Saturday, February 26, 2011

Secular Resources for Sonlight Core 1& 2

These are the resources and changes that our family used for the combined Core 1 & 2.  If you are new to Sonlight, or even a veteran Sonlight user, you might want to get a printed catalog to help you determine which books are right for your family.  The print material makes it so much easier to see which books are from Christian publishing companies (marked with an x in the catalog) and makes noting your choices a little easier than just using the website.

History

Many secular Sonlight users keep Hillyer's A Child's History of the World as the spine for their history lessons.  It isn't overly religious but I found it to be slightly condescending and at times bigoted towards non-christian cultures.  We replaced it with Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World, volumes 1 and 2.  If you decide to go with The Story of the World check out this website which matches up the chapters of A Child's History of the world with The Story of the World.  It makes connecting the books to the plan in your instructor's guide much easier.
















Geography

Spragget and Johnstone's Window on the World has many pages of ways to pray for non-Christian peoples and describes many different countries in regard to their progress toward Christianity.  We replaced it with DK publishing's A Life Like Mine and First Atlas.
















Read Alouds and Readers

These are the books we left out and are really the easiest to replace.  If it was a biography/memoir I tried to replace it with a biography/memoir.  If it was fiction/literature I replaced it with a good children's literature title.  Have fun and choose what you and your children will enjoy.

Titles we replaced:

And the Word Came With Power by by Joanne Shetler, Patricia Purvis


Gladys Aylward
 
More Stories from Grandma's Attic by Arleta Richardson

7 comments:

The Adventurer said...

Thanks for linking up to NOBH. I would follow but I didn't see GFC button anywhere.

Jess said...

Thanks for stopping by. I didn't realize the follow button was not showing up. It has been fixed :)

The Adventurer said...

Now following, I would recommend you put it higher up on your side bar to make it easier for people to find.:0

asliceofsmithlife said...

I have heard quite a bit about Sonlight, but have never used it personally. Thanks for linking this post up to NOBH! I'm your newest follower!

Jess said...

Tracy,

Thanks for stopping by! I hope the post was helpful for you. If you haven't yet check out the page at the top about Sonlight, there are a few more resources listed there also.

Pebblekeeper ~ Angie said...

We liked the Story of the World too! What a fun site you have! HHH Stop By from the other edge of the states on the Oregon Coast!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this! I was just looking at Sonlight at a conference and wondering what would be involved with using it in a secular way. Found your blog via WUHS. Thanks again! ~Julie