Nov. 29, 2017

When Your Child Works Too Fast and Learns Nothing

By Deana Wood
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When Your Child Works Too Fast and Learns Nothing

I have this little problem. Maybe it’s called a compulsion? Whatever label you choose, I can’t help myself. I hate to double back. I like to get somewhere by the shortest possible way. If I have to go out of my way, I feel like I’ve wasted my time. I value the straight line between two points. Efficiency is my friend.

That’s why sometimes it’s tough for me to double back in homeschooling. For example, my oldest son, the math whiz, has shown me through his recent math work that he has missed some important concepts with fractions. He’s become accustomed to zipping through his math. But after grading his last math test, I’ve come to the realization that it’s time to double back and master the basics he missed because he sometimes works too fast.

I could be hard on myself, and let’s just be honest, I was for a day or two. But the truth is that it’s easy to get in that mode of pushing forward to make progress. However, education isn’t that simple. We aren’t dealing with robots or pages of data. We’re dealing with humans.

  • Humans who sometimes work too quickly or too carelessly to grasp the concept.
  • Humans who tend to be a little distracted during instructional time.
  • Humans whose minds are not always ready for the next level of learning.

So what do you do in these times when children work too fast? What’s the next step when your children are zooming ahead but not retaining or truly learning?

1.Take a Deep Breath

Yes, you’ll want to blame yourself. Don’t. Fluctuations in the educational process are normal for kids. Yes, I said normal. Very few children are going to get through thirteen years of education without a few setbacks. Some will have lots of setbacks. That’s normal too.

A “two steps forward, one step back” expectation is pretty appropriate for most kids. So the first step is to take a deep breath and recognize that it’s not a big deal. You aren't a failure. And neither is your child.

2. Give Your Child a Short Break

It’s likely that your child has sensed that they aren’t understanding, too. It’s likely that they are feeling a little frustrated. The best thing to do when you or your child is frustrated is to take a step back. Give them a day or two of a break in the subject you are studying. I promise you, it won’t hurt to take a day or two off. Actually, it will work in your favor.

3. Review Your Child’s Work

While your child is on a break, look over the past several weeks of work. See if you can find the place where your child first started missing a concept. In subjects like Math, this is pretty easy. Usually, you’ll have a sense of where they started slipping.

In other subjects, it can be trickier, but there are always signs. Look for those little signals. Don’t be afraid to dig deep. Maybe your child forgot or missed the building blocks from last year that this year’s work is based upon. Don’t panic. I’ve taken my kids back a year before. It’s much better to stop and go back together than drag your child along at a pace they just aren’t ready for.

4. Re-Start in a Place Where Your Child Excelled

If your child’s slip up came in multiplying fractions, you’ll want to take them back to that spot, but I implore you, don’t do it! Instead, take them back a step or two before multiplying fractions to something they can do well like adding fractions.

This choice seems contrary to what you want to do, but it’s a needed step. Trust me. This step will give your child a sense of success again, and they’ll think, “Hey, I’m actually pretty good at fractions after all.” They need to feel success before trying the hard part again.

5. Slow Down the Child Who Works Too Fast

When your child hits a brick wall, give them the gift of time. Give them two weeks instead of one. Let them hover right where they are Instead of pushing them ahead. You can always make up the time later when they get to an easier concept.

Sometimes the problem is that your child wants to speed through work simply for the sense of accomplishment or to rush forward to screentime or outdoor play. During those times, you need to emphasize that the goal isn't finishing a worksheet, a book, or the week in the Instructor's Guide. The goal is learning, and you can do that at whatever pace you choose.

6. Go Over It Many Times in Different Ways

Sit down with them every day and present the concept until you see the lightbulb turn on. The first day, you might sit with them through the whole lesson. The second day, you might let them watch a video of someone else teaching the concept. The third day, do a problem wrong, and see if they can spot where you messed up. The fourth day, let them do one on their own and check it immediately. Slowly, but surely, hand the reigns back to them.

7. Encourage, Encourage, Encourage

Rather than a tip specifically for when your child is struggling, this is a tip for all the time. I am a believer in the power of positivity. I think that what you speak has a huge effect on your child. If they stay stuck in a pattern of failure, they can begin to think that they can’t do it. They may start thinking that they aren’t good at Math or Reading, and it’s tough to combat those thoughts. So it’s a great plan to be proactive, emphasizing their hard work and attention by saying things like this:

  • “Hey great job in Math today. You really worked hard, and it shows!”
  • “Wow, you really persevered in math today. You had some tough problems, but you stuck with it, and that’s the sign of a good mathematician!”
  • “God has gifted you with an amazing mind, and I’m so excited to see how He uses that gift for His glory!”

8. Pace Your Child

Learning to set a pace for yourself is a big job. Even for adults, figuring out a good breakdown of a big project is tough. Even if your child is an independent learner, it’s helpful for parents to help with pacing. Each week, get a cheap, spiral notebook and write out what you want your child to accomplish. Let them know that they are welcome to keep working, but they have to bring their work to you to check before working ahead of what you’ve scheduled. This way, you can stay on top of things and make sure that your child is grasping the concept regularly.

The best piece of advice that I can give is to simply hang in there. When I was potty training my toddlers, I always heard from veteran moms, “Don’t stress...they won’t go to college wearing diapers!” And they were right.

If you keep at it, your child will learn addition, algebra, sentence structure, subject-verb agreement, and spelling. They will learn what you teach them and much more! But they won’t always learn exactly how or when we think they should. That’s what makes them unique. As you know, I love efficiency, but I’ve learned that efficiency doesn’t mean much in homeschooling. My motto is just like the tortoise, “Slow and steady wins the race.” Going back and repeating instruction is never a waste of time.

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Nov. 27, 2017

12 Quiet Read-Aloud Activities for Kids

By Gina Munsey
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12 Quiet Read-Aloud Activities for Kids

Read-alouds are one of the pillars of a literature-based education. But what happens when no one really settles down when you start reading?  If you’ve ever interrupted a read-aloud with the words, “Sit still!”, this list is for you.

Keeping children’s hands busy is often the key to allowing their minds—and bodies—to calm down long enough to focus on auditory input. There’s something very restful and therapeutic about working with your hands while taking in enjoyable audio. In our home, we look forward to our Sonlight Read-Alouds not just because Sonlight books are so carefully chosen, but also because of the fun projects we’ve worked into our routine. Here are some of our family’s favorite read-aloud activities.

1. Sculpt Clay or Play Dough

While littles are content to use play dough with no overarching motive, older kids might enjoy something with a purpose, such as using modeling clay to sculpt figures that connect to the Read-Aloud’s theme. This isn’t a couch activity, but if you don’t want to sit around the table either, kids can sit on the living room floor with their sculpting material contained to serving trays or cookie sheets.

2. Stamp into a Notebook

Have a plastic bin of stamps leftover from your scrapbooking days? Pick up some inexpensive ink pads, and let kids fill notebooks with patterns and designs while you read. (And, yes, someone will probably press their face or hand into the stamp pad. Or do things like that only happen at our house?)

3. Fold Clean Laundry

This isn’t time to be running around the house tucking clean clothes into dressers, obviously. But read-aloud time is perfect for a simple tasks like folding a basket of towels. Even young children can help sort a pile of mismatched socks.

4. Use Twiddles and Fidgets

There are lots of silent items kids can manipulate with their hands while listening to you read. Think cubes, flexible wooden puzzles, marble fidgets, or stress balls (you can even make one by pouring corn starch into a balloon).

5. Color Related Images

Getting out the crayons is easy enough, especially when you just grab from the stash of coloring books. But using historical coloring books which correlate with what you’re learning—or printing off a stack of related images—will bring your Read-Alouds to especially vibrant life. (As an adult, I still color from time to time. When I see the page later, I always remember what I was listening to when I colored it.)

6. Create Modified Lapbooks

About once a week before our history Read-Aloud, I’ll print out a selection of images and maps, and three-hole punch some colored cardstock. While I read, my daughter cuts, colors, and glues however she desires. After, she often jots down her favorite aspect of the day’s reading, and glues it onto the page, to be added to our history binder.

7. Draw or Doodle

Not every child enjoys cutting or coloring. But those who don’t wish to break out the markers and crayons might still enjoy access to plain paper and drawing supplies, so they can create elaborate scenes, intricate patterns or story illustrations while you’re reading. Stencils are a huge hit in our house, too.

8. Assemble a Jigsaw Puzzle

This activity works best if you’re able to leave the puzzle out in a dedicated area, so you can continue adding to it each time you sit down to read. But smaller, individual puzzles can work as well. You can even keep them separated by using trays or cookie sheets, just like for the modeling clay. (Have you seen the astronomy and geography puzzles?)

9. Knit or Crochet

If you have beginners, knitting or crocheting wouldn’t make a great read-aloud activity. Who wants to keep stopping mid-story to reattach errant yarn or untangle a knot? But once your little artisans have reached proficiency, this can be a wonderfully productive Read-Aloud pastime.

10. Build LEGO Bricks or K’Nex

Quiet building can be a wonderful backdrop to an afternoon of read-alouds. Extra bonus points if your kids accept the challenge to build a scene related to what you’re reading!

11. Eat Snacks

This is a favorite read-aloud activity in our home. Yours, too? By the time we open the Read-Alouds mid-afternoon, everyone is more than ready for a protein pick-me-up.

12. Construct a Diorama or a 3-D Structure

If you don’t mind a big, crafty mess, creating a diorama or a three-dimensional model can be a ton of fun. The key to making this work during a read-aloud is to have all the needed supplies—scissors, cardboard boxes or poster board, glue, twigs, clay, toothpicks, straws, paper, cotton balls, markers, and more—already set out ahead of time. (If you’re an especially hands-on family, you might like the Hands & Hearts activity kits.)

Not everyone learns the same way, of course, but in our home, I’ve found that comprehension, retention, and focus are all consistently improved on the days I allow some sort of activity while I read aloud. I’m so thankful for the flexibility of homeschooling, which lends itself so wonderfully to these creative pursuits.

 Try three weeks of any Instructor's Guide for free and see what Sonlight Read-Alouds are like. Click here to get one for any level, preschool through twelfth grade.

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Nov. 24, 2017

What You Need When Launching Your Homeschool Adventure

By Amber Smith
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What You Need When Launching Your Homeschool Adventure

The older boys were almost eight and seven. My oldest girl was almost six, and I was the most tired mother on the planet. We had seven little children under the age of eight. Half of the population of my household was not in school yet and couldn't tie their own shoes. Three kids were still in diapers. It was the year I resorted to buying everyone a pair of rain boots…for church. And on top of all of that, we were jumping into our first year of homeschooling.

There is no right time to begin. There is only beginning.

I am so glad I didn’t wait until I felt totally ready to homeschool. I just started with Sonlight and figured that I would learn what my kids needed as we went along. When I had challenges or doubts, I would ask around for resources. I read everything I could get my hands on about the brain, child development, personal growth, parenting, and self-care. I was determined to quell those negative voices in my head with firm facts.

Homeschooling is a journey of learning—for you and for your children.

Looking back, that first year of homeschooling was a sweet time of cuddling on the couch and reading books which remain beloved favorites to this day. We built forts and suits of armor out of cardboard as we acted out our history lessons. Good times!

Expect Homeschooling to be an Epic Adventure

No great journey is without its struggles. I said it was an adventure, and I meant it. Some days our adventure was like The Boxcar Children, full of brotherly love and discovery. Other days our adventure was more like The Lewis & Clark Expedition, slogging through the unknown wilderness with unexpected plot twists and obstacles everywhere.

The truth is, in the thick of it, some days were incredibly hard. Those days are a part of the whole package. I am so grateful to the many parents who openly share their struggles and challenges. If you are just starting out, please know you are not alone. Just like you, I didn’t always feel like I was doing the best job. But I knew I was making the right choice by teaching our kids at home.

There were days when I didn’t know if I would be prepared for everything that was going to come my way. It took some time for me to realize I did not need to be prepared for everything. I just needed to succeed today. Then I could focus on tomorrow. One foot in front of the other is how we came all of the way from those crazy years to last year’s high school graduation day.

Don't Get Too Far Ahead of Yourself When Launching Your Homeschool Adventure

If you are starting out in preschool, Kindergarten, or elementary years, you do not need to know how you are going to get through calculus or offer high school biology with a lab. You merely need to know what you are going to prepare for lunch and where your Instructor's Guide is.

When you actually do need to know how to create a transcript, for example, the resources are at your fingertips, quite literally. A Google search, a question in a Facebook group, or a call to Sonlight Advisors will answer most any homeschool dilemma you have.

To launch into homeschooling right now you need only a handful of things:

  • a calling to teach your kids
  • the knowledge of how your kids prefer to learn and how they learn best (usually the same ways)
  • humility to admit when you don’t know the answers and ninja Google skills
  • a willingness to work hard on the pains of your past so they don’t cast a shadow on your future
  • a community of people to help answer your questions and encourage you
  • a sense of humor
  • a solid curriculum
  • an occasional coffee date with another homeschool mom or your supportive spouse

Those should get you off to a pretty good start and should help keep you on track through your adventures.

Launch your homeschool adventure with everything you need. Go to SmoothCourse and get started today.

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Nov. 20, 2017

How Homeschooling Enriched Us: Lessons from 4 Sonlight Graduates

By Sonlight
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This post is part of the Where Are They Now series in which we hear the stories of long-time Sonlight users who are now thriving young adults.

When you are in the trenches of homeschooling, it's easy to lose perspective and feel that the struggles with multiplication and the messes from science experiments make you a failure as a homeschool parent. You may question if—even with an excellent curriculum—you are equipped to educate your kids and if you are ruining them by teaching them at home.

You are equipped. And you are not ruining them. But reading that on a blog post is probably not enough to convince you.

This place of self-doubt is precisely where we need stories from those who are farther down the path ahead of us. Moms of graduates and the graduates themselves can reassure us that homeschooling works. Sonlight works! Here is a sampling of just four of the thousands of Sonlight graduates who confirm the wisdom of homeschooling. We hope their stories will encourage you in the trenches today as you hold fast to a vision of God's calling in the lives of your children.

The four young adults below were all winners of a Sonlight Scholarship. Learn more about how to apply for this scholarship here.

We asked these young adults to share how they believe homeschooling with Sonlight positively benefited them and what their parents did well regarding their education.

Luke Macfarlan

Where He is Now

Luke graduated from John Brown University summa cum laude with a double major in mechanical engineering and chemistry. After receiving a graduate fellowship from the National Science Foundation, he is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also happily married to his wife Emilee.

Luke McFarlan Thanksgiving 2014 in Houston 082

photo credit: Luke Macfarlan

Luke's Insights

One of the greatest blessings of homeschooling was the ability to learn independently. I learned to grapple with difficult concepts on my own, a skill which is continuing to pay dividends. The spiritual training my parents provided continues to influence my life, shaping my priorities and life goals. Additionally, homeschooling allowed my parents to tailor my education to my interests and pursuits, combining various subjects (English, history, speech, etc.) in creative ways while not compromising depth in any of them.

Victoria Tuszynski

Where She is Now

Victoria graduated as valedictorian with a bachelor of science in contemporary music and a minor in psychology. She was also a 2016 Who’s Who recipient and was named Contemporary Musician of the Year. Shortly after graduation, she married her best friend, Andrew. Victoria's band, Conquer the Pacific, has released three amateur EPs over the last three years.

Victoria Tuszynski in Conquer the Pacific | photo credit: Shattered Glass Films, Wichita, KS

photo credit: Shattered Glass Films, Wichita, KS

Victoria's Insights

Homeschooling with Sonlight not only allowed me to be educated through my preferred learning style  of reading, but also gave me the scheduling flexibility to pursue music. Sonlight is a challenging curriculum, and I was certainly never bored. 

The greatest help towards my success is when I put my perfectionism to sleep. It was easy for me in high school and college to focus on getting an A, but getting As on assignments did not guarantee that I was learning. Especially in college, I just happened to be good at testing and writing papers. The times where I sat with materials, asked good questions, really listened to understand, and reflected honestly were the times where I really learned. Those are the skills that I take into adulthood and into my music career.

There are no grades in real life. Perfection doesn’t exist, so don’t pressure yourself to be flawless in anything. However, becoming a better version of yourself and adding value to the people around you is a real life possibility, if you go after it. You will be happier for it.

Sam Sinquefield

Where He is Now

Sam graduated from Louisiana State University with an A average in kinesiology, focusing on human movement science. He is currently halfway through an internship with Reformed University Fellowship at Wake Forest University. He looks forward to continuing his education as he works towards a doctorate of physical therapy.

Sam Sinquefield

photo credit: Sam Sinquefield

Sam's Insights

I believe that the variety of things I got to do as a homeschooler attributed to my success in life. Since I was homeschooled, I had the chance to take private classical piano lessons, practice during the day, and also play on a basketball team throughout high school (as well as being involved at church and with my friends). I know if I had gone to school, I wouldn’t have been able to pursue all of my passions and still done well academically.

Learning to study on my own was a huge factor in making my transition to college smooth. I am also so grateful for how I learned to have a Christian worldview through all the subjects I studied growing up. My mom is an absolute rock star for spending so much time and effort pouring into me while I grew up (even when I was a grumpy adolescent). For that, I will always be grateful.

Sarah Leichty Dos Santos

Where She is Now

After graduating summa cum laude, Sarah taught at an international school in China for two years. She married a Brazilian missionary, Leandro, and moved to Thailand with him where they have started a language school which will equip missionaries from Mongolia, Brazil, and Thailand.  

Sarah Leichty Dos Santos

photo credit: Sarah Leichty Dos Santos

Sarah's Insights

I greatly value my education with Sonlight, and I know that it prepared me well for all that followed high school—English and literature university studies, teaching, cross-cultural living, missions, dating and marriage, and beyond. Especially as a woman in a cross-cultural marriage serving in an intercultural context, I value the Kingdom-minded worldview that Sonlight ingrained in me and the tools that it gave me for serving in that Kingdom. It fostered in me an awareness of my own culture and the cultures of other people and places--something that I will never lose.

The Sonlight Curriculum Foundation

Sonlight offers college scholarships

Sonlight offers scholarships based on two different sets of criteria—Green or Blue.

1. Green

  • Up to four scholarships
  • Two $2,500/year and two $1,000/year four-year scholarships
  • Creativity, mission mindedness, acts of kindness, and other factors count more highly than academics

2. Blue

  • Up to nine scholarships
  • One $5,000/year, two $2,500/year, and six $1,000/year four-year scholarships
  • Academics are the most important criteria

Click here or the image above to see full details and exactly how to apply for a Sonlight Scholarship.

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Nov. 17, 2017

How My Home Routine Fosters a Peaceful and Productive Homeschool

By MJ Sherwood
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How My Home Routine Fosters a Peaceful and Productive Homeschool

At about four o’clock I begin the daily ritual of walking through my home after teaching for the day. My mind still cluttered with math problems, I see a home equally overloaded with family clutter. Silently I resolve not to get angry at the mess left behind by playing children and hope my husband can clear a path when he walks through the door. It’s time to head to the library when I discover the toddler has no socks. After sending a sibling upstairs for a pair that doesn’t match, I remember there is nothing planned for dinner and surrender myself to the drive-through one more night.

Do you find yourself here very often? I used to run on survival mode in our home until I met  friends who inspired to me create a home routine that would work for my family. As a young mom with babies and toddlers, it served me well to start creating habits that would eventually help my homeschool fit into our home routine.

Typically homeschool moms try to fit housework into their homeschool, jamming cleaning into every extra minute they can find, leaving the atmosphere feeling strained and stressed. At the end of the week, the homeschooling is caught up, but the cleaning is so behind it takes the whole weekend to catch up, only to start the same cycle all over again.

How Does a Home Routine Work?

The key is to fit homeschool into your home routine instead of the other way around. Run your home on a weekly routine that keeps you on track, with certain tasks assigned to each day of the week.

For example, in Little House in the Big Woods young Laura recalls her Mother’s daily home schedule. Each day her Mom knew exactly what chores would be done, and even the girls knew what to expect each day:

Wash on Monday,

Iron on Tuesday,

Mend on Wednesday,

Churn on Thursday,

Clean on Friday,

Bake on Saturday,

Rest on Sunday.

Of course, thankfully we don’t need to churn our own butter, unless you are into that sort of thing!

Our Weekly Home Routine

Though most of it is a modern version, some tasks on my weekly home routine are the same as Ma Ingalls had on her weekly list.

Monday - Make a meal plan and shopping list.

Tuesday - Grocery shopping during my daughter’s homeschool class.

Wednesday - If I stocked up on meat from the store the day before, this is my day to put together freezer meals.

Thursday - Laundry

Friday - Cleaning day. Along with the help of my kids, we spend the morning cleaning the house top to bottom!

Saturday - A day just for family fun!

Sunday - My goal is to get as much rest as a Mom can get on a Sunday! After dinner we usually do a reset before starting our week. The kids help us pick up clutter from the weekend, sweep, vacuum the living room and do a few loads of laundry to give us a good start on Monday.

Is it perfect every week? Absolutely not! But generally it is a wonderful guideline for our family to keep up with our home as best we can while getting through the school year.

Benefits of a Home Routine

Pleasant Atmosphere

I am not the best version of myself when our home feels out of control, cluttered, and dirty. We all seek a warm home atmosphere, but it takes deliberate work to unbury those warm vibes from the piles of LEGO and mismatched socks. Having a flow to our home routine gives me peace because I know I have a plan in place.

Clear Focus

Because we know what tasks are going to be done at a certain time, we can devote ourselves more fully to other tasks that need to get done—like homeschooling! I can be fully mindful and present in each moment.

When I am teaching, I don’t worry about needing to clean the bathroom because I know it will get done on cleaning day. In the afternoon when I am reading aloud, I am not concerned about what we are having for dinner because I made my meal plan in advance. When I am done teaching for the day, I fully devote myself to the next task that needs to get accomplished.

A Better Rested Mom

Having a home routine gives me more time for relaxation. When my kids go to bed, you won’t often find me doing dishes or folding laundry because I have already devoted time to get those chores done during the day. Instead those nights are a time for me to recharge my heart with the things that lift me up:

  • reading
  • spending time with my husband
  • painting my nails
  • writing
  • coloring
  • (or if it’s been an extremely rough day) binge watching television

This downtime sets me up for a better start to our mornings because I have invested in my own self-care.

Set Expectations

Before we had a solid home routine, it felt like I was cleaning all the time. Now when my kids wake up on Friday morning, they know it is our day for housekeeping.

After breakfast, they head right upstairs to get started with their assigned jobs, generally without complaining. If they complain about their tasks, then we work on character training while we are cleaning. By lunchtime, we are finished, and I light a candle—my signal that our work is done. After all that work, we have a whole weekend ahead, with a fresh home to enjoy it in and no surprise cleaning projects.

Family Fun

Fun comes more naturally to me when I know everything back on our home front is in good shape! So after working hard all week on school work, cleaning, laundry, and meal prep, I give myself permission to chill over the weekend. We might order pizza, cook a meal from the freezer, reheat leftovers, or throw something on the grill, but I try to keep the weekend meals very simple.

If you feel like it is impossible to keep up with your housework on top of homeschooling, try a weekly home routine! Truly if we did not have one, I would feel as though I am drowning. Every family we know who has a routine for their home has one that looks different than ours, but it all works. Give it a few weeks, find a groove that fits your family and the hard work will bless your homeschool life as well.

Try a Sonlight program, and take up to a year to see if Sonlight is right for your family with our Love to Learn Guarantee. No other homeschool curriculum provider has such a comprehensive guarantee. See the details of this guarantee here. 

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Nov. 16, 2017

5 Reasons Not to Supplement Your Sonlight Curriculum

By Amy Mattson
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5 Reasons I Don't Supplement Our Homeschool Curriculum ~ Syndicated from Raising the Extraordinary

This post was originally published as 5 Reasons I Don't Supplement our Homeschool Curriculum on Raising the Extraordinary. It is reposted here with permission of the author, Amy Mattson.

I’ve noticed there are several traps homeschool moms tend to fall into. Many of these traps all come from good intentions of giving our kids the best possible education. I understand the appeal of these traps and have fallen for a few myself. Today I want to talk about one in particular that I see far too often (my opinion of course). It’s the trap of believing we need to supplement our homeschool curriculum.

What I’m Not Saying

One of the beautiful aspects of homeschooling is allowing our children to dive deeper into topics that interest them. I want to clarify that this post is not meant to discourage further study. If our kids are interested in a topic and want to know more I encourage them to continue to learn all they can on that subject. The difference is, I don’t assign it.

I will gladly take my son to the library and help him find more books on a topic. I won’t discourage him from reading more on his own. However, I’m not going to supplement our curriculum by piling on additional resources.

The following is a list of reasons why.

1. I Chose a Comprehensive Curriculum So I Don’t Need To Supplement

When I explored the different curriculum options for our homeschool, I picked Sonlight because they already had everything I needed. One of the biggest things I look for in a curriculum is that it’s a turn key product. Meaning, I can open and go with it. No lesson planning, no running out to buy supplies, and no need to fill in any educational gaps with additional resources.

Using a comprehensive curriculum like Sonlight means I don’t need to search out and supplement the curriculum for my child to have an excellent education.

2. I Don’t Need The Added Pressure

I think sometimes as moms we get in our own way. There are countless book and other resources out there an every subject making it easy to supplement our curriculum. We’re currently studying Introduction to American History. Now if I were to buy into the lie that I need to get my hands on every great book on this topic we would never get past Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic.

We have enough pressure as moms already. We don’t need to go adding to the pressure by placing unrealistic expectations on our child’s educational needs. Our children won’t miss out if we don’t add to their assigned reading from the curriculum.

Is my child going to learn absolutely everything on a particular topic? No. But, he also doesn’t NEED to. I mean even college level courses can’t teach every little detail on a subject.

Supplementing our curriculum can also mean added pressure to even completing the curriculum we set out with at the beginning of the year. What good is that investment if we don’t have time to finish it because of all the extras we felt we needed?

Nope, I have enough to do without supplementing our curriculum!

3. I Don’t Have Time For To Supplement Curriculum

This kind of ties into reason number one. Supplementing your curriculum means you’re spending time searching out book, activities, movies, and projects. Then once you’ve searched them out and pick a few, it takes time to get the resources. Finally, you actually need to spend time using these additional resources.

I’m busy. I know you are too. I have already sacrificed the dishes and the laundry to homeschool. I’m not going to give up lunch too. Nope, my time is valuable. I’ll stick to the books on my Sonlight shelf.

4. Our Children Don’t Need The Extra Assignments

Can I tell you a secret? Extra assignments, or supplementing our curriculum does NOT mean our children learn more. I don’t care how many books you read about Columbus sailing across the Atlantic ocean, they’re not learning anything new by reading it from a dozen different books. Sure, they might get an extra nugget of information here and there. But, are these extra nuggets life changing? I would argue no.

Sometimes all this extra supplemental material just becomes busy work. Sonlight already has some activities incorporated into the reading assignments like the timeline figures or markable map to reinforce the lessons. Why do we feel we need to add even more to supplement the material?

At the end of the day, we need to remember our kids are just kids. Don’t expect them to study like college students. All of these extra assignments means they loose out on learning through play, which is just as important to their development.

5. Risk Ruining the Love of Learning

Again, like I stated at the beginning of this post. If your children are fascinated with a topic (like Columbus) by all means let them run with it. But please, don’t force it on them.

We only want what’s best for our kids. I get that. In fact, I believe that is the driving force behind the desire to supplement our curriculum. We want our children to have the best possible education. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But what happens when our drive for a stellar education results in burnout?

As homeschool moms we can burn out. Our teaching and parenting will suffer from it. Not only can we burn out from over supplementing our curriculum, but our kids can to. I for one am not willing to risk my child feeling burned out to the point where he looses his fascination with learning.

I want my son to want to learn. Better yet, I want him to love learning. If I’m constantly forcing more school work with extra resources on top of our curriculum I run the risk of the opposite happening.

Let’s Just Enjoy Homeschooling Without Added Pressure

Homeschooling should be an enjoyable experience for the whole family. I know we are more likely to enjoy our homeschool journey if I don’t pile on all the added pressure of supplementing our curriculum. If I expect too much from a homeschool day, everyone ends up crabby. It’s not fun. More importantly, it’s not worth it.

Sometimes, less really is more.

Discover a curriculum that is enough and requires no supplements. Go to SmoothCourse and get started today.

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Nov. 15, 2017

Teaching Our Children to Learn From Mistakes with Read-Alouds

By Sonlight
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Teaching Our Children to Learn From Mistakes With Read-Alouds

Sonlight Read-Alouds give students a breadth and depth of knowledge—of world changers and famous stories, of poems and important events. This foundation of cultural literacy comes easily and pleasantly through reading and discussing great books. Reading great books also increases connection between parent and child which is another perk of the Sonlight lifestyle!

But here’s something else—both important and wonderful—that Sonlight Read-Alouds do for your children.

Sonlight books teach that mistakes are a part of life.

The Mistakes are Where the Growth Happens

This lesson shows up in most books. After all, a book without conflict would be a long (and possibly dull) description, not a story. And a perfect character isn't as endearing as one who has foibles. Just look at the very first principle from Pixar's Rules of Storytelling:

#1 You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

The mistakes are where the learning and maturation happen both for the character and the reader.

We could do this exercise for all the Sonlight History / Bible / Literature programs, but for the sake of brevity, let's consider a few of the Read-Alouds from Sonlight A. In this program you’ll find all these mistakes:

  • An animal-loving boy getting an unusual pet that wasn’t well-suited to suburbia in Capyboppy.
  • Children teasing an outsider in The Hundred Dresses.
  • An adult treasure-hunter almost dying because of his impatience and hard-headedness in Dolphin Treasure.
  • A king making a foolish agreement—which was okay, because the law itself was foolish—in A Grain of Rice.
  • A lighthousekeeper making a bad choice, and the substitute keeper needing to make a better choice, in The Light at Tern Rock.
  • Evil governments enforcing bad laws in Twenty and Ten.

This is a range of mistakes, from evil sin to unwitting miscalculation—mistakes made by children, by teens, by adults, by kings, and by governments.

And guess what? Mistakes are part of the human experience! Sometimes we willfully sin, and sometimes we mess up in a calculation. These failures, big and little, happen to us all.

We Learn from Mistakes

Research has demonstrated that biographies are beneficial for this very reason! It's the struggle of the character that teaches kids how to persevere. This truth is why we encourage a growth mindset with our kids, praising hard work—something in their control— versus being "smart"—something seemingly fixed and out of their control.

Maturity Means Persevering Despite Mistakes

We all make mistakes, but the key is what we do once we recognize the error or sin. Children who deal with perfectionism need extra help with this lesson because they have such a huge fear of being labeled as a failure.

Seeing characters in Read-Alouds who make mistakes and then overcome them gives perfectionists the understanding that mistakes are not a final condemnation. There is always grace to fix a mistake and learn from it, sometimes even rising gloriously from the mistake into a huge triumph.

And this is also where Sonlight books help you teach your children by portraying so many different ways to deal with a mistake. Using the earlier books as examples:

  • Unwitting miscalculation? Do what you must to make it right. You might need to be creative in how you resolve the problem, but usually you can find a solution.
  • Guilty of unkindness toward others? Ask forgiveness, change your behavior, and move towards better relationship.
  • Caught up in a mistaken idea of what’s important? It’s never too late to change. You can do it now!
  • When you disagree with a law, it’s okay to work to change it.
  • Frustrated with the bad behavior of others? You have a choice in how to deal with that frustration. One of the better ways is to empathize with where they’re coming from.
  • Dealing with oppression from an evil government? Civil disobedience is an excellent option, and has been happening back to the time of the birth of Moses (if not before).

You’ll make mistakes. Your children will make mistakes. You have the option to make things right and learn from mistakes, both your own and those of characters in books. Let your Read-Alouds guide your children into thinking about mistakes and how to recover from them.

Get started on your Read-Aloud journey today. Go to SmoothCourse and get started today.

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