I can't tell you how much I loved doing Sonlight this past year with my two big boys, and so once again I bit the bullet and bought another core. Last year was a year of condensed world history and this year I choose Core 100 American History in Depth. I debated and debated, thus the seemingly last minute decision. The tricky thing with Sonlight is they use great books, but not all pass our standards and this years selection definitely have some titles that need my reading it first to see if it will pass the litmus test for us. The history books in this selection are from what I have read in the reviews a more liberal world view and lacks a biblical perspective. They do include LOTS of discussion questions and info to counter balance the history. The literature books come with a warning on the individual titles if it has questionable material, there seemed to be half a dozen or so of these warnings and I could tell with further investigating that I did online that I will probably eliminate 2 of the books, but some like To Kill a Mockingbird will be suitable for my kids ages. I look forward to my big box arriving in the mail next week.
In math news we are sticking with Math U See. Why fix something that ain't broke?
I am hoping to enroll them both in a Grammar/Writing class this year. We pretty much neglected these this past year, not entirely, but it was not a focal point, so I want make it a priority this year. I haven't heard the details yet or confirmed it, but I was interested in it last year and hopefully they are offering it again.
The truly sad news that has kept me up at night is that neither of the Science teachers are offering classes this next year. For Evan that is no big deal, he did Physical Science last year as a 7th grader so he is ahead and can afford to have a science free year. Austin however has to do Chemistry this year. CHEMISTRY!!!!!! I have to oversee CHEMISTRY!!! I NEVER took it. I was too dumb for the class, because I didn't pass Algebra 1 till 11th grade, (failed it 2 times). You need to be in Algebra 2 to take chemistry. I am sweating bullets already. I scored a perfect Apologia Chemistry book at a yard sale for 50cents while visiting Tonya this weekend, and although the deal of the century made me happy the book may as well be written in Greek. I am in over my head, big time.
We are still using Rosetta Stone for spanish.
That is all for now, I am not quite done yet
10 comments:
Hey, I have 2 "God's Design For Chemistry" books. They were given to us a few years back and obviously I haven't needed them yet. Want to check them out? One is Properties of Matter and the other of Atoms and Molecules.
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Ack, now it works! I just left you a really long comment about Chemistry and Core 100, and it has disappeared!!
Crista, I am dying to know what it is you were going to say:/
Jen, is it high school level? I would like to see them anyway, so if you think of it bring them Wed night. Thanks!
Trying again before I type out a whole response again. Sorry I didn't retype at the time, but I had to go. TEST!
Ok, so I was recommending this product, if you're using Apologia Chemistry: http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/048061/3c05f9c5a99356823da27bac
It is a DVD of a teacher teaching his online class of Apologia Chemistry. We used it for Physical Science last year (the Physical Science product, of course), and I loved it. He teaches 2 lessons per chapter that the student watches. You print out notes that come with it, so they can fill in the notes and follow along. It also includes ideas for how to grade experiments, his own tests and answer keys, a whole schedule to lay out your schedule for chemistry for the year. The lessons are great, because he is covering everything in the chapter in more depth, and he is showing the students websites (which they can refer back to), that show great examples of what they are learning in the chapter. My son found the lessons to be a little boring, but it still covered the material well, and the teacher even asks for some interaction during the class, so even though it was recorded, I would have my son tell me the answer during the lesson, although, often, I had him watch and take notes without me around all the time.
Ok, so that was it for Chemistry. I wanted to leave that as a comment before I talked about Core 100, to make sure it actually takes. :) Anyhow, we just finished Core 100 last year and loved it!! We started with book 2 of the History books, just to get a head start, because there is so much reading in it,and I didn't buy all the readers and extra history books, but bought quite a few of them, just because I know us, and knew that we wouldn't make it through everything with all his other classes last year. Still, it was GREAT, and I loved all of SL's side notes to explain or dispute some of the history readings. Some of the details were a bit nit picky, I thought, but mostly, it was alot of good information that made for really good discussion time. The most thought provoking book was the World War 2 book from the Uncle Eric series. We both loved that one (I decided to make that a read aloud; it was so good). It just presents WW2 from a different perspective than I've ever heard before. I also read the questions and SL notes aloud to Jonathan after he read the assigned chapter to himself; that way I had some interaction with him and he wasn't totally on his own. If you have any questions about the core, feel free to ask, and you can always go on the SL boards, but not many people participate in the forums focused on the older Cores. I love SL; can you tell? Hope that helps!
Thanks Crista, this was all very helpful. I am not overly concerned with nit picking too much. There was one book that said there was quite a bit of cussing done by the child characters of the book. It sounded alot like The Hunger Games, I think it was called Ender's Game. I will try to read ahead to weed out any books that may push the limit.
Glad that helped. Yeah, I think I heard about that book too, but that wasn't one that I bought, so I didn't have to deal with it. Have a great year!!
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