Sailing into Sonlight

We're very much cruising along with our new Sonlight curriculum. We're finding our sea legs and adapting to make this all fit our schedules. Our first day started out with lots of checking to see what should be happening and me re-reading the instruction guide's introduction a few times too, but we've settled into a little bit of a groove now (and no, we're not 'right on schedule' .. but that's okay.)

I must say, though, that the children are absolutely enjoying the books! We share the read-alouds from both Core 5 and 1+2; no one wants to miss a story. Seabird was just beautiful, with all the diagrams and explanations around the main text. Red Sails to Capri is also a fun adventurous story, but yet to be finished. We really like to play with the Italian accents when reading this aloud, lol! :)

We did a follow up excursion to see a maritime museum ship, called HMAS Castlemaine, in Williamstown. Of course, we didn't miss the opportunity to cross the road and enjoy lunch at one of the cafe's on the main road. We're also planning a family movie night to view Moby Dick and discuss whaling a bit more, but this will probably happen in the next few weeks.

The Eastern Hemisphere Explorer has been giving Maestro plenty to do. He's enjoying doing the research, but I think we need to spend a little bit less time keeping him 'busy'. Some of the research questions are a little tricky to find answers to, so we're going to set some time limits and then work on finishing each page together. I don't want it to become a never-ending task and have frustration develop, which, I have learnt, can happen (after reading may responses on the Sonlight forum).

Mariposa ... is choosing to read her readers! Her first reader is The Beginner's Bible, but she's ASKING to read to us every night. This is a huge change in her! Her reading level is really at the intermediate stage (as set by Sonlight Core 1+2), but I'm sourcing a few of the beginner readers from the library to encourage her.

Even though we're going to be away from home for a little while, we'll still take the read-alouds and readers. We'll then enjoy venturing into more of this curriculum on our return.