This year I bought a LOT of homeschool curricula for my second- and fourth-graders. I tried several different texts in each subject area, and picked and chose the materials that seemed to work best for us. Many of these materials I bought on eBay, at reduced prices. And now, as we complete our first year of homeschooling, I’m selling several items on eBay as well.

Here are a few eBay tips that have worked for me:
1. Package “lots” of materials that all fit the same curriculum (like Sonlight.) This will save on shipping for the buyer.
2. Sell individually the higher priced textbooks, in case someone wants to purchase just one higher ticket item.
3. Create unit studies of related, age-appropriate materials.
4. Take care to use searchable terms in the title, and description as well.
5. Accept PayPal.
6. Treat books with care, so you can advertise them as great condition.
7. Do your research on eBay to find out the market value of your materials.

Works for me! For more great tips, visit Rocks in My Dryer.

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Rather than writing my own PTT post today, I’ll spotlight someone else’s. So often, the evidence of excellent parenting shows up in tiny, easily-overlooked ways. Our personal actions impact our children’s behavior more significantly than anything we could ever say.

Pamela captures a beautiful moment of a mother passing the torch – and her son catching it – in the parking lot.

Every week, we share simple and stupendous times kids make us proud. Just blog about catching a kid being good, or share your story in comments. My comment plugin will leave your link automatically. Former PTT posts are HERE. Complete guidelines are HERE.

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(Calligraphy project from the Ancient China Treasure Chest. Note the totally random objects strewn about the table. This is typical throughout our house;))

In the past month of our homeschool experiment, we found our stride again. Does math still rear its evil head? Sure. But a more full-time focus on education, has re-established a routine that works for us. The warm weather has made possible afternoons of biking and picnics, or reading books aloud on the dock. And prioritizing field trips has allowed time for museums, gardening, and a much-anticipated trip to Chicago next week.

Spring has also sprouted excellent friendships, both with seasonal neighbors, and close-by homeschool students. Regular playdates have reminded us how much we missed this ongoing interaction over the winter months. It seems we all hibernate, but we also come to life in the spring, just as the plants and animals do.

I have some personal recommendations.

Sonlight – we used Core 1 World History, as well as Core 3 American History – is a fantastic resource for history, as well as historical and other literature. I loved the history guides, and the reader guides, because it helped me to not have to read everything D was reading, in order to know what the book was about. We also used the Language Arts lessons some, but didn’t like them as well. I appreciated the integration of the language lesson with the history or reading lesson, but we felt the grammar lessons were too hard, and the dialogue was too easy for D. C rebelled against anything written, and this was too dry for him as well.

Usborne — Sonlight uses many Usborne materials and I can see why. They’re fun to read, and are formatted somewhat like a comic book. I could always count on D to read these books to C, which freed me to prepare for the next lesson. We especially liked Time Traveler and the Usborne Book of World History.

Treasure Chests – Greece, Roman, Egypt, Viking, China. We loved them all. They were the highlight of the curriculum. I would strongly encourage anyone to find these treasure chests if you study ancient history. They’re fun, they’re hands-on, they’re games. Excellent. I’m selling ours, although the kids would rather keep them. I just think someone else could really benefit from them like we have. And all those small pieces will eventually get lost around here;)

History Pockets – I also added several lessons from the History Pockets series by Evan Moor. Great, reproducible, hands-on lessons that fit right into our Sonlight curriculum. We also used other Evan-Moor products and found them to be excellent add-on practice for curriculum. There’s a whole series of books that covers everything from report writing to grammar and punctuation, but my favorite is Ten Minute Activities 4-6. It is 190 quick and easy activities for all different subjects. It has been a great resource.

Science – I used California Science textbook from Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, but I think that was a mistake. Without a teacher’s manual, I didn’t know what I was doing half the time in experiments. Homeschool teachers really need to have a curriculum specific to homeschool, or a teacher’s manual for a traditional text.

Math – We tried several traditional texts, but switched to a Trailblazers curriculum part-way through the year. I thought it was better — less drill, and more thinking. Also, the drawings in the book were more engaging. I also tried Horizons Math with C, but thought it was not very easy to use, and a lot of drill, although it had a colorful write-in workbook, which was very helpful.

Just one more month of relaxed homeschooling before we’ll take a break for the summer. I know most students are finishing now, but we kept a very relaxed pace throughout the book-writing months, so we’ll have to extend our schoolyear a little. We’ve nearly completed history and science, so I anticipate mostly math, reading and writing for short periods each morning, with many field trips, and lots of time for dock-jumping in the afternoons.

HOMESCHOOL EXPERIMENT RESULTS SERIES:
WHY WE STARTED
the JOYS
the STRUGGLES
the FUTURE for us
UPDATE after we Quit Homeschooling
Family out of Sync

Other Homeschooling Experiment milestones:
The Beginning
Week One – Starting with a Frazzle
Five Steps to Drive Yourself off a Cliff
Week Two – Just when I thought I knew what I was doing
Week Three — Let there be CRAFTS!
One-month Review
D’s Review at One Month
Week Five – Stress and frustration
Week Seven – Flip-flopping curriculum
Note to self – Consider having low expectations some weeks
Two-Month Review — Some aha moments
Three-Month Review — Not all peaches and cream
Four-Month Review — Loving ancient history
Five-Month Review — What I underestimated
Six-Month Review – Let’s Just Skip this Month
Seven-Month Review — Curriculum Review
D’s research paper — Save the Earth Saturday series
Tales of a Fourth-Grade Guinea Pig
All posts about the experiment — including WAY-COOL FIELD TRIPS!

Again, Mom’s garden – not mine;)

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Wordless Wednesday

I’m posting early today for Pass the Torch Tuesday, and sharing another way I’m trying to pass the torch — by learning history, together with my kids. My comments are in italics.

***D’s Guest Post***

(Here is the new and the old.)
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