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.

Sonlight Hands-on History Box C Review

 We finished Sonlight C's Hands-on History Box.  These projects covered World History 2 topics.  Here's the link to the box: https://www.sonlight.com/hands-on-history-world-history-2

It's currently priced at $68 for the box.  

The projects include:

• An astrolabe
• A Viking treasure box
• Viking Runes
• Signet ring
• Stained glass
• Samurai helmet
• A letterpress
• An Elizabethan theater (Shakespeare)
• The Wright brothers' glider

Everything you need for the projects is included in the box.  It even includes glue and paint.  There is a box full of instructions with pictures and templates for each project.  The guide is very well-written.

My son loved the Hands-on History Box.  Some of his favorites were the Viking Treasure Box, the Stained Glass, the Letterpress and the Samurai Helmet.  He says his favorite project from the box was the Viking Runes.  The box was one of his favorite things we did this year for 3rd grade.  

Things we figured out over the course of the year:

• Almost every project worked better for us with a hot glue gun instead of the glue it came with.  I know hot glue guns are not safe for kids, but I used the hot glue gun and he watched.  The glue dots the kit comes with made sense, safety-wise, though.  
• The projects are too difficult for smaller kids to do themselves.  I helped him with every project.
• The Wright brothers glider needed some serious tweaking.  Instead of using 12 toothpicks to fit the wings together, I glued 3 together into one thick toothpick and used 4 thick supports instead of 12 thin ones.
• The Stained Glass and the Astrolabe are definitely the easiest of the projects.
• They give you a little more of the craft items than you need, so if you lose or break a popsicle stick, it's ok.

Here's some pictures of our projects.  I should have taken more pictures of the projects throughout the school year, but here's what I have:

Sonlight B World History 1 End-of-Year Review

 My 8 year-old is finishing Sonlight B World History 1 this week.  We used the History, Bible and Literature portion of B.  He also finished Sonlight Reading/Language Arts 1 and has just started Reading 2.

For Sonlight B, he really enjoyed the Hands-on History Box.  The glue that came in the box was not very good, but we easily used a hot glue gun.  Every project worked and the instructions were really good.  His favorite projects were:

• the Chinese dragon
• the Trojan horse
• the Roman chariot

Our favorite from the Bible portion:

• The Ology - this was a great book.  As a Lutheran, I was worried about it conflicting with what we believe, but it didn't.  We both enjoyed this book

Our favorites from the History portion:

• A Child's History of the World - he retold some of the stories I read to him from this book.  I thought these stories might be too complicated for him, but he liked them and understood them just fine
• Tut's Mummy, Lost and Found
• The Great Wall of China

Our favorites from the Literature portion:

• National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry
• Mr. Popper's Penguins
• The Year of Miss Agnes
• Word of Mouse
• Henry Huggins
• Charlotte's Web
• Happy Times in Noisy Village

He had a hard time telling me which book was his favorite (I think he liked almost all of them), but he says Henry Huggins was his favorite.  

Timeline Book

• I liked this more than he did, but I think it's because he can't quite grasp time periods in history yet.

Books he had a hard time with:

• Mountain Born
• Catching Their Talk in a Box
• Sing the Word: A New Commandment (music CD)

4/17: Tons of Science Today

 2nd Grader

Math

• Singapore Math
• We played Snakes and Ladders

Sonlight Reading/Language Arts

• Copywork
• He read his Sonlight reader
• Handwriting practice- capitals

Science

• Our butterfly chrysalises from Insect Lore hatched and five butterflies survived!
• Apologia's Land Animals of the Sixth Day
• Bears

Sonlight B (history, Bible and literature)

• Gooney Bird Greene (read-aloud)
• Time Traveler
• The Ology
• Hands-on History Box
• We made the final project - the Roman chariot!

10th Grader

Writing & Grammar

• They Say, I Say writing course she's taking with a friend - persuasive essay

STEM/Technology

• 30 Days Lost in Space circuitry/coding kit
• She programmed the hero board to accept a code on a keypad
• This took a big chunk of the morning

Science

• DNA Extraction Lab Kit from Home Science Tools
• This worked wonderfully
• We extracted DNA from her cheek cells and suspended it in a 95% alcohol solution

Extras

• She is choreographing a short dance from the Royal Ballet's Romeo & Juliet to perform on stage during the homeschool center's end of year recital
• Ballet classes (at the ballet school)

Photography and Nature Walk: 2/27

 We spent the morning on a nature walk, playing in a creek, playing pickle ball and the 15 year-old photographed birds on the trail with her DSLR camera.

In the afternoon, we did...

2nd Grader

• Played Sleeping Queens (addition card game)
• Sonlight Reading/Language Arts
• Sonlight B (history, literature and Bible)
• Hands-on History Box - he made the Ancient Greek vase from the kit (formed a vase from clay and then we baked it)

15 year-old

• Spent a huge chunk of time reading John Hersey's Hiroshima 
• Photographed cardinals, chickadee, a rodent, squirrels, etc on the nature trail
• Practiced classical guitar
• Worked on rough draft of research paper due for ballet class (outsourced)
• Read Wicked Plants
• Ballet class

Over the Weekend:

• Both kids watched a live theater performance of the play Recommended Reading for Girls (one of the college kids is in the play)

Homeschool Day 3/7

 1st Grader

• Mathusee Alpha
• We started this.  It was easier than where we were in Miquon, so hopefully it helps him to back up
• Reading
• Explode the Code
• He read a BOB Book
• Sonlight B (World History 1)
• We started this today.  We only made it about halfway through Day 1.  We've done Sonlight before (about 5 years ago) and we are only able to do Sonlight at half-pace.  It moves too quickly, in my opinion.  
• Hands-on History box
• He built the Mongolian Yurt.  He LOVED it.  In fact, we spent two hours on it and he grabbed rocks, miniature horses and guys and he was playing with it like crazy.
• Cub Scouts

This was the miniature yurt he made from Sonlight's Hands-on History box.  The miniature residents moved in immediately.

9th Grader

• English
• Easy Grammar 10th Grade Workbook
• WordTeasers SAT Words
• Spell, define and use in sentence
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
• The Outsiders
• Biology
• Ellen McHenry's Protozoa
• Looked at aquarium water under the microscope with stained and unstained slides
• Watched YouTube videos of paramecia spinning/moving and eating

12th Grader (let's call her a 12th grader now, since she is graduating in May)

• She did WordTeasers and read One Day in the Life... and Outsiders with us