Sonlighting

So another February--the 8th in our homeschool journey--and it happens all over again. I'm burned out. The kids are burned out. School drags. I know to expect it, and it's a common phenomenon in homeschool families.

The curriculum I've been using for nearly all our school years is a fantastic, complex, rich curriculum written by a wise and godly woman. However, I am the weak link! It is like a huge buffet of possibilities each week in several subjects that the teacher chooses from and plans accordingly. Here's the problem: by February, I am so tired of doing lesson plans each weekend and keeping up with interlibrary loan orders that I am basically throwing meat, potatoes and a roll on my kids' educational plates.

This February, when I felt it coming on, I called for a week's vacation and started dreaming about a curriculum I've wanted to do for several years, called Sonlight. It's school in a box...lesson plans all done for me (including things like maps and timelines and discussion questions for every book) and all books included. It's literature-based, which means tons of excellent historical fiction we read all together and, instead of textbooks, engaging resources. I found a year-plan that starts historically right where we are (just after the Reformation)and that, because we're so late in the school year, I can take at a relaxed pace and stretch throughout all next year.

Sounds great but...it's expensive to buy new. I look on used curriculum boards...nothing. Email a coordinator from our class day, who I don't know personally but who I know uses Sonlight, to ask her some questions. I download the three week free sample lesson plans for both boys' grade levels and run around to get the books at the library. I figure it was kinda stepping out on the water but if nothing came of it, at least we'd get a three week breath of fresh air. And of course I am praying.

Well, a week later the class day coordinator not only emails me back with the answers I needed, but also offers me the use of her curriculum for Noah's level for as long as I need it...no charge. Wow. Then I find the lesson plans for Luke's level (just gonna library the books) for $20 on a homeschool board. And suddenly, we're Sonlighting and school has life again! The books are great. The writing assignments fit Noah. The workload is lighter. I just open the day's plan and go. I am so thankful.

And, I have learned again that the body of Christ is so unlike the world. I told this woman how grateful I am and promised to "pay it forward" when I am in a position to bless another homeschool mom...and she started to cry. We had a couple moments to stand in the courtyard and talk about God's generosity to us and how very, very good He is. And yesterday I did get to pay some stuff forward to another homeschooling mom, pulling books and an instructional DVD from my shelves that she needed. It felt great.

God's in the details, my friends! Even...or especially...in February!
If you would like more information on Sonlight, go here