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It’s the homeschool curriculum junkie’s dream day.

I’m going to browse the book fair at NCHE!

I look forward to this day every year.

In preparation I make a massive spreadsheet. It has columns for each of my children. Then I list on the subjects that each of my children will be studying on the left. Next to each subject, I list the materials I am thinking about using and the best price I have been able to find. If I already have the resource, I highlight it orange. If I’m unsure about it, I highlight in blue. The items that I’m definitely buying are unhighlighted. At the bottom of each column, I have the total cost for just the definites, as well as the total if I bought everything in the column. That is done for each child (shared resources costs are just put in the oldest child’s column). Finally, I have a grand total.

This helps us as we go shopping at the book fair. We have the prices so we know if the convention price is a good deal. We can take into account the savings on shipping. (However, that’s usually off-set by the addition of sales tax at the convention.)

This year I’ve got a lot of things already decided on. There are several items that I can’t even buy at the conference. But I’m going anyway. Handwriting Without Tears also has a booth and offer the best price at the conference. I like to be able to buy directly for the vendor if it’s not too much extra.

I need to decide on science for my daughter and want to be able to look a couple of different options over. When we did our homeschool evaluation, she expressed an interest in studying botany. I want to look at:

God’s Design for Life: The World of Plants

The World of Plants – Great Science Adventures

Considering God’s Creation

The last one isn’t plants specifically, but from looking at the samples, I think she would really enjoy it. Plus it is something I can use with my younger kids too.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.


By Kristen H.
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