Core A

Young adventurers: Explore God's big world!

• Inspire a love of learning, gain a sense of history and explore far-off places.
• Guide your children confidently each day: you get lesson plans, teaching tips and materials for the entire year.
• Trek with missionaries, visit ancient Egypt and travel through jungles, America, Imperial China ... and more!
• Devour fun historical fiction, stirring true stories and many children's classics.

Learning is fun!

You want to start your young children on the right track. You want to build a solid foundation for years to come. What do you need to teach them right now? That learning is fun! "We like learning!"

Core A does exactly that. This program is perfect for 6- and 7-year-olds and advanced 5-year-olds.

A wonder year

Open your children's eyes to God's fascinating world. Cuddle up with your little ones as you discover wonders far beyond your town borders. Introduce them to a wide range of topics and whet their appetites to learn more.

You get to acquaint your children with other places, cultures and times. You get to marvel at wonderful things God has done through His people.

As you explore, find answers to questions like Why do people in the Amazon and Alaska like different kinds of homes? What did the inside of a medieval castle look like? What did ancient Egyptians eat? How did people travel in ancient China? What does a jungle look like?

A tour of Core A

Enjoy a very broad overview of world history and explore the way people ate, dressed and lived throughout the centuries.

With your Instructor's Guide showing you what to do each day, two volumes serve as key books: The Usborne Children's Encyclopedia and Living Long Ago. They both feature simple text and scores of pictures that your children will love to look at. Get brief, picture-filled overviews of key civilizations of the world such as Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, the Vikings, Incans, the Ming Dynasty in China, Colonial America and Victorian England. Take extra time to look at music, art, homes, clothing and climate around the world. Your children will love to sit and pore over these books.

Core A also weaves in many fascinating biographies and stories that help your children imagine life in different times and places.

What will Core A do for you?

Sure, you have a great program that gives you precious times of discovery with your kids. You don't have to plan lessons, your kids get a great education, and they'll finish more excited than ever about learning. But what else will Core A do for you?

First, it sets the stage for future learning. Your kids develop a big-picture understanding that past civilizations existed and that people live differ-ently throughout the world. This knowledge gives a framework for future in-depth study of history.

This program also helps children start to see past themselves. Not everyone lives like they do! As children grasp this concept, they are more able to look at situations from another person's point of view and to relate to others who are different from them. They also develop a healthy curiosity about the world around them.

Another aspect I hold dear is that the books we feature inspire character in children. They provide fodder for faith-building conversations. They present worthy heroes who display courage and honesty, who work hard, love their families and do the right thing. Let's give children some models worth imitating!

Core A also helps develop key skills. From our developmentally-oriented hands-on activities, to the "Create-a-Calendar" that introduces the flow of weeks and months, you'll help make sure your kids are on track with what they need to know. Even the simple poetry in Core A helps train your children's ears to hear cadence, phonics and rhymes.

Core A also provides a whole lot of fun. Your children won't be little forever, so I created this Core to help you enjoy this special time together. From hands-on activities to stories they'll remember their entire lives, get ready for lots of laughs and hugs.

With Core A, you receive:

Instructor's Guide

Whether you're brand new to homeschooling, a seasoned veteran or somewhere in between, the Instructor's Guide included in Core A will make your homeschool life easier. Each morning, flip it open to see what's on the docket.

Your guide saves you from figuring out how to make all your books work together (we've already done that!). It helps you pace your journey, though you can easily speed up or slow down if you want. With the structure it provides, you can follow it exactly without worry. But it's also flexible: branch off and dive deeper into a particularly intriguing subject if you want. Then return to the schedule when you're ready. Download the first 3 weeks of this guide at sonlight.com/3-week-samples.

Hands-on activities

Enrich your learning with hands-on activities! Core A includes a CD-ROM packed with weekly suggestions that reinforce your studies and offer opportunities for creative expression and more fun. Low on parent-prep time and high in educational payoff, these activities are sure to be a hit in your house.

History & Geography

On this exciting tour of world cultures, history and geography, you and your children will ...

• Discover what it was like to live in a castle.
• Marvel at what children used to wear for sleep and play.
• Take a spin in the first car, plane & rocket ship.
• Meet the former slave who returned to Ireland to share Jesus.
• Visit tall mountains and lush jungles.
• And much, much more!

Bible

Did you know your children can probably memorize Scripture with more ease than you? Rejoice in this ability of young minds; help them hide God's Word in their hearts. Core A includes 26 memory verses--one that starts with each letter of the alphabet! A delightful CD sets each verse to beautiful music your kids will love to sing along with.

You'll also read daily from Egermeier's Bible Story Book--an accurate but kid-friendly story Bible that covers Genesis to Revelation. I remember how my children used to beg me to keep reading. That's exactly what a mom wants to hear when reading Bible stories!

Read-Alouds

You're in for a treat here. Cuddle on the couch as you read fun, enriching books to your children and:

• Care for animals alongside a veterinarian who loves his job.
• Learn lifetime lessons with peasant Pong Lo as he wins a whole kingdom with a grain of rice!
• Be inspired toward wisdom and character through Grandma's tales of growing up in the pioneer days.

Readers & Language Arts

Your children's Readers & Language Arts Program has a clear goal: to help them love to read and write. How do we do that? By giving them fun, real books they can read successfully! As countless Sonlighters have testified, their excitement to read these treasured books propels them to grow. Then we add fun, accessible writing assignments that coordinate with their Readers. You'll serve as your children's "scribe" for many creative writing assignments; you won't believe what your kids can create!

Simply choose the program that matches each child's reading level: Grade K Readers with Language Arts K, Grade 1 Readers with Language Arts 1, or Grade 2 Readers with Language Arts 2. Each level integrates Readers and Language Arts and gives you easy-to-use tools at your child's ability level.

Click over to the Reader Packages & Literature page to read about the specific programs, then visit sonlight.com/quick-reading-assessment to choose the right level for each child.

Memories in the making

Explore with your children and form precious memories with Core A. May you discover together that learning really is fun!