When I attended our state’s homeschooling convention last month, I knew I wanted to spend my cash on books, not packaged curriculum. Books for reference. Books for history and science. Books for fun. Give me books and more books. I made my selections carefully – we are all homeschooling with a budget, aren’t we? – and took home catalogs that I will poor over for months, making online purchases as the year goes on. And next May I will walk among the books again, eager to add to our shelves.
My children are 11, 10, 7 and 5 so we’re starting to move into the meatier subjects like Creation vs. Evolution, economics, theology and what makes good writing. I expect to get good mileage with this list, lasting us into the teenage years.
These are the books I purchased:
Capitalism for Kids (Growing Up to be Your Own Boss) by Karl Hess
Creation or Evolution (A Home-Study Curriculum) by Mike Snavely
Writers Inc (A student Handbook for Writing and Learning) written and compiled by Patrick Sebranek, Verne Meyer, and Dave Kemper
I found Writers Inc in the used book sale for $1.00. A great buy and it was on my to-buy list.
Making Jesus Lord (The Dynamic Power of Laying Down Your Rights) by Loren Cunningham
Torches of Joy (A Stone Age Tribe’s Encounter with the Gospel) by John Dekker
. . . and this last one caught my eye because I did grow up in a Christian home. I need to read it for myself.
Growing Up Christian by Karl Graustein
The longer I homeschool, the more I see the importance of having good books at home that the kids can grab off the shelf as the inspiration strikes. I’ve seen this happen time and time again with a science book left out on the coffee table or history book nestled on the shelf. I don’t need to assign the reading, it just happens. It can’t happen if you don’t have the books.
What books did you find at your homeschool convention this year?