Has anyone here used Sonlight and then gone back to hand picking curriculum?

Question

If you chose not to continue using Sonlight, I'd like to know your reasons. We're deciding on our curriculum for next year. Thanks.

Answer 1

I love sonlight so much! I can't imagine ever doing homeschool any other way. It's just the best! And, they do everything for you! All of the lessons and plans and the teachers Instructor's Guide are all made up for you, so they take so much of the work out of it.

It's relaxed, easy, wonderful, and so rich with wonderful books!

I could never go back to anything else!

Answer 2

I have used Sonlight and then switched this year. Although Sonlight is a PHENOMENAL curriculum, I found it to be TOO much reading out loud (depending on your child's age) and my oldest child wanted a more "school" like curriculum.  I also found that there was a gap in the 2nd and 3rd Core readers. Although my son read the Core 2 readers exceptionally, the 3rd core readers are very advanced content wise,and style as well(compared to the core2 readers), as I had my 4th grader reading those.  Sonlight's teacher guide is VERY user friendly, I think I miss that the most.  I wasn't particularly fond of the Grammar either.  They just couldn't "get it " just using dictation.  I switched mid year to "Easy Grammar" and it was an instantaneous turn around.  I think it also depends on the ages and temperaments of your kid or kids.  Do they love to listen or are they very hands on?  The sonlight science curriculum is great with experiments, but is by far the only real HANDS ON thing they do.  My little boy became very creative with Legos during our journey with Sonlight.  He had to sit and listen a lot, but his little hands needed to stay busy!    Hope this helps!

Answer 3

I did as well.  My son just needs a more eclectic approach - I still use some of the books from Sonlight, as they're excellent, but he found the scheduled reading thing too restrictive.  He'd rather just read something because he wants to read it.  (I still assign books, but I let him put his own choices in there too - I've found he reads and retains more if I do that.)

We've gone to more of a lit-based unit study approach with lapbooks and some notebooks; this just suits his learning style and interests better.  I make a general layout-type lesson plan for each unit, with "at least" what we will get done, but I find that he generally takes his own rabbit trails in addition and ends up becoming more immersed, and learning more, about whatever we're doing.