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I am torn between these two programs. I purchased Little Hands for my almost 5 yr old and my 2 yr old to do. But haven't started yet. I plan on doing Little Hearts with the 5yr old when we finish little hands in the Fall. My only concern is that with little hands there is not other literature included. So I was thinking of using Sonlight's 4/5 Pre K to go along with Little Hands. Has anyone ever combined the two or done both of them at some point?

Also I can't decide about my oldest dd who is 8 1/2 and in 3rd this year. I am torn between doing Preparing and Core 1+2 with her. Both are world history. How much literature doing Preparing have in it? I am not able to go to the library to get books much, so I am anxious about not having enough literature for whatever we study. That is one of the main reasons MFW didn't work for us. Not sure what to do.

We are currently using Little Hearts and you do have the Burgess books to read daily. I also try to add in one or two books from the supplemental book list in the appendix. The other thing I have done is looked at Sonlight's Read aloud list and chosen books from there when we are wanting more to read.

Sorry can't help you with your older as we are not there yet.

HTH

I have done Little Hands and Sonlight Pre-K (now core b?). I like them both for different reasons. With Sonlight Pre-K we used Amy's theme schedule so that made Sonlight flow better and we could do unit studies. I liked Little Hands because my daughter actually asked to do it and it was all Bible. I would imagine you could do both. Little Hands in the morning then Sonlight for afternoon and evening reading. Since they both take 30 minutes or so.

BrandieinTN,

Hi, I PM'ed you.

Candice

We used Core b with MFW K and it's a fun core. I only used the read-alouds, not the workbooks. I think it would be easy to add any read-alouds you wanted to Little Hands.

I have to tell you, the schedule that come with it is disappointing. You could really just use the books on you own as extra reading without a schedule.

Now with Little Hearts, you won't need any extra. There are read-alouds scheduled every day, and there is a supplemental reading list in the back that goes along with the history. I have a feeling a Sonlight day is a whole lot longer than a HOD day, and my kids are still needing plenty of imaginative play time...in fact that's what they're doing now! I promised a long "recess" this morning and they promised to not complain when it was time for reading (everything else is DONE!)

Now, bear in mind I'm biasied but Preparing just looks like so much more fun that Core 1+2. You could always use the Sonlight catalog for book ideas. It also (just from drooling over it on the site) appears to have plenty of literature already scheduled, so you may not need any other book ideas.

I am not a craftsy person and that was one of the big reasons I left MFW. I was leaning toward Sonlight for that very reason (no crafts) when I found HOD. There are just enough hands-on activities scheduled...I can handle it, and I've discovered that my kiddos LOVE the hands-on!

HTH, and keep asking any question you think of. We love to help!
Mel

I used Sonlight Pre-K with my oldest and have to agree with Melanie. The schedule that came with it was very disappointing. We didn't even end up using it.

I'm doing LHTH with my dd who is almost 4 now. I feel like I am covering exactly what she needs to know and will definitely use it again with my next son. We love it! It's fun and organized for me! We do read quite a bit, too. I just let her bring me books, or her older brother reads to her, and I read to her and 8 y/o brother before her nap time every day. We've read Charlotte's Web, several Little House Books, and Snow Treasure this year.

I haven't looked at Sonlight for quite a while, but from what I've seen, I think the philosophies of Sonlight and HOD are quite a bit different. HOD follows Charlotte Mason's ideas of reading good, living books slowly to be able to think about them more and remember them better. Sonlight seems to be more about reading a lot of books. I don't know if I'm explaining this well, but HOD chooses to have the kids read fewer books on purpose. This isn't to say that your kids can't have access to lots of good books in their free time. You just move slowly through the books that you're using for "school" and then because of the short lessons, they have free time to use for reading or whatever other interests you want them to pursue.
Hope that helps!
Kathleen

I've used SL for a few years. I enjoyed the preschool program, because when I bought it (years ago) there was no schedule. I just read what I wanted to read.

I didn't like SL for the older cores because it was hard to implement. It is supposed to be 'open and go', but it didn't work for me. The IG was too much and overwhelming. Plus there are no hands-on activities.