What Worked for our 2010-2011 School Year Volume 2

So to continue our list from the other day, I have been trying to think of more things that worked for us this year.

6.  Amazon Prime—There were many times either I couldn’t get a book or DVD from the library for our curriculum.  We have access to one of the best libraries!!! But there were a few times the items just didn’t come in on time because they were checked out.  There was actually one two instances where they didn’t have the items at all.  Well my hubby was able to get a free year of Amazon prime because he is a student, we were wondering if it was worth the price.  IT IS SO WORTH IT for us!!  There have been a couple times I actually paid the only $3.99 overnight special rate.  (I get nothing from Amazon for this…just love this deal.)

7.  The Library— Yes I buy many books from both Amazon, Barnes and Noble (do you know they allow homeschoolers to use the Educators Discount—just show your letters from the school district), and I have gotten several from a used book store in our local town.  But an area library is awesome.  Not only do they have the majority we need for homeschooling, but the staff there is super nice!!!  They allow our LEGO Group to meet there monthly and when we were having regular art classes, they allowed us to meet there too.  (Technically we aren’t supposed to meet there monthly, but they haven’t had an issue yet.) 

8.  Blogging—  This blog has helped me a lot to keep all our information from this year organized.  I have pictures of all the activities, and our assessor has already seen most of our blog.  So no carrying over boxes of their work for her to see this year!!!  (Yeah…doing a little happy dance!!!)  I also have found some wonderful resources and blogs with information that has helped our kids.  Yes, have found a new addiction (right after my Pepsi habit)…..it’s blogging!

9.  Netflix/You Tube—  Most of You Tube is free, but have discovered some resources that they now charge for.  We use their tourism and travel clips for Geography.  We have found Magic School Bus episodes to watch (and you all know how much I love Ms. Frizzle).  Netflix is also wonderful.  We find the $9.95 a month for the streaming and 1 DVD option to be great for us.  We use the 1 DVD option for educational titles that we cannot get in the streaming section.  But there are hundreds of documentaries available on a wide range of topics to stream.  Well worth a look if you haven’t yet!!

10.  Ink pens— This sounds crazy….but the kids would whine and whine about doing work and then one day the pencil sharpener was broken.  I said just grab a pen out of my desk drawer, and it Snowballed from there!!!  I now buy pens in a bulk pack at Staples (sorry…..know I can find them cheaper elsewhere but I am picky about my pens and these are the cheapest that I have found that write decently).  So now instead of finding cool pencils, we look hard for cool pens and fancy ones that the kids will like.  I put those in our pirate treasure chest for good deeds.  Found purple ones at Staples and Lydia & Caty are loving them!

Well this is just a few things that have worked well for us this year.  Spending the next couple weeks working on lesson plans for the next 4 months.  Trying to get a firm grasp on our schedule and when we have activities scheduled.  Got a little out of control this year.  Added a lot of activities, and although they were all educational I felt like I was passing myself I have been running around so much.  We definitely van schooled a lot.  The thing though since we live so far away from all of our school activities, even the library we use is about a 30 minute drive one way to get there and most activities are almost an hour one way away.  I am just watching how much we schedule this year, and hope not too many surprises come up!!