s right! We have our first Sonlight graduate now employed at Sonlight. She is just as you would expect, smart, articulate, and compassionate. It truly feels like we’ve come full circle. 
  30. Family - In some cases to acknowledge one's family on a list of blessings might be cliche but in the case of Sonlight, family is the most important - yours and mine. We’re grateful for your families for supporting Sonlight over the last 30 years, and I’m grateful for mine for not only allowing me to provide you Sonlight but walking next to me. Sonlight's truly family-owned and operated.

At the heart of why I created Sonlight is to help you educate your unique children, develop their specific gifts, and nurture their hearts towards God’s work in the world. I’m so joyful that Sonlight has been able to come alongside you to help you nurture and bless your children. So as God directs their lives, they are open and ready to continually follow. 

Thank you for bringing us along on your homeschool journey for the last 30 years. I can’t wait to see what the future brings.

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Jun. 3, 2020

4 Reasons to Have a Morning Meeting for Your Homeschool

By Jack Stewart
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4 Reasons to Have a Morning Meeting for Your Homeschool

I’m sure you have heard of a productivity strategy that splits a to-do list into the urgent and the important. The Eisenhower Matrix, as it is commonly known, says items which are both urgent and important must be dealt with now. Family meals might be an example.

The unimportant and non-urgent are to be avoided as distractions: day-time television, perhaps. 

It is the important but non-urgent tasks that are often overlooked. The morning meeting is an example. 

There always seems to be something more pressing than a morning meeting. Holding one, however, in which I encourage my children, discuss the schedule with them, and remind them of the reason we study, has been our method for re-habituating some of the most important things in life.

1. To Celebrate the Good

“I finished my handwriting page, Daddy,” effused my six-year-old daughter one morning.

“Okay, it’s time for your Reader now,” I returned. 

“I’m so looking forward to pizza...” she started.

“Daddy...” squeaks the four-year-old.

“We’re not having pizza toda...” I remind them.

“Daddy, look at this LEGO machine,” interrupts the four-year-old.

“I need to finish this washing. Could you please not do that in the kitchen?”

“Daddy, can I go outside?” tries the six-year-old, desperately. 

“Didn’t I say it was time for your Reader?”

It’s the kind of interaction I blush to record. She invites me to acknowledge her handwriting; I ignore it. She expresses positive emotion; I sidestep it. My son asks me to praise him; I tell him not to annoy me. 

With a tight ship to run, celebrating the good is far from urgent, so I tend to ignore or defer it. Urgent: maybe not, but importance is another thing entirely. There is no better way to kill a child’s motivation for learning than to show a perpetual disinterest in the good. My children don’t learn so Daddy can keep the ship running. They learn because they see something worth knowing—something good.

It’s a tall order for a child to set their mind on whatever is right (Philippians 3:8) when Daddy seems occupied enough with the wrong. When the right recedes out of view, learning withers with it.

The first thing on the agenda, therefore,  is to sing a praise song. This sets the tone for the celebration of the Good. Next, I review the previous day and give an encouragement and a challenge for each child to consider. This ensures that I am pointing out his beautiful handwriting in Handwriting Without Tears 1 or her excellent self-control when her brother was arguing with her.

It also gives me an opportunity to confine any criticism that is not urgent to the challenges in the morning meeting. Unsurprisingly, many of my capricious reproaches don’t end up seeing the light of morning.

2. To Memorise Without Strain

Spending a mere ten minutes devoted to memorization takes enormous mental fortitude, even for an adult.  For a five-year-old, ten concentrated minutes will feel long-drawn beyond toleration. Unless it is seamlessly integrated into real life, memorization is best taken in short bursts.

We took the first line of 1 Peter, and repeated it six times every weekday morning. After a couple of weeks, I started working on the second line with my eldest and focused again on the first line with my younger two.

Recently I have also started recapping the Sing the Word verses. It still only takes three minutes per morning, but they may be the mightiest three in the day. 

Redeem the time. Start with these three minutes.

3. To Collaborate on the Schedule 

It’s not easy to schedule in a way that takes seriously both the demands of freedom and discipline.  I must stay sensitive on the one hand to the structure that promotes my vision for their education and on the other hand to their own goals. We must be vulnerable to making changes to the structure in order to protect both.

For us, the morning meeting has become the interface for those changes. We look over the Sonlight Instructor’s Guide. I tell them my scheduling ideas, I listen to their thoughts, and we collaborate on a to-do list. It’s an opportunity to remove an activity that’s not working or to introduce one that hopefully will.

On the whiteboard, I write the broad structure of the day as well a to-do list for each child. My eldest copies her to-do list into her own journal, which she will refer to throughout the day.

I take note if we fail to tick off all the items, but I do not address it that day. I save it for tomorrow’s morning meeting. It’s a chance to modify tomorrow's list or even to examine an attitude problem. 

When I want to clarify major changes, I will print off a detailed two-week plan. We’ll bring it to the morning meeting. We’ll notice, for example, that woodworking has been moved to a Tuesday afternoon, and we’ll write our lists accordingly. Once the scheduling changes have become habitual, we’ll go for two to six months without the printout.

4. To Remind Each Other Why We Learn

We use the meetings to help move education from something that just happens to something we do together. It’s a chance to bring life out into the open, to take responsibility for it and to ask the whys.

We recently read through the Psalms and noticed the verse that says “The LORD's works are great, studied by all who delight in them,” (Psalm 111:2). I found so much in that chapter on the whys and hows of education, that I used it to make a little catechism that we run through every morning.

Q: What are we learning about?

A: The words and works of the Lord.

Q: How must we learn?

A: Working truth and justice with Him.

Q: Why do we do it?

A: That all nations would sing His name

Start a morning meeting to bring your day out into the open, evaluate and modify it with your children. Redeem three minutes, celebrate the good, and ask why.

Instructor's Guide

With Sonlight's Instructor's Guides, there is no need to write your own lesson plans. Everything is already scheduled for you.

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Jun. 1, 2020

Does Learning Have to Be Painful?

By Sarita
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Does Learning Have to Be Painful?

Some educators seem to suggest: “Learning is painful. Get used to it.” They expect kids to learn to grit their teeth and persevere.

And yes, education may be hard. Perseverance is a valuable skill. But should that be our starting point with homeschooling?

I say, no way!

Instead, don’t we want our children to believe along these lines?

  • The world is a fascinating place.
  • I want to learn about it.
  • I know from experience that I can learn new things and gain new skills.
  • I will persevere and learn because I want to and I know I can.

Children who believe this way are set up well for life. They know that they can achieve what they set their minds to. They know that learning is sometimes hard work, but that it pays great dividends.

Why Loving to Learn is Important

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: No educational program can possibly teach children all they need to know for life by age 18. So instead we had better give them a great foundation and help them love learning!

How do we do that? Well, God made our children with an inborn sense of curiosity. Just watch a toddler’s drive to learn about the world around her. That curiosity doesn’t have to go away as children grow. We can notice and nurture it.

And as we nurture our children’s curiosity, we can help them gain confidence in their abilities.

Every time our children learn a new skill and we let them use it, they internalize an important self-message: I can do things.

That’s why I want children to have positive experiences with learning. I want them to internalize the delight of mastering new skills, the wonder of discovering new things.

How to Help Kids Love to Learn

So how do we achieve this? We’ve designed Sonlight’s entire program in order to help students love to learn. Instead of relying on worksheets, textbooks and flashcards, we use gripping stories to teach children about the world.

As they listen to Mom or Dad read out loud, many kids don’t even know they’re “doing school,” but they are in fact learning by leaps and bounds. Intriguing? You can read more in this article: How Literature-Rich Homeschooling Awakens Your Child’s Natural Passion for Learning.

When we work with children’s innate desires to learn, we reinforce important lessons that will carry them forward throughout the years: learning is worthwhile, and they can do it.

Sure, even children who love to learn will have hard days. They will struggle to learn some things. They may cry over a math concept or get angry when they receive constructive criticism on a writing assignment.

But let’s not start with the painful side of learning. Let’s not pretend that painful learning will be the primary feature of their education. Let’s start with the beauty of learning, with children’s natural desires to explore and figure things out.

Then when the hard stuff starts to come, they’ll know what to do with it. And you will have the joy of teaching children who know from experience that learning is exciting and that they can do it. That’s a far easier task than force-feeding children an education they just don’t want.

Sonlight can help you bless your children with a love of learning. You can discover how to love your homeschool journey. You can set your children on a trajectory of life-long learning.

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May. 29, 2020

Help! I'm Scared to Teach Math and Writing

By Sarita
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Two subjects in particular can strike fear in a homeschool parent's heart: math and writing. You know they're crucial for your child's academic success, but you may doubt your ability to teach them well. Don't be scared to teach math and writing! I share my secrets with you.

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May. 27, 2020

Teach How Jesus Taught

By Sarita
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Teach How Jesus Taught

How have children learned from the beginning of time? How did Jesus himself teach his followers?

Through stories, in the context of relationship.

And that is just what Sonlight comes alongside you to help you do. We help you teach your children through stories, as you strengthen your relationship with them.

Jesus, the Teacher

Jesus had a lot at stake in teaching his disciples and followers. The entire plan of his Kingdom rested on them cooperating with the Holy Spirit to carry forth his message and live transformed lives.

So what did Jesus do?

  • Did he cram his disciples full of facts and figures?
  • Did he just give them information from a distance?

No. First of all, Jesus loved his followers. He lived side-by-side with them. He walked with them. He talked with them. He shared in their joys and struggles. He led by example.

And he also taught them with stories. When they had questions about his parables and teachings, they asked, and Jesus engaged them in conversation.

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Teaching with the Same Methods Jesus Used

Does this form of teaching sound familiar? Now, I am not saying we are Jesus. We certainly aren’t God and we are far from perfect. But does Jesus’ general approach to teaching sound like something we can emulate? Yes!

We live in close relationship with our children. We walk beside them in life. As we teach them with stories, we strengthen our relationships with them. (What do you think all those Read-Aloud sessions on the family couch are doing? They are teaching and building relationships!)

Sharing these meaningful stories with our children helps us see into their hearts. What grabs them? What moves them? What do they worry about? What are their questions? And then we can meet them there and help guide them.

The stories and curriculum Sonlight provides help you guide your children to discover answers to important questions such as:

  • How does the world work?
  • How did our society get to where it is today?
  • What does a worthy role model look like?
  • What happens when we make bad decisions in life?
  • How do we persevere in hard times?
  • How do we relate to those who are different from us?
  • What does it look like to follow God?
  • How has God engaged with humanity throughout history?

Teaching our children through stories, in relationship with them, is the most enjoyable, effective, and historically enduring way of learning I can think of.

We simply call it our literature-based learning model.

So come along and let Sonlight help you be a guiding voice of love, knowledge and wisdom in your children’s lives as you teach them about the world and point them to Christ.

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May. 25, 2020

If my kids don’t beg for school, can they still love to learn?

By Sarita
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If my kids don’t beg for school, can they still love to learn?

You’ve probably heard it: Love to Learn, Love to Teach, Guaranteed. I get great joy from helping families love to learn together. But you may wonder what it actually means to love to learn? What does that look like?

Do I really think your child will suddenly want to just stay home and read the encyclopedia just because you start homeschooling with Sonlight? Do I think your kids will spontaneously break out in this hilarious studying, studying spoof?

Well, no. There’s nothing wrong with reading the encyclopedia or rejoicing at the chance to do hard math. Some kids are really into that. But it doesn’t have to look like that. And for most homeschooled kids, it doesn’t.

But My Kids Don't Beg to Do School

So don’t worry. Your kids can love to learn even if:

  • They don’t sit still for seatwork every day.
  • They would rather play outside with friends than do their math.
  • They don’t want to compete in Spelling Bees.
  • They’ve never asked to do school on a weekend.

I’m sure you’ve read stories of Sonlight kids absolutely begging to do school – choosing to do Sonlight over playing outside, watching Saturday morning cartoons or even opening Christmas presents! Those stories are real and they happen with surprising frequency. (Okay, I doubt the Christmas one happens often, but it has happened at least once.)

But even if your kids don’t wake up and beg you to start school, they might still have that precious desire to learn.

12 Clues That Your Kids Actually Do Love to Learn

It's important to celebrate those sparks of a love of learning where you see them! So step one is identifying the signs. Here are clues that your kids are gaining a love of learning:

  1. Your wiggle worms might not sit still as you read, but they will eagerly put on their superhero costumes and jump on their mini-trampoline while they listen.
  2. They might happily accept an invitation to help with your grown-up tasks – letting you teach them to cook, fix things, sew or build.
  3. Your kids can enjoy a museum once they’re there.
  4. They ask you to read another chapter in your Read-Aloud even though you’ve finished the day’s assigned reading.
  5. They ask you for a nightlight so they can stay up reading before going to sleep.
  6. You notice they’re asking more thoughtful questions and making connections about how the world works.
  7. You check on the kids in the backyard and overhear them re-enacting history, “No, I get to be Harriet Tubman this time and you be the person I’m helping escape.”  
  8. Their faces light up when a Science experiment works.
  9. They often ask you to help them look something up online or in a book.
  10. If they’re old enough, they can spend a few hours working on something of their own—art, computer code, a novel or a LEGO masterpiece.  
  11. You find them tinkering with mechanics or electronics, figuring out how things are put together.
  12. They generally see the world as a fascinating place!

In other words, kids who love to learn look a lot like normal, rambunctious kids.

They ask questions, they like to figure things out, and they have confidence that they can learn new things.

When you use Sonlight, be ready for this excitement about learning to rekindle (if it’s gone away), to blossom and to grow.

And once your kids love to learn … watch out! There’s no stopping them. They could very well grow up to do whatever God calls them to do.

And isn’t that what we all want? I’m thrilled to help you in the journey. If homeschooling is a new choice for you, learn how Sonlight can help you — and save up to $100 on your curriculum.

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May. 20, 2020

Three Tips For Reading Usborne Books

By Jack Stewart
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Three Tips For Reading Usborne Books

For several decades, Usborne has been publishing staples of home learning. Every time we open one of these favorites, we encounter a new vein of knowledge to be mined and new connections to be made. Four we especially love are

Though fiction arguably benefits from sparing illustrations, the visuals in an Usborne non-fiction have as much to offer as the text. Usborne illustrations trust the reader to see the significance of the content, rather than distracting with illustrative flourishes. 

Because we come back so often to encounter this content, there are certain things we do to find more in the page and to set more of what we do find into long term memory.

1. Read with a Timeline and a World Map

Previously, I have suffered from what can only be described as, achronologia: the abject inability to place world events on a timeline. The Protestant reformation, the voyage of Columbus and the French Revolution could all have happened in the same week as far as I was concerned. 

The problem is that events, more often than not, are only memorable in context. So, thanks to achronologia, history was lost in the mists of time, which in my case were especially misty.

A turning point came when I started to think up ways to rescue my children from the same fate. One morning, I read four information-laden pages of The Usborne Book of World History to three captivated pairs of eyes. 

I shut the book and prompted them to a Charlotte Mason-style narration. Though hearing back from them that Cleopatra is the president of Africa does of course betray an absorption of sorts, I decided there was more I could do. 

The next day, I drew a horizontal line across six pages and laid them on the floor in front of the couch. I divided each into two,  marking each section as a millennium from 4,000 BC to 2,000 AD. 

I also laid a printed world map below it. Every time we encountered a major event in world history, we set a bottle-cap on the map and on the timeline. I was delighted to see the antidote to achronolgia was setting in: connections. “So this might be the same Pharaoh that Moses was talking to,” my seven-year-old said, as she moved the bottle-cap.

The Timeline Book is an essential companion to this method. Children can annotate and color as they stick the Timeline Figures in the right spots. Keep these and your bottlecap pages close at hand, and you stand a better chance of saving history from the dank fog of achronologia. 

2. Criticize and Question

I previously described Usbone books as being information-laden, and that is true, but I’d like to urge you not to take it for granted. 

I have noticed that when I let the propositions in a book wash over me, rather than challenging them, there is a flatness to my cognitive processes that leads to forgetfulness.

Although it can be draining to have your sentences broken up with interruptions, the right questions can change everything. “How do we know if the ancient Egyptians actually believed in their gods?” Maybe they did, but the challenge is worth the interruption. 

Suppose, after inquiry, we find that every sentence was indeed correct. Is the book therefore truthful? Let us ask if it is excluding something central. If a book on the circulatory system failed to mention the heart, an educator would be amiss if she didn’t criticize the omission even if everything stated was accurate. What if a history book fails to mention the Sovereign Lord? 

Our kids read correct statements based on the truth behind, between, and beneath those statements. So let’s read between the lines and criticize what we find there. It may make the difference between a flat thinker and life-long truth-teller.

3. Repeat Key Phrases 

Repetition has of course been the long-time ally of the educator. The final stage of education,  moreover, is to be able to repeat your findings in a form that blesses others. It should be unsurprising, then, that the simple repetition of a word or phrase is a suitable first step to deeper knowledge.

“In an area called the Delta,” says The Usborne Time Traveler on page 101, “the river splits into many channels.” My children’s eyes, understandably, were elsewhere as I read it, so I asked them to repeat a few words: "the Delta; the river splits.” 

Rather than resisting the task, my five-year-old spontaneously points out the Delta on the map as he says the words. He was glad to see something that would have otherwise passed him by.

In the past, I have embarrassed them by quizzing, “Where does the Nile split?" But I’ve learned that I’m more likely to sharpen the focus if I start by asking them to repeat the phrases that seem important.

With three more tools in your toolbelt, I hope you’ll feel a little less worried that the information you painstakingly curate is not just washing over entertained faces.

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