A Great Source for Homeschooling Supplies

Posted on June 8, 2009 by Barb

Over the years I’ve spent a lot of money on new homeschooling books and curriculum, and it was worth it, no question. But I have to admit that I often found some of my best stuff while browsing at garage sales.

One year I saw an ad in the garage sale section of the newspaper classifieds that said, “Teacher retiring, many years’ worth of books and teaching supplies for sale.” I turned up in her driveway early the first day of the sale, and was it ever worth it! She had beautiful old textbooks, lots of children’s literature (mostly hardcover), and reproducible masters of worksheets from the 1960s that I couldn’t resist. I was like a kid in a candy store.

And how many times at other garage sales did I find unused workbooks, like-new boxes of flashcards and untouched educational games bought by well-meaning parents who planned to help their kids hone their skills over the summer or on weekends but never got around to it?

At garage sales, I’ve bought educational computer games, like-new art supplies and classic literature and movies (Moody science videos!) sold for pennies on the dollar. The beauty of all these purchases is that, once we were through with them, I resold them at my own garage sales.

These days, many support groups sponsor used curriculum sales, and I highly recommend them. But don’t forget to hit the garage sales, too. With money tight these days, finding something wonderful for a few bucks (or cents) can be very encouraging.

Great Tools for Financial Literacy

Posted on May 18, 2009 by Barb

I’ve been using Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers with dd17 for the past 18 months or so, and we’re almost finished. We’ve been having a lot of fun with the projects.

Funny how using Life Prep has been a different experience with each of my children.

Our eldest was very eager to get out on her own, so we emphasized the rent, food and utilities projects over the others. Our son was completely college-minded, so we stuck to more reading and less projects. Dd17 is not in a big hurry to be out on her own, but she’s not sure about college either (she’s already racked up a few credit hours and isn’t sure if she wants to keep going), but she really gets into all of the projects.

She has run a couple of small businesses, so she understands the need to watch your expenses and make prudent choices. She seems to really get into studying how loans work, and how you can save a lot of money by prepaying them.

While working on the projects from the book, she enjoyed playing with some online financial calculators at Bankrate.com. They’re wonderful! I plan on adding mention of them to the next edition of the book when we update it again in a few years.

How to Help Your Children Write Clearly and Concisely

Posted on April 18, 2009 by Barb

Many moms say that just the thought of teaching their children to write overwhelms them. I don’t think they fear the teaching of words and sentence structure nearly as much as teaching their children how to write long essays and (eventually) term papers.

I assigned all three of my older kids to write term papers over the years, and I’m not sure how much they got out of it beyond learning to organize information in a logical way that flows. That’s an important skill to have, of course, but it’s certainly not the only hallmark of a good writer.

Perhaps because of my own training as a reporter, I’ve tried to stress to my kids that it’s important to be as clear and concise as possible when you write. That can be a tough goal to attain when you’re writing term papers because they usually include a minimum page requirement. But I think that most of the writing activities they’ll face as adults will require clear, concise writing as opposed to organizing 30 pages’ worth of facts in an understandable manner.

So how do you teach your children to write in a clear and concise manner? Recently, while flipping through a writing book my daughter requested from the library (The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier, see link below), I found this statement:

The best writing teacher I ever had limited us to one-paragraph essays. We had to fit lots of ideas into our paragraph, so we learned to use words sparingly. You can too. Simply distill in your mind the essence of what you want to say, and then state your ideas in simple, clear sentences. You don’t need to dress up your thoughts with extra words.

This sounds like a great way to teach your children to write clearly and concisely. Ask them to write about your family vacation, or a book they read, or an event that occurred in the neighborhood. Challenge them to fit as many ideas as they can into one paragraph.

A benefit for you: correcting a paragraph is way easier than correcting a term paper!

For more ideas, download Cardamom Publishers’ free special report, “Teaching Your Children to Write.”

Book #5: Money, Possessions and Eternity by Randy Alcorn

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Barb

From the fifth of five books that have had a major effect on me: Money, Possessions and Eternity by Randy Alcorn (from page 297):

“After feeding the five thousand, Jesus told his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” (John 6:12). If ever waste wasn’t an issue, you would think it would be when the provision was miraculously provided! We should remember Christ’s words, “Let nothing be wasted,” when we look in our refrigerators and garbage cans and garages. Can you imagine the disciples sitting in a small circle and Jesus multiplying the loaves and fish in their midst until they are buried under piles of it while the multitudes go hungry? Unthinkable, isn’t it? God provides excess not so it can be stored up but so it can be distributed to the needy.”

Book #4: Discipline, The Glad Surrender by Elisabeth Elliot

Posted on April 2, 2009 by Barb

From the fourth of five books that have had a major effect on me, Discipline, The Glad Surrender by Elisabeth Elliot (from page 37):

“God could have chosen to do everything Himself, but instead He so conceived the world that birds must build nests and sit on eggs, microbes must break down organisms, salmon must struggle upstream to spawn, earthworms must aerate the soil, bees must construct honeycombs, and man must will and work.

It is the willingness we must emphasize here. We pray “Thy will be done as it is in heaven.” God’s will is always willingly and gladly done in heaven. Willing obedience is a very different thing from coercion. A college dean once observed that the happiest students on any campus are the musicians and athletes. “Why?” I asked. “Because they’re disciplined, and they volunteered to be disciplined.” People sitting in required lectures are under discipline, and people sitting in television lounges are “volunteers,” but athletes and musicians put themselves under a coach or director who tells them what to do. They delight to do his will. They are actually having fun.

God does not coerce us to follow Him. He invites us. He wills that we should will—that is, He wills our freedom to decline or accept. If we want to be disciples, we place ourselves, like the football player and the instrumentalist, under someone’s direction. He tells us what to do, and we find our happiness in doing it. We will not find it anywhere else. We will not find it by doing only what we want to do and not doing what we don’t want to do. That is the popular idea of what freedom is, but it does not work. Freedom lies in keeping the rules. Joy is there, too. (If only we could keep the joy in view!)”