Garage Saling for Curriculum

I was finally able to purchase most of the rest of Asa's Pre-K curriculum!  My parents blessed us with some monies specifically for curriculum.  That helped purchase All About Reading Pre-Level 1.  I really wanted to use Sonlight this year with Asa.  He seriously BEGS for school work and I knew that I needed to capitalize on that desire to learn.  I also knew that I needed a ready made curriculum for him due to the fact that I just do not/will not (especially with a new little one) have the time to put together trays and units for him myself this year.  The problem was that it was not in our budget to buy a pre-k curriculum (and the curriculum I wanted is on the pricey side)....hard to do in a one income family (or 2 income for that matter).  Enter Ebay.

Some of you may know that I buy things at garage sales to resell on ebay.  I've been doing it for almost a year....with a break from Jan-March.  It is a fun hobby of mine.  I love garage sales, and I love hunting for things that I know I can sell on ebay.....I guess my hobby makes me a nice little profit which in turn funds my garage saling addiction and gives me a little extra spending money.

I was actually able to purchase the complete Sonlight Pre-K curriculum (sans 2 books) for almost 1/2 the price of buying brand new from a seller on Ebay (one of the reasons I LOVE Ebay).  I was also able to purchase it with money that I earned from garage saling.....what, doesn't everyone get paid to garage sale? :)  Look at all these lovely books just waiting to be explored this next year with Asa......books make me giddy.

I thought that I would share with you some of the purchases I made at garage sales that help make buying the curriculum I wanted possible.  Such a fun way to make some extra money.  I know that some people will think that this is not a great thing to do, and that's ok.  I will just say that this is my creative way for my family to buy the curriculum we love, and our way to save money (since it funds my garage saling, which in turn saves us money on clothes, Christmas, etc.).  If that makes you upset I am sorry, I am really not trying to upset you.  If it intrigues/inspires you than great!  This is really something anybody could do....and in this economy creative money making is sometimes needed. :)

At one garage sale I bought a huge box of duplo for $15.  When I got home I was so happy to see all the lots that I could make from it (duplo and lego are great sellers).  All 3 of these lots sold for a Buy it Now price of $29.99 (keep in mind that about 12% goes to fees, and 10% of my total sales also go to tithe).  The really fun thing is that I also got about 3 more lots out of this box and 2 have sold (one for 19.99 and the other for 14.99).

I LOVE to buy/sell books.  They key to making a decent profit on a book lot is to not pay more than .25-.50 a book.  Sandra Boynton is a very good seller....the more books in the lot the more attention/bids it will get.  I paid $4.00 for this lot and it sold for 20.83.

I found this lot of Tag Reader books for $1 a piece (so $9 total).  I was pleasantly surprised with the turn around on this.  They sold for 38.85.

I bought this lot of Polly Pocket princess clothes for 2.00 (I actually got a couple lots out of what I purchased) and it sold for 14.99.....slow and steady....not everything needs to sell for big money....the little things add up quick.

This was a fun find at $3.00.....it was really, really cute!  It sold for 24.99.

A good friend of mine found this lot of little Polly cars for .25 (I still owe her .25 lol)....she does the same thing I do only she sells a different genre.  If she sees something that may do well for me for a good price she will pick it up.  It's like I go to double the garage sales that way. lol  These sold almost immediately for 17.99.

These guys were fun.  I paid $1.25 for them and they sold for 17.99.  They brought back memories from childhood...they are vintage 1980s hand puppets from a Pizza Hut promotion.  We had a couple of them.

This Super Why computer was .25 at a sale.....it sold for $12.99.  I thought it would go higher....the completed listings showed it selling for 20-30....oh well....still a fantastic turn around!

This one makes me laugh.  And just to show you that you don't have to buy and sell just toys......  I took a risk on these Wizard of Oz thimbles and bought them for $2.00.  I was so surprised when the auction ended at $33!  Seriously.....what do people even do with these things.

My friend was also very generous and gave me these vintage glass chandelier parts (when she thought she was done selling on ebay) and they sold for 34.33.

These are just some of the sales that I've made in the past few months....and all of these helped me buy a wonderful curriculum.  Still planning on doing it for the next few months.  I'll either be saving up for Christmas or saving up for curriculum for next year. :)  Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Forgotten Curriculum.....

So in my excitement about my curriculum I forgot the most important piece that we will be using this year!! Our Bible curriculum! I cannot believe I forgot to include it considering this is one of the major reasons we are homeschooling.

I chose to go with Bible Study Guide for All Ages. This is an amazing guide that is part of a 4 unit curriculum (at what I think is a decent price). Each unit could easily take a year or more depending on how fast you want to move through it. My favorite part of this curriculum is that once you go through it you can repeat the entire curriculum at a completely different level.

This is the colorful Beginner Time Line that we purchased to go along with the curriculum.



There are 3 different levels of student activity pages that you can purchase. Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. This is a picture of one of the beginner pages.
I am very impressed with this curriculum and really look forward to starting. It is something that I would even just recommend to a family who isn't homeschooling but looking to study the Bible together. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

2012-2013 Curriculum Picks!!

After much thought, research, and TONS of praying here are my curriculum picks for the next year. I have everything already except the All About Reading materials and the Sonlight P 4/5 Core....I need to save some more money before I can purchase those. :)

Annabelle's Summer School: I know that sounds really drab, but it isn't as bad as it sounds. We are actually just going to continue with school like normal throughout the summer. We have no reason not to and it helps us stay on track and gives us WAY more leniency through the year (which we will need when our new little one arrives). As it stands we still have 14 weeks left of our current Languange Arts program. After we finish we will go right into the next thing (same goes with all our subjects).

All About Reading Level 1
In conjunction with that we will use All About Spelling Level 1. I am incredibly excited about this resource!!

We will be finishing up our current math by the end of March. We will go directly into Horizons Math K. Love the colorful pages....don't like that it isn't scripted, but we already own it so might as well use it right? I am more confident about teaching her correctly now....but we'll see. I may have to jump to some Saxon 1 lessons to figure out how to explain some concepts to her.


Annabelle's 1st grade curriculum:

Sonlight Core K
We are switching to Sonlight this year and remain undecided on whether or not we will switch back to Winter Promise. For one thing we were given all the Sonlight cores by a good friend and it seems like a waste not to use them. For another thing Sonlight has a phenomenal forum, as well as superb customer service. I am really excited about this core as we will begin to dive into History (I love, love, LOVE history). I am so excited to learn right along with Annabelle. 
Edited to Add: We are also doing some Geography within this curriculum (and adding Asa too).  It will just be some brief additions and arts and crafts as well as cooking.  I didn't want to hit on it too hard because following Sonlight we will be doing World History for the next few years and we will have plenty of time to really dive into it.  I just thought it would be nice to enhance what we are learning and include some learning about the countries/areas we are studying to solidify information. :) 

Language Arts/Grammar/Writing:
I decided to stick with Winter Promise LA 1. I love their hands on aspect and was pleased with their LA K that we've done this year. I will say that when I received this material I was immediately intimidated because I know that Annabelle will in no way be ready for most of this material by the fall. We will probably hold off on most (if not ALL) of it until January 2013 (or even March). It is still a solid program, I just don't want to push Annabelle that hard in something she doesn't like all that well at the moment.
In the interim we will continue with All About Spelling Level 2 after we complete Level 1.
EDITED TO ADD: AAR Level 2 is supposed to be released in September!!  We will be doing that as well as the Ready2Read Level 2 Bundle from the Moffat Girls.  We will also be doing Language Lessons for Little Ones Level 3 .  It will be a fun fit into our day.  For Writing we will be using WriteShop Primary A  (probably won't be starting until January).  We will also be adding in some Journaling.....should be fun!!  :)



We will also continue with Explode the Code 4 & 5 (I know 6 is pictured, but we will do that with the actual Winter Promise LA). Annabelle really enjoys her ETC books now and I think she will continue to like them.





Math....pretty self explanatory. :)  Edited to Add:  We will NOT be using Saxon.  In a last minute decision (seriously do homeschoolers ever stop looking at curriculum??!!) we have decided to switch to Math-U-See.  I am just not confident enough in my own math skills to be able to explain things and teach them to Annabelle on my own.  I am excited about Math-U-See because I think that we are still early enough on in Annabelle's learning career to start at the beginning Primer level and move at a fast pace and finish up the year with in the Alpha level

Science:
Apologia Science Astronomy
I am positively geeked about starting science this year! Annabelle is pretty pumped as well. I have heard/read so many wonderful things about Apologia sciences. Looking through the books after I got them I realized what a gem this curriculum really is.
We also ordered the Lab/Activity kit from Rainbow Resources. I must say that this is an amazingly organized, well put together kit. Everything came labeled/packaged for each lesson. A.MAZ.ING. Customer for life right here!

Art/Music Appreciation:
We are rounding off our studies with a simple program that I think Annabelle will really enjoy. Harmony Fine Arts Grade 1 is what I chose. We will do this program 2 days a week. It will involve picture studies, listening to music, and fun art projects.


Bible: Bible Study Guide For All Ages  We have been doing this through out the summer and it is Annabelle's FAVORITE part of school right now.

Asa Pre-K 4: Now I know that this is going to seem like a lot to some. Please know that I am not pushing this little guy into anything. He begs, and begs, and begs to do school every.single.day.....and not just a few little activities, he wants REAL work.....like worksheets, and reading work. I am following his lead. I know that I am not going to be able to pull anything together for him on my own that will satisfy him. So, after much thought and prayer I decided to just plunge in and buy him a real curriculum. We will go at his pace. If he wants everything 5 days a week I'll give it to him. If he decides he only wants certain things on a particular day (say phonics, but no Sonlight) I will give that to him. However, unless something changes in his personality I foresee doing everything 5 days a week (or 7 days a week lol).

Sonlight P4/5

Saxon Math K.....this really is more of a Pre-K math.
All About Reading Pre-Level 1 This is actually going to be slightly easy for him (he knows all his letters and their sounds), but I feel that he needs to do it before moving onto Level 1. Plus, it will solidify what he already knows about phonics. We will probably start this sometime in the summer. Silas will be doing it with him (not for mastery...just for fun).  Edited to Add: Asa will also be doing Language Lessons for Little Ones Level 1 and then starting into Level 2.  :)

Silas Tot School:
I have worked at putting together 26 weeks of alphabet learning fun.  Each week will be focused on a different letter.  With that letter will be a book....ex: A theme is Apples; The Apple Pie Tree, B theme is Bears and Blueberries; Blueberries for Sal, C theme is Caterpillars; The Very Hungry Caterpillar.....etc.  Most trays will be based around the themes and letters.  Even more amazing....I have it all planned out already!!

Anyway, I'm excited to start our year.  We have been working through some things this summer.  We will be taking a break for the rest of August (as the baby is coming on the 13th!!).  I am hoping to start back in early September.  I think that the kids will be ready for the routine to be back......I will probably be ready for it too. :)  Happy blogging!!
jess_hak

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