Resource Description
Sonlight Curriculum provides quality, literature-rich K-12 Christian homeschool curriculum and related educational products, resources, and programs. Sonlight is a Christian company specializing in literature-based homeschool curriculum programs which selects engaging books and readers that cover topics such as Bible, history, language arts, handwriting, math, science, and more. They provide complete homeschool curriculum packages and individual resources and materials so you can build the preschool or K-12 homeschool curriculum that best meets your family's needs.
Website: Sonlight (may contain affiliate links)
(28 Reviews)
Before investing in any homeschooling resources, please read "How to Choose the Best Homeschool Curriculum."
Contributor Reviews
Reviews are solely the opinions of the contributor.
Cons: Not transparent, and unable to find out any details regarding their perspective
At first I thought that the Person(Margaret) replying to my emails was avoiding my questions regarding the faith side of things, since she kept on repeating the same phrases.
I eventually realised that it was not a person, bit A.I replying to my emails, which made me realise that the phrase" evangelical protestant christian perspective" was merely a sales line.
One of the replies I received was that they rather use authoritative Roman Catholic voices on Roman Catholic perspectives so that kids can make up their own minds. For me this looks more like indoctrination.
Unable to find out the answer to my questions, I'm moving on and looking at other Christian curriculum options.
Sonlight does a bait and switch. Shows one thing and then says another. When you bring it up to sonlight they back pedle and wont honor when the website and all the paperwork they give you. They need a class on how to lie, cheat, and steal. Great Christian example.
Cons: The package deals do not come with arts and crafts. Not all kindergartners will appreciate chapter books without colorful illustrations for story time. When I wa in Kindergarten, books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear were the staple.
Grades Used: Kindergarten
First off, I want to begin by saying I did a lot of research on curriculum for my son's kindergarten and have an elementary teaching credential. Based on my son's learning styles and my philosophy of education, I was torn between My Father's World and Sonlight. Sonlight has selected some of the best literature ever written for children in terms of richness and rigor, but My Father's World more closely aligned with who we are and what we believe as a family. If my son was purely an auditory learner, I would have went with Sonlight all the way, but he is also visual and kinesthetic. He loves beautiful illustrations and lots of crafts like the materials in My Father's World. I am also a fan of Charlotte Mason and classical education inspired learning. And yet I wanted the rigor of Sonlight. So, I bought the basic package at My Father's World and supplemented with my favorite American history, phonics, handwriting, science and math resources from Sonlight. When it was all said and done, we spent almost as much as if we would have just bought a complete curriculum from Sonlight, but we will still have to go to the library to get more literature. I don't regret doing it this way though because it will be exactly what we want as a family.
My bottom line is, if you want a literature and history based program that is academically rigorous, I think Sonlight is worth every penny. Yes, it is expensive, but you also get A LOT of literature and other materials for your money. Every cup and paper clip that you need for Science is included, so there is nothing extra you need to worry about finding or purchasing. If you start piecing together as I have done, you will still spend a small fortune and you will not even own all of the books. For these reasons, next year I will just get a complete Sonlight package. Of course, if money is tight and you don't care about getting the workbooks and planners, you could take the hand-picked sonlight booklist to the library and still give your child a great education!
Cons: maybe price, but no planning needed so worth it
Grades Used: B+C 3rd grade
Because of Covid, I was tired of the school system and jumped feet first into homeschooling, my 3rd grade daughter is a great reader and because she spent enough time doing zoom meetings and already plays electronics in her spare time, I stayed away from anything with videos etc, I got different recommendations and was told that Sonlight was heavy on books, bought the whole B+C 3rd gradet curriculum and it's a HUGE box, but my daughter is flying thru the books, I had her take a break over Christmas and she "just" read books from our bookshelf, I know the price tag can seem like a lot but buying a year's curriculum gives you a discount for the whole school year and free shipping, and we really thought that I might have spent the same times and money on gas driving to and from school each day. I didn't want to sit and research each day, I just wanted a schedule of what to teach and that's what we get with sonlight, the binder is great to keep on track- and I learned to still be flexible and jumped around a bit in the beginning because the main science book was on backorder, but now we're on track and maybe the LA writing part is lacking a bit, but I think it's slow and steady and though my daughter is a great reader and writer, teaching her how and why a word is put together has been good, the foundation of grammar! The read aloud books are old but seems classic! There's just a few videos once in a while, which I don't mind. I also bought hands on science and more crafty things and it's still less than 2hrs a day, sometimes just 1hr! Next year I'll add kindergarten and then 4th grade and both have American history, so that will be interesting to see how I'll combine those.
I also love the bible verses and some of the books DO mention God and faith, books like that would NEVER be in the public school system.
As far as pictures from the middle ages or ancient times where they were partly naked, it's a little drawing, you don't see "anything" just that they don't have clothes on, but they are pretty gender neutral (no privates showing) I don't know of other curriculums, but so far we love it and will continue with it.
Cons: Price, high shipping fee
Grades Used: 2nd and 4th
This is our first year using Sonlight for both of our boys (2nd and 4th). We definitely love the curriculum. We use D&E level in history for both boys, science D for both, L/A D&E for my 4th grader, and L/A 3 for my 2nd graders. Their books seem to be advanced for grade students but I think it’s very good for the children. My boys enjoy reading their books and we take books everywhere to finish reading.
I’m extremely happy to choose Sonlight since we reside abroad and have limit access to vast selection of English books. However, their workloads can be heavy on some days but we still manage to get them done in fun way!
The only con I found is that their shipment fee is very high for mailing to APO address.
Cons: Can be time consuming for larger family
Grades Used: K, 1
It takes a bit of tweaking and planning to figure out how to do less with a larger family. But we love Sonlight so far. This will be our 3rd year using it and we have 3 children who are school aged + 2 younger. I absolutely love the history, bible program. Language and reading are ok. I'm learning that you don't have to do every suggested assignment, so it doesn't have to be a huge workload. And each child is different so what might seem difficult for one will come easy for another, but Sonlight allows you to pick and choose. My husband enjoys the science projects with the children. You can easily send back items that you don't care for. The curriculum is expensive but so are many others. Occasionally you can find a book on Amazon for less money but it's not worth it if you're getting a curriculum because of the discount Sonlight offers. We try to save up or use the no interest payment plan. The books are all reusable except for workbooks. I've learned more in my son's kindergarten curriculum than I learned in all of high school sadly.
Cons: A lot of material to cover, hard for people who think they have to do it all! But YOU DON'T!!!
Grades Used: GRADES/LEVELS 1, 2, 3, 4 AND 5.
My kids are now in 9th and 11th grade in private schools, but we used Sonlight for 6 years when we homeschooled until they were in middle school. Once my son hit 13, he needed a teacher other than Mom, and thankfully, we were able to afford the wonderful Christian school they attended at that point. But back to Sonlight, I miss those wonderful days of read-alouds and doing school with my kids!
I cannot say enough good things about Sonlight!! My daughter who is in 9th grade is an EXCELLENT writer and was publicly recognized by her middle school LA teacher as an upcoming author. Sonlight's LA program was NOT what made her a great writer, it was all of the reading she did with Sonlight! In a prior review, one of the mothers stated that her daughter had a great imagination and that was because of Sonlight...I concur! My son is also an excellent writer, but more on the side of technical papers and essays. Again, he didn't really do any of that with Sonlight, but I truly believe their excellent writing skills came because of their exposure to massive amounts of great writing through all of the reading that we did!
As for many of the parents struggling with trying to get it ALL done, relax. It's not necessary to get it all done. We were more relaxed and made things fit our schedule. If we didn't read every single book, that was okay! I used to get upset that I wasn't getting everything done, always felt like I was a slacker because other stuff kept getting in the way...but now I'm on the other side and I can assure you that my kids are perfectly fine even though we didn't get everything done or finished! 🙂 In fact, being too worried about getting everything "checked off" makes for stressed-out worry warts when they grow up! 🙂
We chose different programs for math for each kid. Singapore math was great for my son. I believe it gave him a firm understanding of math at an early age and he's REALLY good in math at a college level now. My daughter, however, struggled with Singapore math. We used Teaching Textbooks for her and that was great for her! She is going to go back to using Teaching Textbooks this year at 9th grade for Geometry. Teaching textbooks is very thorough in explaining the concept in small bits so anyone who struggles with it will be able to understand it. For someone with a natural aptitude in math, I think they would be better off with something that moves more quickly and is more challenging to them.
As for Sonlight Science, it was fun for them when they were little. The greatest thing you can do for your kid is to let them enjoy learning, and I think their science program made it fun. The Usborne books are FANTASTIC and we loved the videos.
As stated before, the LA program was lacking, but the reading and exposure to massive amounts of good writing is actually teaching them LA without any effort!!
The history/literature is the gem of Sonlight and what makes Sonlight so wonderful. Both of my kids have a love of history and I think a better understanding of the world because of studying history. And doing it through the Read-Alouds was wonderful family bonding time as well as painting a picture in their minds of what it was like "back then."
I also have a little tangent I have to go on for a moment--I've read reviews from people who say their kids can't sit and listen to stories because they're "kinetic learners." My daughter is definitely one that liked to be on the move and would rather be doing something else other than sitting there, but I gave her a coloring book or, when she was older, told her to draw me a picture of whatever she wanted from the story that we were reading at the time. Or I let them play with Legos while we were reading. If they need to do something with their hands WHILE they're sitting there listening, I think that's fine.
But I think we're doing a huge disservice to our kids if we don't teach them how to sit still and to listen. Many years before us, there were kids sitting through 2 and 3-hour long church services where they couldn't move a muscle! 🙂 I'm sure many of them were kinetic learners too, but they had to learn to sit still and be quiet for the sake of manners! I really don't see that any different than teaching our kids not to talk with their mouths full or not to shout and run around in the library. Not everything that we should do comes natural to us when we're children, but we still have to learn how to do it! Sitting and listening to mom or dad read is something they will learn to do AND will come to enjoy it if you get through the making them do it time!
If you can't afford the entire program, just look at the list of books for history and the read alouds and order those or get them through the library. Or go to homeschoolclassified.com and buy it cheaper there. I used to think it was expensive too but that was when I was before I knew how much private school tuition cost! 🙂
And as for the little kids, I don't think you need a "curriculum" per se, just read a lot, show pictures or go out and talk to them as your exploring the real thing! Do math with your food and teach them their letters and sounds. That was the fun easy stuff! The I Can Read It 3-book series taught my daughter how to read at the age of 4! She had already learned all her letters and their sounds so it was simply a matter of putting the sounds together. Make learning fun when they're little so they won't hate "school time!"
Even though I always felt like I didn't do everything right or that I left a lot of things unfinished, I now have a 17 year old son who is in his second year as a full time college student and a 14-year-old daughter who is much more mature and academic-minded than most of her peers. She has decided that she is completely unchallenged at high school and is going back to homeschooling this year so she can finish at a much quicker pace and go to college earlier like her brother. She will still go to the school for orchestra and other extra-curricular things like ski club and archery, but her main schooling she'll enjoy much more at home--and yes, we're going back to Sonlight!! I remember looking at the high school readers and history studies and being so excited for when they would get to do those! After 5 years of them not being homeschooled, I'm so excited that my daughter has chosen to go back to it to finish strong with her education! And I'm so looking forward to reading the Iliad with her and all of those awesome classics I never read in public high school many years ago! Thank you, Sonlight!
She always struggled with math, but once we found Teaching Textbooks we were good. My son did Singapore Math in his early years and I believe it really helped him get a deep understanding of math at an early age. He is GREAT in math now. My son (now 17) became a fulll time college student at the age of 16 and he carries a 4.0 GPA. Most of his education came from our years with Sonlight. My daughter who is now in 9th grade is pursuing her musical education at a private school but we are going back to Sonlight to finish out her history and literature studies. Math still isn't her strong suit and she's going back to Teaching textbooks after being in private school for 4-1/2 years now. She's looking forward to being able to go at her own pace with Teaching Textbooks. They were very thorough in their lessons and she was able to go over it as many times as needed until she fully understood it; that is not a luxury given in high school. The history at the high school is so dry compared to what she'll be reading in Sonlight and she's very much looking forward to it.
As for my son, he is also a great writer but more in a technical, essay setting as to where my daughter is more story oriented. Regardless, I know that most of their skill came from being exposed to SO MUCH great writing through our Sonlight curriculum.
The science was fun for them, they both enjoyed it. The experiements and worksheets were good for them.
Cons: workload for mom with multiple kids
Grades Used: PK-7th (core H)
Sonlight has allowed me to home school for the last 7 1/2 years without too much work in planning. We have enjoyed the reading together literature and history. My kids are turning into avid readers. They love to read their school books on their own time. If I can see a way to keep going on this curriculum I will. My biggest challenge right now is figuring out how to teach 3 cores next year. So far we have mostly done 2. This year we are doing PK, E and H, but PK is really short. My 5 kids are all 2 years apart, so we have to do at least 2 or 3 cores at a minimum. One has to be willing to do a lot of reading. I also let the oldest read to herself mostly. I am probably going to have to have the 2nd oldest do that as well next year to make it work. Or take a gap year from sonlight. I am hoping not though, because I really like having it all planned out for me, and reading a lot of good books.