Sonlight Homeschooling Blog

Aug. 28, 2019

Charlotte Mason's Ways Applied to a Modern Sonlight Homeschool

Charlotte Mason was a school teacher in England during the late 1800s. Her dissatisfaction with the education practices of her day impelled her to devise a new method of teaching that would provide a broad curriculum to all her students, regardless of social class. In her day students from the lower economic class learned trades while students from the upper economic classes learned arts, literature, and other deeper subjects.

Through her training school and her books, she instructed parents how to become effective teachers of their children—homeschoolers, although that term wasn't used of course.

Charlotte Mason’s 3-Part Model of Education

Mason based much of her teaching on a model she created to describe what education should be: an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.

1. An Atmosphere

Mason believed that education at home begins with an educational atmosphere. Children should be surrounded by things that make them want to learn.

For example, she was an advocate of having children spend much time outside in nature, learning directly from nature itself. And she also believed in giving children high quality books. In addition, she knew that the attitudes of parents and tutors have a huge impact on how much children love learning.

How Sonlight Provides an Atmosphere

Sonlight curriculum provides a great atmosphere for learning by delivering a huge box of engaging books straight to your doorstep. The science programs bring nature indoors via the books and suggested activities. In addition, shorter lesson plans mean that children have more free time to spend outside enjoying and learning from nature. The lesson plans do much of the planning for you, so you also have time to get out and explore with your children. Finally, enjoying great books alongside your children with the Read-Alouds provides a home atmosphere of learning.

2. A Discipline

Part of Mason’s approach involved creating a discipline for your children. Usually when we think of discipline or habits, we think of chores and routines. Brushing teeth, making the bed in the morning, and getting ready for the day are all great areas of discipline to work on.

Another area of discipline most parents focus on is character training. Teaching children to obey and listen is sometimes a full-time job unto itself. But Mason took this approach one step further. She believed that discipline should be a series of habits. She taught parents to encourage in their children:

logical thinking
deductive reasoning skills
self-restraint
delayed gratification

How Sonlight Provides Discipline

Sonlight creates a spirit of discipline in your home by giving you organized guides that lay out a daily routine of work, step-by-step. Moral values and character training are built right into each day's lesson. Children learn from a young age to apply logic and deduction skills as they read stories with opposing viewpoints and then discuss those ideas with their parents.

3. A Life

Mason didn’t simply mean that education should be a lifestyle although she did believe that. But she also believed that education should be learning about life.

the lives of heroes who acted with bravery and self-sacrifice
the works of musicians and artists who gave the world beauty
the impact of inventors, politicians, and activists and what motivated them

But even more than that, she advocated for living books—books that brought the author’s passion for the subject to the forefront and made history come alive.

How Sonlight Provides Life

Sonlight offers a spirit of life in your homeschool by filling your house with living books on a great many inspirational people, places, and events. Some books are historical fiction, which help your child feel as if they are living in an accurately recreated time period. Other books bring real people to life by having your child view life through their eyes.

Sonlight also includes great electives such as classical music that helps bring composers to life, and over-sized picture books that help children see art up close. Missionary stories display the power of God, enabling your kids to feel both the hardships and the triumphs of the mission field.

Defining Characteristics of a Charlotte Mason Homeschool

Living books, habit building, art study, music study, and time in nature are large components of a Charlotte Mason homeschool, but here are a few more:

Short Lessons Sonlight breaks up large books into small amounts of daily reading, growing in length as your child grows in years. You’ll find in the lower levels, for which much of CM’s methods are written, each individual lesson is only a few minutes long. You can do a couple of short lessons together or take a quick break between them.
Narration Sonlight incorporates discussion questions with answers rather than a strict narration format. These discussion questions help students evaluate the book more deeply. As parents grow in confidence, they find a few key narration questions work for most any reading passage: "What did you learn from this story?” and "What would you do?"
Copywork and Dictation Sonlight Language Arts incorporates copywork and dictation at least once a week in the 4-day program and twice a week in the 5-day program, once the child is reading and writing. Younger students will practice copywork, and the ability to switch over to dictation is available when your child is ready.
Nature Studies While Sonlight can’t bring the great outdoors to your house, they do include numerous books which bring nature to your home. Books with full-color, close up photographs of nature and animals are available in the lower levels, and books in the natural sciences are included in higher levels.
Free Afternoons Many parents of younger children find they are often done by noon (providing they don’t start late in the day as we do), so they have their afternoons free to explore their world, whether from the inside of a museum, a grocery store, or the great outdoors.

If Charlotte Mason Lived Today...

Some think that if you brought Miss Mason into the modern world, her whole philosophy would no longer work. I don’t believe that.

I think if Miss Mason could magically be teleported into our time, she would strongly support using the vast new resources that are available in our modern day. She would in no way want us to adhere strictly only to the books and methods she used in her time. She would find high quality books among modern authors. She might even have favorite Twitter accounts and Facebook pages!

Charlotte Mason used what she had. Let's see what she had compared to what we have today.

Charlotte Mason Used Nature

All around her were untouched wild lands, fields ripe with life, and places to freely explore whenever she and her students had a desire.

Today with increasing urbanization, many wild areas are cordoned off, with special paths for walking and signs telling children not to touch the plants or play in the ponds. While there are still many farm families who have unlimited access to nature in their area, many urban and suburban children are limited in their experiences with nature. Modern day nature study needs to look different for the modern Sonlight homeschool family. And Charlotte Mason would absolutely approve of zoo trips counting as nature study!

Charlotte Mason Used Books

Charlotte Mason loved books, but the only books that made it on her approved list were ones published before and during her lifetime. She had books that were written mainly to adults and had very few pictures. (Children's literature wasn't really a thing in the late 1800s.) When she wanted a new book for her students, she had to travel by horse, look through the slim pickings, or rely on suggestions by friends and other educators.

She didn’t have curriculum shops with free shipping, loyalty programs, and a guarantee. In fact, she had to wait months for books to arrive with no sneak peek inside and no customer reviews to determine appropriateness for children. Her books came with black and white illustrations, rather than full-color, glossy photos. She did the best with what she had and constantly sourced new materials, but her books were much more limited than what we have available today.

Would Charlotte Mason forbid families use modern day books? Of course not! We can look at what she chose from what was available and made inferences about what modern books would also qualify as CM-worthy.

Charlotte Mason Used Paper and Slates

Children recorded what they saw and learned on paper and on slates. Those were the tools she had. Charlotte Mason didn’t have Netflix or Prime Video that brought far away ecosystems and historic locales right into the living room. She didn’t have internet search or Google maps for children who wanted to know more. She didn’t have access to information at her fingertips.

I think Miss Mason would have embraced nearly every form of modern learning that puts children in the presence of worthy ideas.

a natural museum full of mummies, dinosaur bones, and historical artifacts
a zoo webcam showing the birth of new baby giraffe
e-readers with the ability to store hundreds of books in an conveniently portable format

Can you imagine how she would have rejoiced with the wealth of great books of today? And how easily it is to access them either with inter-library loan or shopping online?!

Charlotte Mason would be absolutely giddy with all the information she could access online today for learning. She would still make everything pass the test of living (book/website/resource) vs. twaddle. If she were alive today, her curriculum would look very different from what she espoused in the late 1800s. In fact, I think a modern day CM curriculum would look an awful lot like Sonlight.

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Tagged Charlotte Mason, homeschool philosophies, Homeschooling, Sonlight | 1 Comment

Aug. 26, 2019

10 Can't-Miss Read-Alouds for the Early Years

By Deana Wood

I’ll begin my eighth year teaching my children with Sonlight curriculum this fall, and while my children have enjoyed it thoroughly, I have to admit that I have more fun than anyone! Let’s just say that my kids never have to beg me very long to read “just one more chapter!”

Over the last seven years, we have been exposed to the best of the best in children’s literature. My kids and I have read across the world, living vicariously through the well-developed characters that star in the perfectly-spun stories. There is no lack of options, that’s for sure. In fact, I can’t think of a single Sonlight book that has fallen flat in our eyes. So, as you can imagine, choosing only ten books for the early years was a difficult task! I chose the books which left us changed somehow. Here is my list of books from Sonlight early years that you absolutely cannot miss.

Watch a video version of this blog post!

1. The Hundred Dresses

This thoughtful book by Eleanor Estes tells the story of a group of girls who make fun of another little girl. It is a scene that you will surely find at least somewhat familiar.

We have read this book a total of three times because I feel we need a refresher every once in a while.

This book is a thought-provoking read that encourages self-examination. Everyone walks a different path in life, and this book truly captures that concept. My children pondered this book for several weeks after reading it, bringing up the themes and characters fairly often.

This book is unique in that it allows the reader to see themselves as both the protagonist and the antagonist figures. It is so relatable that you will surely find empathy for each character, leading to plenty of great discussions. It is written in a way that makes it clear how easy it can be to fall into the pattern of making fun of others without realizing the repercussions. This makes an excellent book for the beginning of the school year.

2. George Muller

I think it is a rare gem to read a book that changes the course of your life, but this book was just that for our family. We were not the same people after reading about the life of George Muller. His testimony of following the will of God for his life and trusting Him for each and every need built our faith as a family, and we began to ask ourselves challenging questions. Before and throughout the reading of the book, we had been prayerfully considering adopting a child from foster care. By the end, there was no doubt in our minds that God was calling us to give our family to a child.

We have read the story of George Muller four times over the last seven years, and I have recommended it to multiple families. Contrary to what it may seem, we are not big fans of re-reading books. However, sometimes a book is worthy of reading over and over. This was one of those books, and I am sure that it won’t be our last reading of George Muller.

3. The Year of Miss Agnes

This is the precious story of the impact of one excellent teacher on a rural community. From a homeschool mom's perspective, this book reminded me of what I wanted to be for my kids. As we discussed this book, I kept noticing my kids bring up one thread which ran throughout the whole story:“She understands the kids.”

To understand someone else and to be understood is one of the great desires of humanity, and Miss Agnes absolutely understood her students. This book also reminds us of the change that one person can bring about. This is a pretty quick read, but the effects linger.

4. Gladys Aylward

I am pretty sure that Janet and Geoff Benge are among my favorite authors. While they definitely have excellent material to write about, they really do have a way of telling the stories of these Heroes of the Faith in such a challenging way. Honestly, I could include several more of their books in this list, but I limited myself to two.

Gladys Aylward is the story of a missionary who went to China and cared for several hundred children during a war. She adopted several of the children and impacted her region forever.

This was not only a great biography, but it is also an exciting story. We stayed on the edge of our seats the whole time, anxiously anticipating the next chapter. We had many conversations about courage and God’s ability to do the impossible.

5. Cornstalks: A Bushel of Poems

I know how controversial this pick is! Oh, the mothers who have found themselves scratching their heads on this book! At first glance, it is certainly an odd duck among the Sonlight treasury.

Many people can’t seem to derive the goodness from this collection of poetry. To appreciate it, you have to realize it isn’t typical poetry. For the most part, the poems aren’t rhyming, but they are amusing. The simple, everyday commentary that each poem provides on the most common subject matter is enough to make you think, “Hmm….”

I love brief, thought-provoking commentary on the most common subjects. That’s why this book contains several of my personal favorites. We have read this one almost every year!

6. Walk the World’s Rim

This selection starts out slow, so slow that you may be tempted to abandon it. I implore you...don’t do it! You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.

This is one of only a handful of books that I absolutely bawled through. A sweet story of the journey of a young boy across the Southwest, this book has it all. Tackling difficult subjects such as hunger, honor, and slavery with grace is quite the balancing act, but Betty Baker does an excellent job. This story will no doubt leave you with much to ponder and discuss with your children.

7. Detectives in Togas

In our family, we love a good, clean mystery, and that is exactly what this book provided. Set in Ancient Rome, this story is laced with great historical richness. A few students find their teacher injured and their classroom in disarray one day. To clear the name of their good friend, the children set out to find the culprit.

It is a fantastic story that will keep you wondering what will happen next. While it might seem serious, there is plenty of great humor woven within the plotline. It is a longer read with plenty of clues and characters to keep track of, but even my youngest children followed along well. Oh yes, and don’t forget to schedule a Toga Day during the reading of this book! It’s a must to get the full effect of the novel.

8. Twenty-One Balloons

This is probably the most surprising selection, even to me! It seems that this book isn’t necessarily a stand-out in many lists, but it is so fun! A fantastical story, this will keep imaginations engaged. Also, with a great twist at the end, it’s sure to leave you highly interested. It was so much fun to speculate throughout the story about what would happen next.

A man plans to fly across the Pacific Ocean but somehow lands on the secret island of Krakatoa. And that's where the story really gets interesting.

9. Sign of the Beaver

This historical fiction has some sentimental value to me, as I read it when I was in grade school and loved it then. But it truly is a wonderful story of survival and friendship. A boy is left alone in the wilderness for a long while and forges an unlikely friendship with the Native Americans, who help him survive.

This story provides opportunities to discuss preconceived notions of others, independence, and perseverance in the face of hardship. It also gives the chance to ask the classic question, “What would you do?”

10. Gooney Bird Greene

A more lovable character could never be found! Gooney Bird Greene is either who you were as a child or who you wanted to be friends with! This is a sweet story of a little girl who tries to find her place at school and learns plenty of good lessons along the way. Reminiscent of the Ramona books, Gooney Bird will definitely capture your heart.

One of the best features of this book has to be the lack of disrespectfulness that you might find in other books with a similar storyline. This is what makes her so captivating in my opinion: the spunk without the sass.

Like I said, we have been with Sonlight for eight years now and we’ve yet to find a book that we didn’t appreciate. It’s so nice to know that you are getting a year’s worth of fantastic literature when you decide to go with Sonlight.

With a world full of what Charlotte Mason appropriately labeled twaddle, it’s refreshing to read through the Sonlight booklist. It was a challenge to chose only ten books from the expansive Sonlight read-aloud booklist, so don't stop at these ten! Read more great Sonlight titles.

Request a catalog so you can see all the great books included in the original literature-based homeschool curriculum.

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Tagged books, elementary, read-alouds, reading | Leave a comment

Aug. 23, 2019

12 Books That Teach Empathy for Ages 6-8

By Sonlight

Great books do more than build comprehension skills, develop rich vocabularies, and lay the foundation of cultural literacy. Yes, they do all of that in the academic realm. But they do so much more in the aesthetic arena, too.

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Tagged book lists, books, character, empathy, read-alouds, reading | Leave a comment

Aug. 21, 2019

Scheduling the Day for the Reluctant Homeschool Learner

By Jack Stewart

Don’t make learning fun.

I see educators try to hide learning under layers of unrelated pulp and nonsense. It’s thought that if we smuggle math within a noisy, colourful computer game, we can bypass the child’s natural hatred for math. But children don’t hate math!

There are two common reasons for homeschool reluctance:

The lesson violates the child's natural rhythms.
The learning seems pointless to the child.

They don’t see why they should have to sit down to work out 47 – 3, or they don’t see why they should have to express it precisely so.

Often the way they see their work is affected by how we divide their time. Here are four tips for scheduling the homeschool day to fan the flame of meaningful discovery, so we don’t have to light match after match of pulp and nonsense.

1. Read as They’re Waking Up

Natural Learning

I’m sure you have noticed that your child is much more willing to cozy up for a story after they’ve been exhausted by a visit to the park. Having sprung and thrashed and romped, she is ready to fine-tune herself to the particulars of a page. There is a rhythmical expansion and contraction in her day.

Wake-up time is a seldom-recognized moment contracted to the slow and the small. We either try to skip that first languorous beat of their rhythm by banging pots and pans, or we just accept that homeschooling will have to wait, but have we tried playing to that first beat? Maybe the half-closed eyes see more of the far-reaching slowness of the read-aloud than in the expanded tumult of late-morning. Try scheduling Read-Alouds in those first moments.

2. Somersault the ABCs

Connected Learning

When I first started teaching my daughter to write, I simply sat her down at the table until she begrudgingly penned what I wanted to see. So excruciating was this process that I had to admit a failure of method.

My solution was to make the learning more physical. I arranged an ABCs gauntlet of zombies and spaghetti and swivel-chairs and sticks. When she managed to write cat using the chair and the spaghetti, we would play as cats on our way to the next station. Next we acted the letter o by somersaulting in the instructed direction between two strings laid on the floor.

Physicalizing both the symbols and the meaning was starting to make connections that were otherwise blocked. I stopped scheduling 15 minutes writing sentences and started scheduling 1 hour of ABCs gauntlet.

We’ve broken up and performed our homeschooling ever since. It’s not that she’s reluctant to learn when she’s sitting down, it’s that she’s reluctant to sit down when she’s learning.

3. Build in Education as Service

Purposeful Learning

To a child, learning is purposeful and experimental. It’s a process of investigation, directed ever outwards. He plays with LEGO, investigates physical rules, and retains the information. There’s plenty of input throughout the day that he does not retain, but he retains these rules because he has a sense that they are a part of a much bigger project.

Building a LEGO car, he creates a design that performs a real-world function. When he plays it, he has a burgeoning sense of influence on the shape of the world. As the scope of his sense of the real-world expands, so do his tools of learning.

That sense of influence on the world develops into a crucially social one.

With our instruction, he sees that his chief influence on the world is to make the Lord known though loving service. He starts to treasure the servant’s most effective tools. He becomes reluctant to go through drills simply for the sake of acquiring knowledge, and starts learning for the sake of love. This is why the most abiding antidote to reluctance is the experience of really shaping the world with his skills and actually helping people with his wisdom.

Schedule, for example, part of your Language Arts time specifically for the use of their knowledge to bless others.

Have an older child read a story to a younger sibling.
Have them count coins to buy a small gift for a play-date guest.
Have them write a letter to a pastor or missionary to encourage them in gospel ministry.

Don’t think of this as a fun extra; schedule it in as part of the lesson. I believe retention depends on this kind of purposefulness. When reluctance asks the question, "Why should I have to…?" empowered service answers, "Love."

4. Add Time with the Discovery Journal

Experimental Learning

There are more haters of Math than any other subject, and it’s no coincidence that there is no other subject where playful experimentation is so routinely disparaged. The student is treated as nothing more than a receptacle of information—a receptacle that keeps breaking and leaking. It’s no wonder that the student of Math is often reluctant.

I break many of our lessons into three:

experimentation
discovery
service

The second is the most personal and comes in the form of a journal. My daughter’s Discovery Journal is hers and only hers. I do not correct mistakes, nor mark it or test it.

Her entries run the gamut of profound and silly:

putting 10 of the blue bloks on the red one makes the same shape
a book sed evil bagets evil
I so so want chips.

Every time she opens that little journal, she is holding proof that she is a scientist, not a slave; a truth-teller, not just a receptacle—that she is becoming wise, not just performing drills.

I allow at least 5 minutes of any homeschool lesson for her personal wisdom-record when she can jot notes in her Discovery Journal.

So it seems learners are reluctant when learning is long and pointless. But there are ways to organize the day so that learning is natural, connected, purposeful, and experimental. Break up your lessons into smaller chunks and distribute it in ways that express learning physically and use the skills lovingly.

Experience a Sonlight Education — Be confident in your purchase. Follow these three steps using SmoothCourse™ .

Choose a curriculum that is both relevant and enjoyable, one that respects the mind of the child and gets the whole family eager to learn. Choose Sonlight.

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Tagged Homeschooling, reluctant, Schedule your school day, scheduling, troubleshooting | 1 Comment

Aug. 19, 2019

4 Ways to Coax Your Reluctant Writer Out of Blank Page Paralysis

By Rachel Guerrero

Discover ways to encourage reluctant writers to put words on the page and fall in love with writing.

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Tagged Homeschooling, language arts, reluctant writer, troubleshooting, writing | Leave a comment

Aug. 15, 2019

Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire: Hands-on Craft Tutorial

By Sonlight

When your history studies take you to the Holy Roman Empire, add this hands-on project to your homeschool lessons for an added bit of fun and open-ended creativity!

First request your free template and guide below. After you download the PDF, print the one-page template (one copy per child) and refer to the guide for a list of materials and directions.

Children ages 7-9 will be able to complete the project with little assistance. Younger kids can do it, too, but may need more help with measuring and cutting.

The History of the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire

While the children assemble and decorate their crowns, read aloud the historical background included in the guide. You and your children will learn:

Which emperor was ruling when the Imperial Crown was made
The purpose of the crown
The duration of the Holy Roman Empire
When the official name Holy Roman Empire began to be used
Where the crown is today
What's unique about the crown's shape
Why the jewels on the crown are rounded instead of faceted
Why the jewels on the crown are held in place with thin wires

Download the Entire Project: Template and Step-by-Step Directions

Download the full direction booklet for detailed, step-by-step how tos, a template, and historical background here.

Build It; Then Play With It

After your children create their own Imperial Crowns, add them to your costume closet for history-inspired dress-up play. Wearing crowns, children can act out the events in their history lessons and use new vocabulary to create impromptu dialogue. The learning keeps going, even after the craft is complete!

Tagged crafts, crown, download, free, hands on, history, Homeschooling, roman empire, template | 1 Comment

Aug. 12, 2019

10 Fun Games to Make Discussion Questions & Vocabulary Memorable

By Laura Booz

To help your child comprehend and digest Readers and Read-Alouds, Sonlight Instructor’s Guides (IGs) are packed with vocabulary enrichment and discussion questions. These help us to teach our children goodness, truth, and beauty with each and every lesson. Look these over with your child during each day’s lesson as you sit on the couch, eat lunch on a picnic blanket, drink tea at the table, or drive to a friend’s house.

To spice things up every once in a while, use these ten games to make discussion questions and vocabulary more memorable—and fun!

1. Balloon POP!

Write each question on a slip of paper. Roll up the paper and push it into a balloon. Blow up the balloon and tie it off. Your child can pop the balloon to find the question!

2. Fold a “Fortune Teller”

Use this tutorial to fold a “fortune teller” origami game. (Sometimes it's called a cootie catcher.) Write a discussion question under each flap. Play the traditional fortune teller game to review the questions or vocabulary words.

3. Egg Hunt

Write each question or vocabulary word on a slip of paper. Put each question in a plastic egg. Hide the eggs inside or outside. When your child finds an egg, he or she may open the egg, read the question, and then answer it.

4. Play a Board Game

Choose a simple board game like Candy Land or Uncle Wiggley—with a twist. In order to progress in the game, each player must answer one discussion question or define one vocabulary word per turn.

5. Hot Potato!

Following the rules for traditional hot potato, the person left with the potato at the end of each round can ask any other player a discussion question or vocabulary word.

6. M&M mmmm

Open a bag of candy coated chocolates. Assign a discussion question or vocabulary word a color corresponding with an M&M color. Have your child take a handful of candies and hold each one up for a question. Of course, only play this game if you all are up for a tasty treat in the end!

7. Jeopardy!

Try reversing the typical question/ answer process by providing the answer first, just like the Jeopardy! quiz show. If you give your child the answer, can he or she come up with a reasonable question? (To get the hang of this, consider watching at least one episode of the game show Jeopardy! together.)

8. Treasure Hunt

Write each question on a slip of paper with a clue to find the next one. As your child finds each slip of paper, he or she can answer the question in order to progress to the next clue. Be sure to hide a little treasure at the end!

(When I was a kid, my dad always always ended his Treasure Hunts with a piece of DoubleMint Gum. I think of him fondly whenever I chew DoubleMint.)

9. Beach Ball Catch

Play catch using a classic colorful beach ball. Assign each question or vocabulary word one of the colors on the beach ball. When your child catches the ball, ask the question that matches the color under their right thumb.

10. Location, Location, Location

Change things up by asking your child the discussion questions somewhere unusual. Sit under the kitchen table, stand on a chair, lay on the top bunk of bunk beds, squish in the linen closet, or swing on the swing set.

By adding a little fun and surprise to the questions and vocabulary from time to time, you will teach your child creativity, enthusiasm for learning, and a love for life.

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Tagged discussion, fun, games, reading, vocabulary | Leave a comment