Yes, you read that correctly. I said USED CURRICULUM SALE. As a mom of 5, I don't always have the additional resources to purchase curriculum that we may want and/or need so I have to be resourceful. Granted, I know of many ways to obtain free materials online and I use this for the bulk of our education. However, sometimes you just can't beat a good old-fashioned book for teaching something efficiently. That is where a used curriculum sale comes in handy.
My local homeschool group had their sale this evening, and since it happened to also be payday I was able to go pick up a few things. I had in mind some very specific things I need for our lessons, in hopes that I'd be able to get some of it for less than the new price. I had $60 to spend, which is about the cost of a single textbook new on my list of wants for this fall. I was very careful and found a lot of great things, but in the end I managed to get most of what I really needed and a couple goodies for future use.
I got a book that lines up with our Middle Ages study in lessons for my oldest daughter to read bits of this year as appropriate. I figure that she and I can read a bit of the book at a time together and discuss it, and even if we decide to put it on the shelf for a couple more years it will get used. It was only $3 so I don't feel too put out from it. I have a feeling Missa will enjoy it, as she is really into all things related to history.
I went with the intention of hopefully finding a specific science book (Real Science 4 Kids level 1 Biology) but instead left with Apologia science (the 6th day of Creation one, animal science). I got it and another book that I can use to include my youngest girls in the lessons for $20 total. I'm happy with that, although it isn't what I planned to use for science.
There were a couple other little odds and ends I picked up as well, but I think my biggest score was all 3 volumes of the KONOS curriculum. These 3 books retail new for $110 each from the company, and I got the 3 books together used in pretty good shape (there are some penciled in notes and check marks and stuff like that, nothing a few minutes with an eraser can't fix) for a grand total of $20. Yes, I managed to get over $300 of curriculum for $20. I have a general plan already for this fall, using Story Of The World for history, but I am looking forward to using the KONOS books to keep going with lessons when we are starting to lose steam and hit burnout from going too long on our regularly scheduled lessons. It will provide a wonderful change of pace for us in that area. The only downside to this is that I'm not really all that familiar with the curriculum outside of knowing that it is unit studies centered around character traits, so I will need to spend some time really going through it and figuring it out so I am ready for it when we need to take that break.
I will still obviously need to get a copy of one specific book I need for a spine with our history program, but I am saving up for it and will purchase the book through Amazon this fall. Unless, of course, anyone who reads my blog wishes to donate a copy of the Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History.......... No takers? Darn. Oh well, I'll get the book before we start in the fall and I'm not really too worried about it.
If you haven't taken advantage of a used curriculum sale, I highly suggest it. I spent less than $50 tonight and got a lot of great things that I can't wait to use with the kids this fall, to the point where I'm seriously considering cancelling "summer vacation" because of their bad attitudes already and jumping in as soon as VBS week is finished here.
1 comment:
Glad I could help =)
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