Not Another Homeschool Blog

I am cleaning out my shelves to make room for this year's curriculum.  (Versus buying a new bookshelf!) Since I did so well selling a few items last week, I decided to list my old homeschool books on Ebay.  As I had duplicates of many of the books, with 2 kids taking local co-op type classes during the middle school years, these books I am selling are in pretty good condition.  All but one of these books were used successfully by my kids in the middle school years.  I highly recommend them! They are for sale on Ebay and started at .99 cents.  See partial list below: Analytical Grammar student workbook Homeshool gr 6-8 BJU Spanish 2 Teachers Edition Activities manual The Boy's King Arthur Middle School History Novel Signs & Seasons by Jay Ryan Grade 6-8 Astronomy Middle School history Augustus Caesars World -Foster Exploring Creation with Botany by Jeannie Fulbright , Apologia Books: Science Middle School Botany Monarchs of the Nile by Aid...

Granted, I don't love eBay as much as I did 5-10 years ago when I was an active eBay seller and making a good amount of money on a regular basis.  Ebay is hostile towards the small business right now.  But as a homeschooler, eBay is Da-Bomb! So far for this school year I was able to get the bulk of my money back for used Teaching Textbook DVDs AND I sold my son's science book set and turned around and used the same money for the camera for his film photography class.  Considering I spend $300 on his digital camera last year (it is valued at almost $500) I didn't want to purchase another camera for another photography class, but if I could trade a science book for the camera, then I am happy.   I got the same camera  as the one on sale at Amazon for $119 for $50 plus shipping!   It took a bit of patience to find it. ~Still on my homeschool shopping list: Graphic Design materials Dance class gear including size 10 girls jazz shoes.......

 Keep in my that my kids are in grades 10 and 11 and planning to go to college.  In fact, we have already started our college search.  (As previous posts demonstrate).  We are eclectic homeschoolers with a cross between Classical and Charlotte Mason. Here is a sample of my daughters weekly schedule.   *On weeks when she doesn't have a science center lab class, her Friday schedule  resembles any other day.  * This does not include completed assignments (mostly drama and dance practice) for Artios Classes, which must be done on evenings and weekends. *If she needs a day off, she will need to do work on the weekends, but I will excuse non-core courses such as piano practice, test prep time, and Chinese lessons. *There are about 4 weeks during the year when the entire schedule gets scrapped because of trips with Artios Academy or for Drama Club productions.  *My son's schedule is similar except that he is only studying one language and...

The kids and I had an excellent morning touring SCAD Atlanta. I was prepared to not be impressed because although the college has a stellar reputation of educating and hiring out talented artists and designers. The main campus is in Savannah GA  (which we will visit soon). I fully expected a skeleton of a college, with deserted halls, especially since we visited during summer session. I was wrong. SCAD Atlanta, made me want to go back to college. It strongly impressed my daughter though their theater major is in Savannah, she loved the interior design and fashion design departments too. The college made my too-cool-for-school son GIDDY. This is a kid that doesn't show emotion.... but this school moved him. I couldn't ask for a more creative environment for a graphic arts/ media type person. It is definately at the top of my son's list. While it is a longshot, my daughter hopes they add a theater department to the Atlanta Campus in the next 3 years so she can go there...

I tried out a couple of homeschool planners this summer.  It turns out that I like a sugesstion another blogger made better. Renaissance Mama reports that Google Calendar makes an excellent homeschool planner.  It makes so much sense, especially, since I already use Google Docs for online notebooks so the kids can submit essays to me and I can mark corrections on the page, and we can go back and forth.  My method of using Google Calendar so far mostly resembles the way Lora from Simple Homeschool uses it. It makes sense to play around with it and find the method that works best for you. For end of year transcript I have also found that a simple template from microsoft works does the job.  I sure many of the homeschool planners out there work fine too, but I am such a Google addict, and I am so familiar with the tools, I figure, why bother with learning something new? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit My Education Column at E...