Review of Sonlight C with Hands-on History Box

 We are finishing up Sonlight C World History 2 with the Hands-on History Box (five day version).  I can't find a publishing date in the Instructor's Guide, but I purchased the guide in 2023 from Sonlight's website.  This level is meant for ages 8-10 or grades 3-5.  

Things We Liked

• A Child's History of the World - he really enjoyed listening to this book last year and this year
• Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky
• Time Traveler
• Red Sails to Capri
• Sticks Across the Chimney
• Tales of Robin Hood
• Watching the old Kevin Costner/Morgan Freeman movie Robin Hood after reading the book - he loved that movie
• Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great - this was his favorite book of the year
• Captain Nobody - another favorite - even I liked this book
• With Two Hands
• The Hands-on History Box - he loved the projects in here.  He would get excited every week when there was a project scheduled
• Reading outside - we read a lot of the read-alouds in the driveway when the weather was nice and that was very enjoyable

Things We Had a Hard Time With

• The reading pace - we are never able to keep up with the Instructor's Guide.  It's just too fast.
• Sonlight 2nd Grade Readers - Because I used Sonlight's Language Arts the year before, I tried to use it again this year and was unsuccessful.  My 3rd grader has severe dyslexia and he needs to use a dyslexia-specific reading curriculum.  We switched halfway through the year to Barton Reading, which is a program written specifically for dyslexia.
• The Timeline Book and figures - I like the Timeline, but I can't get him interested in it
• AudioMemory's Geography Songs - This might have something to do with dyslexia, but the songs in this book stressed him out and we had to stop about halfway through

Thoughts on Getting Through World History 2

• It took longer than a school year for us to get through the level.  We spent almost a calendar year on it and that's ok.  They're great books and I don't want to be stressed out while reading them, worrying that we won't catch up to the pace in the Instructor's Guide.
• We skipped a couple of the books after I looked at samples of them and that's ok, too.  He's dealing with dyslexia and after looking at a sample of Strawberry Girl, I knew he would struggle with the language and how it was written (even just listening to it).  I don't think anyone is able to follow the Instructor's Guide exactly and do every single thing written in the schedule.  
• Some of the Hands-on History Box projects were very difficult, like the Wright brothers' glider.  I basically put that entire project together while he watched.  However, it wasn't a waste, because he was at Cub Scouts and the leader asked a question about the Wright brothers and my son was the only scout able to answer, because he remembered the glider.
• Supplements - I used this website a LOT: https://roadstoeverywhere.com/homeschooling/supplementing-sonlight/supplementing-sonlight-core-c/  She lists supplemental activities for each of the Level C books.  For example, when we read Red Sails to Capri, we looked at actual pictures/videos of the Blue Grotto and it makes the book come alive.  My son became interested in the grotto after seeing the pictures and we ended up watching YouTube videos about it and reading about the Roman archeological finds in the grotto.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable curriculum.  I would've loved to do "school" like this when I was a kid.  I have already bought Sonlight D American History 1 for the fall.