Combining Classical Conversations and Sonlight

We found Sonlight first. Then we found Classical Conversations. My children would revolt if we gave up the Sonlight books- they love them that much. Luckily, the two provide the perfect combination for a well-rounded curriculum. I know that in the elementary years CC plus the 3 R’s (reading, writing, and arithmetic) are “enough” but I firmly believe that reading aloud with our children enriches all of our lives. So, here is how we combine CC and Sonlight without lots of extra work on my part.

I have always been a working mom and a homeschooling mom. I do not have time to create elaborate lesson plans or track down books. By combining Sonlight with CC we get the benefits of a literature-based education along with the perks of attending a CC campus (have I mentioned how much I love my children getting to do presentations, science, music, and art with other children?).

**Please note I am not an affiliate for CC or Sonlight. I just love curriculum and hope that my experiences can help out other homeschooling families. I gush about Sonlight simply because we love great books and their curriculum is full of them!** I am however part of the Amazon associates program so…
**This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase using the Amazon links. Thank you**

A Day with Sonlight and CC

It is as simple as reading aloud from a Sonlight History/Bible/Literature level and briefly reviewing the CC memory work. By doing this your children are practicing memorization and then enriching that memory work with stories. Bible, poetry, read-alouds, and readers are all provided via Sonlight. Even scripture memory if you choose to use the Sonlight guide.

This is what a day with the combined curricula looks like in our house for the elementary years:

The Sonlight HBL books provide the books for our Morning Time “basket.” I do not always follow the Sonlight schedule. Instead, I use the “Book List” that comes with the guide so I know the suggested order for the books. This is not necessary, but since I have them I do use them. It also gives me a list where I can check off books as we read them.

Basically, the “Book List” page that comes in the Sonlight guide divides the books by each section- Bible, History, Read-Alouds (books that you read to your kids), and Readers (books that your kids can read on their own)- and gives you the start week for each book. I simply put all the books on the bookshelf and then pull out one or two books for each section to put in the basket, once we have read through those books, I pull out more. Simple.

However, if you would like a schedule to follow, use the Sonlight guide! It is the perfect guide for read-aloud time during a Morning Time routine. It will tell you exactly what books and what pages to read from those books for each day of the week. It puts Morning Time on auto-drive!

For Morning Time:

We read the Bible, we read a poem or two from the poetry book that came with the HBL, and then we have read-alouds from the history and read-aloud sections of the HBL. Once my kids can read, they can work through the books from the “readers” section in whatever order they want for their own enjoyment.

While reading, I stop and ask my children to narrate back what they heard and/or we discuss what we are reading. If you want you can have them write, illustrate or copy this narration into a notebook. This is the notebook we used this year for our youngest. I like to keep things simple and just have one notebook used for all things homeschool. Also, I don’t always require narrations sometimes we just read (very un-Charlotte Mason of us).

We also take 5-10 minutes to review the CC memory work and discuss presentations for the week. That’s it! I know that some people do all sorts of activities and games focused around the CC memory work. We don’t. We choose to spend our time reading together as a family and activities happen at our CC community. Occasionally, we listen to the CC memory work when we are in the car via the CD’s or the app. I promise this is enough and your kids will learn a ton.

What about the other CC topics

If our children are really interested in a particular CC topic I will add books from our home library into our Morning Time routine. For example, our son wanted to learn more about rocks during CC Cycle 1 science because the memory work peaked his interest. So some weeks we read books about geology and rock identification during our Morning Time. It really is that easy.

CC and Sonlight Create a Flexible Morning Time

This is the beauty of CC and Sonlight for Morning Time. We have a base that covers all the basics but as time allows we are free to add or take away based on our children’s interests. We have lots of other resources that line up with CC and we do occasionally add those in but they are just fun extras and not a consistent part of our Morning Time. For example, we have lots of kids classical music cd’s such as this one. I will pop these into the CD player when the kids are playing, or cooking, or at the table doing a craft. Our daughter loved to listen to the Story of the World cd’s so we would listen to those whenever we ran errands. There are tons of resources out there but you don’t have to line them up perfectly to CC and you don’t have to worry that your kids are missing something if you don’t add them! I think of it as creating a lifestyle of learning- not checking off boxes to get curriculum done.

Sonlight with the CC Challenge program

I won’t go into great detail about this in this post but for our first year with CC Challenge A, my daughter is just reading through her Sonlight books for enjoyment. When we have time we have read some of the read-alouds together. We greatly miss her consistently being with us for Morning Time so this is an area that we will be adjusting for next year. To read more about our experience with CC Challenge A check out my posts, The Beginner’s Guide to CC Challenge A and The Pros and Cons of CC Challenge A.

Where to Start

Simply pick your Sonlight HBL package based on the cycle AND your children’s ages- try to keep it to one HBL unless you have a wide age gap like me. Once we started with Sonlight we did not jump around just to line up with CC instead, we went in the order of the Sonlight levels. Yes, some years did not match. However, the CC timeline song covers all of history, so there’s always that connection.

Here is how the Sonlight HBL’s roughly line up with the CC Foundations Cycles:

** Remember CC Foundations is pre-k through 6th grade only so you will not see the higher Sonlight levels on this list**

Sonlight preschool or pre-k could be used for any of the years if you have a 4 or 5-year-old in CC. Although, unless your child is a younger sibling with older siblings in CC, I typically recommend waiting until your oldest child is 6 or 7 to start CC. BUT, as with all things, it really depends on the child and your family.

CC Cycle 1- World History- Ancient empires, peoples, and countries focus
- Sonlight HBL A Intro to World Cultures (ages 5-7)- geography and cultures from Creation through modern.
- Sonlight HBL B Intro to World History, year 1 of 2 (ages 6-8)- early civilizations to fall of Rome.
- Sonlight HBL B+C Condensed year (ages 7-9) This simply combines HBL levels B and C into one year- if you do them separately you would not do the condensed year. We have chosen to do them as separate years simply because we enjoy getting all the books from each level!
- Sonlight HBL F Eastern Hemisphere (ages 10-13)- Cultural study of Eastern Hemisphere. This was my daughters absolute favorite HBL!
- Sonlight HBL G World History Year 1 of 2 (ages 11-13)- World history from Ancient Egypt to the Reformation.
- Sonlight HBL W World History condensed (ages 12-14)- A combination of HBL’s G & H.
CC Cycle 2- World History Pre-Reformation to Modern focus
- Sonlight HBL A
- Sonlight HBL C World History, year 2 of 2 (ages 7-9)- fall of Rome to the 1900’s
- Sonlight HBL B+C
- Sonlight HBL F
- Sonlight HBL H World History Year 2 of 2 (ages 12-14)- Reformation through the late 1900’s.
- Sonlight HBL W
CC Cycle 3- American History focus
- Sonlight HBL A
- Sonlight HBL D American History year 1 of 2 (ages 8-11)- Early Native Americans through 1850’s.
- Sonlight HBL E American History year 2 of 2 (ages 9-12)- Civil War through late 1900’s.
- Sonlight HBL D+E condensed year (ages 9-12)- As with the condensed world history year, this HBL combines levels D and E into one year.
- Sonlight HBL F

For this simplified printable version of how you could line up Sonlight and CC, please click below.

Here is how things lined up for our daughter:

2nd grade CC cycle 2 with Sonlight HBL C
3rd grade CC cycle 3 with Sonlight HBL D
4th grade- we skipped CC this year as we were in a year of great transition with moving and living in an RV for 6 months, plus our son was 4 years old and not ready for CC. She did Sonlight HBL F as she wanted a break from american history. HBL F contains some of her all time favorite books- she still re-reads some of them.
5th grade- CC cycle 2 Sonlight HBL E
6th grade- CC cycle 3 Sonlight HBL G

And here is how things have lined up for our son:

Kindergarten CC cycle 2 Sonlight Pre-K
1st grade CC Cycle 3 Sonlight HBL A
2nd grade CC Cycle 1 Sonlight HBL B

But doesn’t it drive you crazy that the books don’t line up exactly?

No, it does not. I thought it would but it doesn’t. One year I tried to line everything up and it was a disaster. I literally spent hours picking books to go with each week of CC and then adding those lists to a planner- ugh! CC moves way too fast to read anything but a picture book for each topic every week. I quickly ditched those plans and went back to just reading from our Sonlight HBL and practicing the CC memory work.

Also, the fact that the Sonlight books don’t always match with the CC Cycle does not bother my kids at all. They make the connections and will say things such as, “Oh, that’s what they are talking about in the CC timeline” or “Remember that science sentence in CC? That’s the same thing!” You don’t have to make the connections for them, they will benefit from doing it themselves.

Sonlight Book Collections!!

Sonlight now offers “Read Aloud” and ” Readers” for each HBL as book collections!! This simplifies things even more because you can just choose your book collection and add it to your cart. When that lovely Sonlight box arrives, jump for joy, and unpack it onto your bookshelf! Next, pick 1-3 books to add to your Morning Time basket, snuggle up on the couch, and start reading with your children.

For even more great book selections, make sure you check out Sonlight’s summer readers.

I know with all the acronyms and levels this can be overwhelming and confusing. Hopefully this simplifies things a bit. I encourage you to get a Sonlight catalog and a CC catalog. You can access the online CC catalog or contact a CC representative for your area to get a print catalog. Sit down with a cup of tea or coffee, look through them, and then come back to read this post again.