Thirsty Thursday ~ Gathering Books

This week the theme at Thirsty Thursday is where/how do you gather your school books cheaply.

I buy some books brand new and some books used. I bought a stack of brand new books this year from the state's homeschool convention. Most of the books are workbooks, math curriculum, and a few FIAR books that I wanted as keepers. When I am buying brand new books, I also use Amazon.com (orders over $25 ship for free) and Rainbow Resource. Rainbow Resource is very helpful on the phone. I have been pleased with their services over the last 11 years, and they have competitive prices.

We use history as our spine in our homeschool. All of our subjects (except language arts and math) build off of what is going on in the period of time that is being studied in history. For example we study the artists, scientists, musicians, and mathematicians from that time period as well. This makes my job very easy in the respects of knowing what is coming next. I can then start gathering materials that will help us in future studies. I watch for items at yard sales, used book sales, consignment shops, clearance areas in art stores, etc. If it will fit, I put everything in a large, 2 gallon Ziplock bag. If I have large/bulky items, they go into my closet of future supplies. By using this system, I can gather items very cheaply months or even years before I need them. 

Here is an example of a few bags ~



This is our July/August unit study on Earthquakes and Volcanoes. This bag is incomplete because we are currently using it. We are reading stories about Mt. Vesuvius and its effect on Pompeii. Also, in the next week I will be gathering the books for the unit studies (free at homeschoolshare ) from the library. The science experiment materials will be gathered and placed in the bag as well. 


Here is a FIAR bag based on Owl Moon. I've been gathering the materials for this bag for about 6 months. It has lots of clock work materials, index cards with lessons I want to do, a library list, Lap book pages, dried owl vomit to dissect, workbook pages, recipes to make owl nests and owl face cupcakes. We will be doing this literature unit study in September with our Five In a Row support group which will include a field trip to the local nature center for an owl show.


Above is a photo of a unit study that we are starting in two weeks. Pirates ~ arghh! I was going to hold off on pirates until we made it to their heyday in history, but I have some very anxious little ones that want to start it sooner. Since we learned last week that Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates for a few months and there has been so much talk about modern pirates, we decided to do it now. As you can see, we have lots of crafts and more unit studies from Homeschool Share. However, there is a lack of books.  Since pirates are not my thing, we own very few books on them. I will be getting a big stack of pirate books from the library this week.

As a side note ~ Another way I save money is to check out lots of books from the library on subjects that are coming up in the next year during the summer. I can preview them to decide if I "need" them as keepers or if I can put them on the library list of books for when we come to that topic.   

Blessings, Dawn