Here is why I love Sonlight so much. First it is literature based which is what I tried to put together for myself but they've done the work for me. It doesn't have hands on crafty stuff that you really need to do to get the full learning experience. I have some boys that just hate hands on stuff and when we used another program they really hated being forced to do the crafts. My 3rd son loves hands on stuff but gets much more out of it when he plans it out for himself. So Sonlight feeds him great ideas to think about and he comes up with his own way of implementing.

I think the thing that confuses people the most about Sonlight is the fact that the numbers next to the Cores don't mean grade level. The Sonlight levels can be used over a multiply age span to meet the needs of your family. Also if you need to do two levels you can combine upper and lower levels of the same general topic.

Also in the lower levels Cores (PreK-2) you can use any of the lower level Language Arts and Reader sets (K-2A) to best meet the needs of your child.

Here is my direct link to Sonlight so that I get credit when you visit.

My 2nd son had problems with his vision that took us a long time to get diagnosis. When we first had his eyes tested they only checked for acuity. Since my son had 20/20 vision in each eye they said that if he wasn't reading he was stupid, lazy, or ADD. II knew he wasn't lazy because he was begging to learn how to read and was crying in frustration because he could not. He didn't appear to be stupid because when you read to him he absorbed knowledge like a sponge and tested very well in general knowledge. My oldest had ADHD, which was part of the reason we started homeschooling, and this was not the same thing. Finally I heard an eye doctor speak at our local homeschool conference. Everything he was saying described my son. I went up to the doctor and ask about testing but he was way too far away for us. He helped us locate a closer doctor who was still 50 miles away and we began our journey through vision therapy. The most reassuring part for us was at the first feedback session he turned to my son and said, "You're not stupid or lazy. You're eyes just don't want to work together when you try to read. We will work together like a team to get your eyes to work like a team and then you can learn to read." It has been two years since he completely finished with therapy. Because his eyes were so severe he will always need to rest his eyes after about 30 minutes of concentrated focus but he is learning to read. Sometimes I get frustrated because he is below grade level but then to realize that 4 years ago he was not able to read more then 3 letter words and only if they were isolated and not in a sentence I have a lot to be thankful for. For more information on your child's vision function visit the PAVE website.

P.A.V.E Parents Active for Vision Education

I love Math U See. I love how it teaches the teacher to teach. But although I love it not all of my children love it. My 3rd son is one of the ones who does and he is doing very well with it. We just switched over to the new program. It is a wonderful program and worth taking a look at.

Math U See

For those of you interested in making minibooks or putting them together in a file folder for presentation I found a great site. I was unsure of how to really get started or how to organize the information in a useful way. This site offers several ready to go unit studies. Doing one of these will really getting you started. We just finished the Hurricane unit and it was just great. They have lots to choose from so check them out.

Live and Learn Press for Learn N Folders and a whole lot more.