Have you ever received a gift so special that you kept it for as long as humanly possible? What about one you loved for a shorter period of time, then no longer had use for? How about a gift you never really liked, but valued anyway because of the reasons it was given?
Do you believe that homeschooling is a gift? It is, no matter how you received it.
The Meaningful Gift of Homeschooling
Some parents choose to homeschool from the moment their oldest child starts kindergarten until their youngest graduates from high school. It’s something they’re passionate about and deeply committed to—a lifestyle they would never willingly walk away from. The time they spend working and learning alongside their children is important to them, and they’re in it for the long haul, firmly believing the advantages far outweigh any disadvantages.
The Temporary Gift of Homeschooling
There are other families who find homeschooling serves their family well for a season, but not forever. They love having children home in their early years, then confidently and successfully send them off to a brick and mortar school as they get older, or maybe bring a child home for just one year to focus on a particular aspect of academics or deal with some personal struggles. They know homeschooling won’t always be the best option for their family, but they’re grateful for the extra time it gives them with their children or the opportunity it presents for meeting a particular need.
The Obligatory Gift of Homeschooling
Finally, there are parents who find themselves homeschooling as a side effect of other things going on in their lives. Perhaps they have a sick child whose illness or treatments causes them to miss too many days at the local school. Maybe they live in a remote international location, choosing to homeschool because they don’t want to send their kids away to boarding school. Given a choice, homeschooling would never be their preference, but they accept that it’s the best option they have at the time.
The Mixed Gift of Homeschooling
Some of us may find that we don’t land squarely in any one category.
We feel strongly and positively about homeschooling, but can’t continue for reasons beyond our control.
We homeschool solely because that’s what our life dictates, but we also happen to enjoy it.
We know homeschooling is a short-term commitment for our family, but it still seems to drag on longer than we want it to.
Valuing Your Gift of Homeschooling
What matters most is not our personal perspective toward the gift of homeschooling, which will vary according to our particular circumstances, but that we simply recognize it as a gift in the first place.
It’s a gift of flexibility—the chance to have school revolve around the rest of life instead of vice versa.
It’s a gift of freedom—the option to educate our children in the way that’s best for our season of life.
It’s a gift of time—an opportunity to learn with and about our children.
Homeschooling, like every other option for educating our children, has its pros and cons, but we’re the ones who decide if we’ll focus on the blessings or the burdens. Whether we’re homeschooling because we have to or want to, as either long-term or short-term homeschoolers, may we each appreciate the gift it is for as long as it’s part of our lives.
You’ve been watching your daughter stare at the same math problem for fifteen minutes. It could turn into 45 minutes, but you know better than to let it drag on that long.
You want to rail at her to get this done! Staring out the window and cleaning the tread in her sneakers with a number two pencil does not count as math! What is happening?
You’re pretty sure she understood the directions. The problem is well within her current skill level, or at least you think it is. Unless she makes the effort to solve the problem, it’s hard to know.
So you wait.
You shift, uncomfortable in your chair. You start to brainstorm how to get out of this deadlock without ruining what’s left of your homeschool day. You send up prayers that this won’t end in an argument.
Take a deep breath, friend! This scenario plays out in my house and many homeschool homes around the world everyday. Here are a few tools you can use to help your child get unstuck.
1. Change the Environment to Get Unstuck
Reduce the noise. Lots of our households are loud with the sounds of multiple children, pets, and other ambient noise! Help your child by removing some of those distractions, providing soothing white noise, or finding her a quiet zone to work. Noise cancelling headphones are another useful option!
Alter location.A clipboard is one of our most valued homeschool tools. Move the work outside or to some other appropriate place.
Provide incentives to retain focus. Offer a snack. Light a candle. Play classical music. Consider a timer or stopwatch (not appropriate for some anxious learners).
2. Change the Problem to Get Unstuck
Remove potential obstacles. If the activity requires more than one skill, take away the component that causes the lag. For example, if your child struggles with writing, consider using math magnets or tiles to demonstrate the arithmetic instead of writing problems.
Don’t complete the assignment. If you are confident she understands the concept, let the problem go. Don’t fall into the trap of busy work. Life always gives us a chance to review the concept if it is important enough to know.
Mark the problem for later review. Move on and tackle the problem again at the end of the day or first thing the next morning.
Save review for another day. Let your child complete all the problems with no feedback from you. Give her space to work. At the end of the week let her know which questions she missed and have her rework them with your assistance.
Answer it for them. Tell your child the answer. Perhaps have them explain how you got the solution.
3. Support Your Learner to Get Unstuck
Investigate the hold up. Encourage questions. Offer to repeat directions. Gently remind your child to refocus.
Develop a plan. Have the child agree to a minimum number of problems they think they can accomplish. Once this agreed upon bare minimum is reached, honor their choice to stop if they wish.
Listen to your child. If he or she is really struggling, then something may be truly wrong. If, despite all your efforts and your child’s efforts, focus is a continual struggle, consider speaking with an expert. Dyslexia, dysgraphia, slow processing speed, anxiety, or perfectionism may require outside assistance and a more specialized set of tools.
Each of my four children started reading at different ages and with different levels of challenge or ease. And with each child, we’ve taken advantage of the freedom homeschooling allows when teaching reading.
1. Let the Delayed Reader Set the Pace
Our oldest child started reading at the age of what I consider the early side of average. Our second hit the same milestone one year younger, unquestionably an early reader. Along came our third child, and I soon realized it was going to be a totally different scenario with her.
She was learning letters and their sounds, and she could sound out words. But reading wasn’t clicking like it had with the older children. I briefly pondered whether she may have dyslexia or poor vision. Then I recalled all my friends whose children have been late bloomers in the reading department. There was nothing wrong with them physically to keep them from progressing; they simply needed more time. Eventually they caught up to their siblings and peers so that no one would ever suspect they’d had a slow start to reading.
I chose to take full advantage of the fact my daughter didn’t have to keep up with a classroom of other students and instead followed her lead when moving forward with reading lessons. She was a slightly delayed reader, operating on her own time table. And that's okay!
After all, I’ve never met an adult whose life greatly benefited because they learned to read early at 3 or greatly suffered because they learned to read at 10.
I found ways to accommodate my delayed reader's need for extra time and effort:
We’d share the task of reading, alternating paragraphs or pages to practice reading skills without her being overwhelmed.
She listened to the audio version of some school books while following along in her own print copy, allowing her to become more familiar with words as she saw and heard them at the same time.
My strategies worked well for quite a while. Then she developed what appeared to be a tic. Long story short, she needed glasses. Of course, the tightly wound part of me—which I have to confess is most of me—immediately regretted that I hadn’t acted on that fleeting suspicion of vision problems when she was younger. Then I took a deep breath and realized it was fine.
Yes, if we had resolved this problem much sooner, life would have been easier for both of us. But I don’t regret for one minute the gifts our family gleaned through the experience:
I learned to slow down.
Her siblings learned patience with her as she struggled with something they found easy.
I got to spend extra time one-on-one with her.
I’m also grateful that letting her set the reading pace kept it from becoming something to dread. Even though it was hard work for her, she always enjoyed reading.
One of the things we learned through this process is that our local school district does vision screenings for kindergarten students, a service our kids obviously miss out on. So when our fourth kid was in kindergarten, we went to our optometrist’s office for a routine exam. We’d seen no indication of vision problems, but wanted to err on the side of caution. It turns out his vision was even worse than his sister’s. He’s been wearing glasses ever since and has never struggled with reading.
Choose Your Plan of Attack
If you find that one of your kids is an academic outlier who falls on the struggling side of the spectrum, I encourage you to slow down, find new ways to approach whatever subject they find difficult, and see if a little extra time is all your delayed reader needs.
I also encourage you to seek help from outside resources if there’s a possibility of something more than just a need for more time. You may rule out physical issues first and relax into a slower pace if there’s nothing wrong, or you may slow down first and seek help only if things don’t improve over time. Either way, your child will benefit from being able to move forward at a speed that’s neither too easy nor too difficult for them.
Sonlight's Remedial Reading program yields success when tutors, classes, and hundred-dollar programs fail!
While all children are a bit disorganized and have a hard time remembering to take care of their belongings, some struggle more than others. If you have a child who never puts away pencils, who rarely remembers to place dishes in the sink, or who leaves glasses lying around despite constant reminders, you know how frustrating these children can be.
Items get lost, things get broken, books get misplaced, and chaos quickly takes over. In children with certain neurological issues such as ADHD, ADD, and executive function delays, the frustration is amplified even further.
If you have a child who often gets distracted in the process of cleaning up or who seems to never put things away, action linking may be the answer to making homeschool routines automatic.
1. Identify the Largest Issue
What’s bothering you the most? If you get frustrated because mornings seem overwhelming, pick one or two things that are most stressful. What do you wish your child would remember to do—that one thing which would make your day a little easier? What do you find yourself reminding your child to do repeatedly? Don’t try to address all the issues at once.
2. Set Goals with Your Child
Discuss with your child the things you really wish they would change, and together, come up with a few (no more than two to three) items you can work on first. Let your child have input.
Setting too many goals may cause your child to feel like they are just failing. Instead, focus on a few tasks, and slowly add more as those habits are adjusted.
3. Limit Checklists
Have you ever gone grocery shopping and left your list behind?
Ever set goals for the weekend, only to forget to do a few items?
Did you ever buy curriculum, meaning to add it in at some point, and suddenly remember that you haven’t added it in yet?
It’s natural to forget things, even if they're on a list.
In my house, the problem with checklists is they only work if the child remembers to check the list. I’ll talk about building and linking routines in a moment, but it’s much more helpful to build a checklist into a routine, than to have the checklist be the routine.
If you need to use checklists, that’s fine. They’re a handy tool. Just be sure to teach the child how to frequently refer back to the list and don’t use multiple checklists throughout the day.
Phone reminders and alarms are akin to checklists, but you don't have to check them. They interrupt you. However the more you rely on them, the easier they are to put off, ignore, or forget about. If you do use them and find your children still aren’t getting things done, try linking the reminder to an action.
4. Find a Routine and Link the Tasks
Some children naturally fall into a routine if you remind them enough times and show them how to do it a time or two. However, some children seem to need a lot more help to find and stick with a routine.
An easy way to help your child build routines is to take the goals you created together and add them to a task they already do. This method is called linking.
For example, if you would like your child to take out the trash every day after lunch, you can start building the habit by linking it onto the actions they already do. So you might have your child place their dishes in the sink, rinse them off, and then grab the trash. Find tasks that can be linked together to make it easier to move from one task to the next.
5. Keep Linked Supplies in Sight
I have found it helpful to have the supplies for the linked task in sight when finished with the previous task. For example, if we are doing schoolwork, I will keep the books in a stack on the table in the order we will be reading them. When we finish an assignment from one book, we place it on the finished pile, leaving the next book at the top of the reading pile—a tangible reminder of exactly what our next step is.
If you want your child to put on shoes after they put on their clothes, have the shoes in sight of where they usually get dressed. Or practice putting socks and shoes on the floor right next to them before they begin dressing. The more steps they have to accomplish before they can do the next step, the more time there is for distractions to get them off track.
5. Practice the Linking Actions of the Routine
When I was in high school, I rarely wore my glasses. It’s not that I didn’t need them; I’d forget about them. I was so used to the world being blurry, that I didn’t always notice it was still blurry.
I knew there was a problem, and I tried a few unsuccessful ways to fix it:
leaving my glasses by the door (I’d forget to look, or I looked at them and thought I would put them on later but didn’t.)
writing myself notes on the bathroom mirror (I got accustomed to seeing the notes and ignored them.)
setting an alarm (I’d turn the alarm off, intending to do the task in a minute and then forget.)
My children exhibit these same behaviors. They intend to do something, but forget, even when it’s important. Or I’ll remind them, and they say they are going to, but they forget. It’s easy to have the intention, but follow-through is much more difficult.
With the help of my husband, we’ve developed the routine linking method where we link tasks to other tasks. Then we practice the linking tasks until it becomes so routine we can do them naturally, almost without thinking.
With the glasses example above, I started by linking my getting-ready-to-go-out-routine. I usually start out by brushing my teeth, taking a shower, and getting dressed, all the way to my shoes. I check my purse for my passport, credit card, and driver’s license, and check my work bags to make sure I have everything. Then, I do my hair and, finally, put on my glasses.
To link putting on my glasses to brushing my hair, every time I forgot to put on my glasses I forced myself to do these actions:
I stopped what I was doing.
I went back to my room, and picked up my brush.
I brushed my hair, or went through the motions of brushing my hair.
I put the brush down on the shelf next to my glasses, picked up my glasses case, opened it, and put them on.
I took off my glasses, walked out of the room, and paused for the count of three.
I went back into my room and repeated the routine from the beginning three or four times to help cement the actions in my motor memory banks.
Eventually, doing this series of actions enough times has helped me to always have my glasses on before I leave the house.
If I forget to put my glasses away and leave them lying around somewhere, I make myself walk through these behaviors:
pick up my glasses
put them away in my room
walk out of my room
perform my last action where I didn’t put my glasses away
go straight to my room and put them away
repeat three to four times
This routine helps me to remember to always put them away, regardless of what I’m doing. It’s simpler to put them away the first time than to do the same action several times.
If you want your child to rinse their dishes after eating breakfast, but they keep forgetting, simply have them sit back down to breakfast, pretend to eat, get up, pick up their dishes, and take them to the sink and rinse them. Wait for them to dry a bit, reset the table, and repeat a few times.
Eventually, the actions of standing up, plate in hand, after a meal will be ingrained in their motor memory bank, and they won’t have to think about the action. Don’t treat it as a punishment, but as a task to help improve memory.
8. Grow the Routine
Once you have built your routine so it is becoming automatic, you can reevaluate your goals and add more. If your child is consistently rinsing their dishes immediately after breakfast, you might add sweeping the floor, getting dressed, daily devotions, or any other task you would find helpful. Again, don’t try to build it too quickly or add too many tasks because that increases the risk that the routine will have missed items and make it harder to learn. Just focus on building the routine over time.
Hopefully, building your routine will help you and your children have more peaceful days and to keep better track of supplies. Your routines will grow and change with your children and help them when they move out on their own. Building a routine might not solve all of your child’s executive function issues, or help to improve their focus in other areas, but a smoother day means you have more time and energy to devote to other tasks. That extra peace might make all the difference.
Okay, I’m going to be straight with you here. When you are homeschooling with a baby, you are in the trenches of motherhood. Your clothes are wrinkly, your eyes are carrying bags the size of a grapefruits, and you constantly get whiffs of soured milk, probably from your own shoulder—your sweet baby’s favorite place to drool and spit up.
You don’t even have time to take a shower, and that’s a basic need. How on earth will you practice self-care in this stage of life?
Admittedly, it's not easy to find margin for self-care as a homeschool mom in the baby years! But there are things you can do to take care of yourself with the same loving attention you give your precious children.
1. Give Yourself Grace
Buckets of grace.
You will not get everything done.
You will not have a spotless house.
You will not have gourmet (or even balanced!) dinners every night.
It’s okay. It's all okay.
Sit down with your husband and go over the list of non-negotiables. For me, I have to have a clean kitchen. It’s a must, or I won’t cook. My husband wears uniforms to work, so his non-negotiable is clean uniforms. So my priorities are making sure that we have a clean kitchen and clean uniforms. Anything else can wait, guilt-free.
2. Say No to What Adds Stress
When my girls were babies, I said no to a lot of activities outside the home including a homeschool co-op. While co-ops are fantastic, at the time, it was one thing that I didn’t have to put on my plate. So I didn’t.
Years later, I see that it was a good decision. And now that my kids are older, we can participate in co-ops and thoroughly enjoy it! Your no may look different than mine, and that’s okay.
3. Say Yes to What Fills Your Tank
Sometimes in the baby stage of life, we start throwing out too many nos. Be careful! There are some really great yeses out there too—sometimes in unexpected places.
When I had babies, I was able to attend Bible Study Fellowship one morning each week. They had a children’s department, and it was a huge blessing to be able to drop them off and go spend time with grown-ups. While it was something else on my plate, this was a great, yes because it replenished me.
I also continued serving at church during these years, in areas where I would have a teaching partner or some adult interaction. An hour at church with another adult did wonders for me.
4. Use the Conveniences You Can Afford
I get it...we are homeschoolers. Many of us are struggling on one salary. There is little extra cash laying around. What I suggest you do, though, is take the little extra and do what you can with it.
When my girls were toddling underfoot and I was busy homeschooling my first grader, we hired a housekeeper to come once a week. We have never had a lot of money, and at the time it felt ridiculous and frivolous. But it really saved my sanity during that stage. Once a week, my housekeeper helped get me caught up to make it through another week.
I think this also applies to simpler services too like grocery pick-up. Spending an extra five extra dollars saves me from spending two hours wandering aisles, telling my child, “No, we aren’t getting five packages of candy bars" and keeping babies in the shopping cart!
Um...yes, please. Take my $5!
When I was a teenager, but not yet old enough to baby-sit, I offered to be a mother’s helper. I asked a mother of preschoolers if I could come over for a day and help her with her kids. She allowed it, and I had the best day baby-sitting. I think she got quite a bit done that day, too. You may be surprised to find a young person who would be willing to do something similar for free or for very little payment.
5. Set Aside Time for Yourself
I am addicted to productivity; my hobbies even center around being productive. But in the baby stage of life, it’s important that you set up regular time to just chill. My favorite thing to do when my kids are gone for an afternoon is pick up a to-go lunch, come home, and watch my favorite Netflix show in bed. When you get a rare afternoon to yourself, don’t to clean the house from ceiling to floor. Lavish attention on yourself!
The great thing about this tip is that you don’t even have to be alone. Do something with your babies just because. Go out and blow bubbles or lay in the grass and read. Enjoy and savor the moment.
One of the still frames of my mind was on a day that I had decided to drop everything and go outside to push my kids on the swing. The dirty dishes sat in the sink, and the floor was nasty, but I still remember my son’s face perfectly, and I remember how my daughter’s curls framed her face.
The days are long, but the years are short. You’ll want those memories one day, so be sure to make them.
It’s a good idea to limit the amount of things you have, which in turn, limits the amount of cleaning you do. Be careful not to fall into the trap of having every new baby gadget. You can get by with far less than you think, I promise!
7. Talk to Grown-Ups
FaceTime, Skype, Marco Polo, the good old fashioned phone call...these are all ways to stay connected to grown-ups. Every day, try to make it a point to reach out to a fellow grown-up:
commiserate about the state of your house
swap stories of what your kids did
solve the world’s problems
Create a circle of grown-ups that you can stay connected to throughout the tough years of child-rearing. It’s worth it to cultivate friendships now. If a friendship can survive raising babies, you can bet that you have a lifelong friend!
8. Prioritize Bible Study
Draw close to God. He will replenish you far more than any fizzy bath or spa day. Trust Him for all your needs, and talk to him when you feel lonely or overwhelmed. There is no one who understands tired moms better than God.
Cast your cares upon Him. He will sustain you.
There’s no getting around it...these years are just tough. There is no magic formula for getting more me time. Chances are that you won’t find a lot of alone time, so you have to maximize what you do find. You’ll need to let go of some of the Type A personality, and let a few things slide.
Find the beauty in your everyday reality, with an understanding that time slips through your fingers like water. You can’t hold onto it and you’ll never get it back, so use it wisely while you have it. You will need to remember, precious Mama, that even if your house is a mess and your hair isn’t washed, you are a good mom because you love your kids. Period.
Please meet and join us in congratulating these remarkable Sonlight-educated students poised to make a difference in the world. As the winners of our annual Sonlight scholarship competition, they have each been awarded each with $20,000, $10,000 or $4,000 for college.
Many of these students have used Sonlight since they were young. They’re headed into careers in engineering, medicine, sciences, filmmaking and more. Most are headed to their college of choice, and many have superb SAT or ACT scores.
But they are also kind, big-hearted young adults. Through ministry and volunteerism, they live life with Jesus in their hearts and long to share God’s kingdom with the world.
$20,000 Scholarship Winners: Abram Coleman of Augusta, GA and Katelyn Spradley of La Mirada, CA
$5,000 per year
Abram Coleman
Abram Coleman of Augusta, GA is the fifth of six children. The family began using Sonlight midway through the schooling of the oldest child (the oldest two are now physicians, the third is a Ph.D. Candidate, and the fourth in college). Abram is the third Coleman to use Sonlight materials all 12 years of school. A National Merit Finalist, he scored an 800 in Math and a 720 in Verbal on the SAT, earned a 790 on the SAT II in Chemistry, and received Summa Cum Laude and a Gold Medal twice for the National Latin Exam. He designed a vehicle powered by two unaltered mousetraps that pushed a cup forward 3 meters, before reversing direction, and placed third in the State Science Olympiad. A dual-enrolled student, his college calculus professor at Augusta University said, “I have been teaching for more than twenty years and Abram is among the brightest students I have taught.” And even with all that, he has time for chorus and drama! One mentor comments, "Abram represents himself, his family and his Lord with integrity, kindness and boldness. He typifies the young person that we pray will come from our homes, our churches and our schools." His mother describes him as "a knight in shining armor" for his younger sister. "I smile as I watch him walk into church with an arm around a 13-year-old sister who adores him." Abram intends to study engineering in the fall.
Katelyn Spradley
Katelyn Spradley, lately of Skopje, Macedonia used Sonlight all the way through and had an SAT score of 1570 and is a National Merit Finalist. She is fluent in Macedonian, and in high school she played on a basketball team with rival ethnic groups (Macedonian and Albanian), a rare opportunity. Early on there was (as feared) a significant lack of unity on the team. Katelyn, the only American on the team, related graciously to all the players. Selected as captain of the team, she led by example and developed relationships and fostered good will among all members, promoting unselfish teamwork on the court. Katelyn’s leadership and playing skills contributed to an unexpected trip to the championship game. She spent several years volunteering at a children’s oncology ward. When her family spent her freshman year living with Katelyn’s grandmother, disabled from a stroke and some dementia, Katelyn frequently helped with the care, and even took over one weekend when her parents were away, making sure her grandmother was fed, clothed, and bathed. Katelyn had planned to be a nurse, but has since set her sights on medical missions, where she hopes to minister to those who are forgotten, and so share the truth of the greatness of God and build his kingdom. She begins her higher education at Biola University in La Mirada, CA.
$10,000 Scholarship Winners: Aaron Holt of Siler City, NC and Josh Carroll of Englewood, OH
$2,500 per year
Aaron Holt
Aaron Holt of Siler City, NC used Sonlight through middle and high school, until he started college as a dual-enrolled student. He had a perfect 36 on the English portion of his ACT, and a total score of 34, and was a Commended Student in the National Merit Scholarship Program. An enthusiastic science student, he developed and taught a Summer Science Camp for elementary students in his home. With a creation-based theme, always pointing to our Creator God as the source of all things seen and unseen, he made the children excited about learning. Mothers continue to tell him stories about how his former campers say, “Aaron taught me that in summer camp!” In 2017, he attended the 2-week residential Duke TIP Field Study, where his instructors described his astrobiology presentation as “well-researched, innovative, and well-presented.” And in 2018, he attended a similar program at Harvard, where his chalkboard-based final presentation, “Explaining Endothermic/Exothermic Reactions with PIAB,” was voted best topic and presenter by his classmates. Aaron has been involved in various ministries, included a mission trip to Cuba to help construct a church building, and another mission trip with Hope for Appalachia. With his grandfather, he has logged over 300 hours with Meals on Wheels, bringing meals weekly to local seniors. He intends to study physics. As he says, “We often have trouble associating hard sciences with anything other than outspoken atheism. If I were to achieve a high degree in physics, I may end up being one of the only Christians in my workplace, and one of the only witnesses for Christ my co-workers ever see. Hopefully, through the testimony of my Christian lifestyle, I can help bring someone to Christ simply by doing something I enjoy doing anyway.”
Josh Carroll
Josh Carroll of Englewood, OH, a Sonlighter since 2006, spent most of his childhood in Uganda. An incredibly creative young man, he can hear a song once and play it on the piano. He has played the djembe (an African drum) since he was very young, drumming as part of worship teams in both Uganda and the United States. He is a gifted artist and designer, which he has used in creating his own realistic sets for his Lego movies. He is gifted at telling stories and communicating truth through visuals, with a keen eye for creating moods with lighting and setup, shooting from the right angles, and editing the flow of shots in order to have maximum impact on the hearts of those who watch his movies. He has a YouTube channel with many Lego Bible short films. He recently finished a 30 minute Lego film, “The Passion,” where he learned to manage movie budgets, hire and direct voice actors, work with professional music composers, and write, shoot, edit, and create visual effects for an entire movie. Apart from his creativity, his father writes, “Many times, when we were temporarily in the States, mothers of his friends organized birthday parties completely around when Joshua was available, not only because their sons wanted him to be there but because the parents loved the influence he had on their sons and they wanted him to be there.” Josh intends to study filmmaking, as a tool to fulfill his larger ambition: to be a disciple maker. “Even though professionally I will be a ‘filmmaker,’ my identity is a disciple of Christ. I want to be a man who walks alongside people, who loves them, and who helps them see who Jesus is.”
$4,000 Scholarship Winners
$1,000 per year
Grace Aukerman
Grace Aukerman of Osceola, IN, a Sonlighter all the way through, grew up in Albania, a post-communist and predominantly Muslim country. Albania’s weak economy, corrupt legal and school systems, and lack of employment have caused many Albanians to feel trapped and to lose faith in their country’s future. In the midst of these bleak circumstances, Grace has had the honor of seeing many of her neighbors and closest friends change, learn and grow—not because of changing circumstances, but because of the presence of Jesus in their lives. As one team member said, after serving alongside Grace for three years, “Even though Grace wasn’t on payroll, I considered her just as much a missionary as anyone else on our team. Grace is one of the most influential missionaries I’ve seen. She took the time to learn the language fluently and embraced Albanian culture as her own. Often Albanians would comment on her language abilities and how she speaks exactly like an Albanian. Grace can genuinely connect with girls her age and have authentic relationships with them. Many teenage girls looked to Grace for wisdom.” Grace has led six children's ballet and art camps. She’s volunteered as a camp counselor for three years with Child Evangelism Fellowship in Albania, and volunteered at a therapeutic horse ranch for a few months. She often encourages others by blessing them with a piece of art. Grace intends to study Evangelism, Compassion, and Social Justice. Her dream is to use this degree to serve children, teens, and adults, preferably somewhere outside of the U.S.
Hannah Chang
Hannah Chang of Kirksville, MO, homeschooled with Sonlight from the beginning, did not find school easy, as she deals with both Attention Deficit Disorder and dyslexia. This didn’t just make school challenging. As her mother said, though she started violin at age 7, “She played by ear for many years because she just couldn’t get the hang of reading the music.” Today, though, through persistence, she is concertmaster of her high school orchestra and plays hymns for homebound believers. Her family has a large rabbitry, usually with about 100-150 rabbits. Hannah and her siblings needed to figure out how to cooperate to get all the chores done as quickly as possible. Hannah is a member of the American Rabbit Breeders Association, and has won various titles, such as Missouri State Rabbit Producers Association Princess and Duchess, and is am a multi-time state showmanship champion. A few years ago, she accompanied a Christian couple and their family in their move to Lebanon to reach out to Muslims and Syrian refugees. Hannah stayed with them for the first few weeks there, helping with the numerous children while they became acclimated to their new surroundings. She flew back to the States on her own. She plans to become a Registered Nurse, and then return to Lebanon. As she said, “As a country, Lebanon has the highest refugee to citizen ratio of any nation in the world. Over one million refugees from Syria alone have already sought asylum in Lebanon, and many of them do not have adequate shelter, food, or medical attention.”
Esther Helm
Esther Helm of Winston Salem, NC scored a 1520 on her SAT, and a 35 on her ACT (with both English and Reading with a perfect 36). She spent her childhood in Africa, where her parents served until she was 12 years old. Since returning to the States, she helped welcome an Ethiopian refugee family, watching their three younger children when the parents needed to be away from the house, and trying to engage the very shy teenager when at church during youth activities. In her youth group, a few teenagers have special needs. Her youth group leader said that “Esther is a leader for the group when it comes to treating these students with care and kindness. She makes a point to always greet these youth, as well as including them in our discussion and activities. When I divide the youth into small groups, I make sure to always place Esther with the ‘toughest’ group because I know she will make everyone feel welcomed, and that she can efficiently lead the group in a productive, Christ-focused discussion.” She recently returned to West Africa, where she led a week of Bible school activities in French for children of the West African expatriate church she attended while growing up, and she spent time encouraging other expatriate teenagers living in that desert country. She gladly wore the dress of the Muslim majority there so that others would feel comfortable around her and more willing to interact with her. A three-sport athlete (volleyball, basketball, and softball), she plans to get a liberal arts degree in International Affairs.
Rose Raquet
Rosemary (Rose) Raquet of Beavercreek, OH, a Sonlighter since third grade, plays piano, viola, and harp. A leader in the youth orchestra, she has been principal viola for the last three years, as well as playing in a string quartet, and being hand-picked to participate in Project Protégé, in which she gets to play with the adult professional Springfield Orchestra for several concerts over two years. She was given the “Conductor’s Award” one year to recognize her positive attitude and leadership traits, and she has started to teach piano. Rose has a way of seeing needs and finding creative ways to meet them. For example, a family in her church ended up adopting four young boys over a short period of time, and they were understandably feeling overwhelmed. Rose begged to provide physical support for that family on a weekly basis. To this day, the mother of that family talks about how much of a blessing Rose has been to them, and Rose was recently invited to go on vacation with them, because “everything goes more smoothly when Rose is around.” At 15, she went to the Middle East for six months. A family had moved there, and in order to allow both parents to continue language study, they needed help with their four children. Rose didn’t just babysit: she played an integral part in the homeschooling of the children, and also helped with meals, laundry, cleaning, and even continuing her own school work. Furthermore, she also received regular cultural lessons as she went along with the wife to visit the neighbors. All of this would be a difficult task for any mother, not to mention a 15-year-old high school student, thousands of miles away from her family, her friends, and anything normal. She looks forward to using her abilities to help in areas such as music, children, outreach, organizing events and decoration.
Sarah Reiter
Sarah Reiter of Tucson, AZ scored a 1500 on her SAT. A Sonlighter throughout her middle and high school years, she is currently studying both World History and Literature, and British Literature—a very full course load of reading.
She has served as her youth group’s worship leader for the last five years, assisted with various children’s ministries, and taught a music class at a Summer Arts Festival.
She was highly praised for her ability to keep children engaged. She has gone to Mexico twice with her youth group, working to build houses for people in need. In 2018, she went to the Dominican Republic, where she learned about the efforts of International Justice Mission, helped fix an orphanage’s roof, and built a building for the water filtration system. She plans to go to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to study Cyber Intelligence and Security.
Kiley Carmack
Kiley Carmack of Gulfport, MS, a Sonlighter through her middle and high school years, is a second degree black belt. She participates in weekly fundraisers for the owner of her Martial Arts studio. The owner is fighting cancer without insurance, and the weekly bake sale helps to raise funds for her treatment. Kiley also serves at a local soup kitchen, and visits two local nursing homes. One woman writes, “I am the conservator for a senior citizen deaf-mute, and Kiley has been of tremendous assistance interpreting for me, as I do not know ASL. Kiley’s concern has resulted in her visiting my ward on a regular basis; often times bearing gifts and entertaining with rhythmic sign language, to words of beautiful songs.” Kiley began learning sign language when she was about nine. Some years later, she read that only 2% of deaf individuals become Christians. “All I could think about was why are the other 98% missing an opportunity for salvation? There are numerous mission groups designed to spread the gospel, sadly however, many are unable to find trained interpreters to teach the deaf and hard-of-hearing.” She has started her college studies through dual enrollment, and looks forward to continuing them, with the career ambition to teach the Bible to the deaf-mute students.
Mika Muresan
Mika Muresan of Montgomery Village, MD earned a 35 on his ACT (with a perfect 36 in Science) and a 1500 on his SAT. He has had multiple first place finishes in his state’s Science Olympiad, where his team has been 2-time State Champions.
An enthusiastic golfer, he earned a spot at the Joe Louis Barrow, Jr. National Life Skill and Leadership Academy and was voted “2018 Most Outstanding Participant.” with The First Tee.
He has logged over 450 volunteer hours at the National Museum of Natural History, the highest performing volunteer at the museum, and completed an internship there. He’s on the swim team, participates weekly in a food ministry, serves on the Audio Video team at church, and is currently working on raising and training his second service dog. He hopes to become a researching spinal neurosurgeon, focusing especially on MS, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.
Madison Theil
Madison Theil of Cincinnati, OH, a Sonlighter since elementary school, has accomplished a tremendous amount. A National Speech Finalist with the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association. A leading performer in three Shakespeare plays, including Boyet in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and Coriolanus in Coriolanus. In her 12 years in Girl Scouts, she earned both Bronze and Silver Awards. She spent five weeks in Israel with an internship at an organization whose mission is supporting Christian organizations in Israel. After her childhood piano teacher sought Madison to be a teacher in her studio, Madison took intensiveweek long courses to become a certified Musikgarten curriculum teacher in Pre-Piano and Beginning Piano, and started teaching. In her own advanced piano studies, she has earned numerous accolades, including the Gino James DiMario Scholarship in 2016, second place in the Great Composers Best Bach International Competition 2018, and Semifinalist in the Cincinnati Overture Awards 2018. Madison was blessed to be born into a family with an intentional focus on spiritual training and understanding the heart of God and how that impacts our daily life, and she participates wholly in her family’s mission to build into young families. As the head counselor at summer camps at the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, she worked with at-risk teens as part of a scholarship program. As students tried various art forms for the first time, they were suddenly creators, and they came to life! She says, “It was amazing giving freedom to those students through the camp. It didn’t matter if they were talented or new to the art, they were allowed and encouraged to create. It welled up in me a dream of giving students like these the opportunities to reflect God’s character through their creativity.” Madison hopes to attend Miami University, with a degree in Music and a minor in Business. Her biggest dream is to form a piano studio that is an interdisciplinary hub of self-expression for impoverished and at-risk communities.
Jacob Uhler
Jacob Uhler of Dayton, OH has used Sonlight since 2006. When his mom pointed out that, with the college classes he was enrolled in for the upcoming year he already had twice as many social sciences as he needed for graduation, he asked if he could still do Sonlight’s new World History and Worldview Studies program along with his college US History, Psychology, and Anthropology courses. He participated in the Duke Talent Identification Program for fourth and fifth graders and then took his first SAT through the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth in seventh grade. In 2015, 2016, and 2017, he ran the Air Force Half Marathon, placing second in the 14-and-under boys age bracket during the 2015 race. In 2017, he played Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. His voice teacher praised him for continuing lessons in order to improve his singing for the role. “It was most impressive that Jacob wanted to pour outside time and work into the role beyond the hectic musical theatre rehearsal schedule that he already was facing and had the humility to say, ‘maybe I could be better.’” His mother writes, “Since we are a military family who moves often (three years of which were spent overseas) and never has family nearby, Jacob has had to step up during each of his dad’s nine deployments to help with tasks from yard work and mouse trap disposal to changing diapers and making dinner at a much younger age than many of his peers.” Jacob plans to study either global business, accounting, history, or a combination of the three, then hopes to go to law school.
Could Your Young Learner Win a Sonlight Scholarship?
From preschool through high school graduation, Sonlight prepares your students. We have the big picture in mind, and we help you raise students prepared to launch into any career God calls them to. We share your desire to help your children succeed, and we’ll walk alongside to help you create the long-term educational experience you envision.
Each year, our charitable foundation offers a number of college scholarships, ranging from $4,000 to $20,000, spread over four years. Each year, the Sonlight Foundation offers the following scholarships:
$5,000/year
$2,500/year
$1,000/year
We offer scholarships on two tracks: one emphasizes academics, and the other creativity, missions-mindedness, and service. Got a perfect score on the SAT? Got average test scores, but served overseas during summer vacation for the last three years? In either case, you may qualify.
The Sonlight Foundation recognizes that academic giftedness is only one type of giftedness. If your student is gifted in academics, service, music, art, or has a heart for missions, we encourage you to submit an application.
But Sonlight has never tried to dictate everything for you to believe or say to your children while teaching them. As I see it, Sonlight's job is to provide the tools and support you need to be free to love and guide your children.
Sonlight Includes All the Materials You Need
In fact, we strive to provide you with all the tools you need to teach your children. That's why your big Sonlight boxes of curriculum can easily weigh 60 pounds (and be a tad overwhelming for many moms). We provide you the books, materials and lesson plans for each day of an entire school year.
We want you to have everything you need so you don't have to research and vet programs or run to the store or the library. You are not only homeschooling but also parenting, caring for the home, doing the laundry, preparing meals, and more. You are busy! My goal is to free you up to do what you do best: loving, caring for, and guiding your children.
Sonlight is Education Not Indoctrination
I do craft our curriculum to help you raise your children in the love of Christ, with the goal of helping them become ambassadors for Him. But when it comes to the specific nuances of your faith and practice, I don't wish to tell you what to think.
I think it far more important that you help your children know God and learn to think critically about what they believe than it is for me to tell you to believe a specific dogma within orthodox Christianity.
You can read and discuss all these topics and ideas, or choose those that are most interesting to you.
In some of Sonlight’s Language Arts programs, especially at the lower levels, you’ll find scripts to help you teach. You don’t have to try to remember grammar rules or parts of language from your own schooling days—you’ll know exactly what to say. How your children implement those ideas? That’s unique to each student.
Even though Sonlight gives you lots of structure throughout each day, your children get more than someone reading from a scripted lesson. They get you—with all your enthusiasm, your questions, your snuggles, your experiences and your insights.
