Building Your Own Curriculum on a Budget: Fall in love with the Goodwill!

If you are a homeschooling family, you have probably already discovered the Goodwill. The Goodwill has become my favorite place to find my homeschooling books. The first thing I always like to do is to plan out what I will be covering, make my reading or book list for the school year, and then I go hunting! You will be amazed at what you can find, and how cheap! On every single haul that I have been on, I have always found most of the books that was on my plan (and many that were not on the plan).

On this haul, I found books for my rising 1st and 4th grader. On my 4th graders reading list, I listed A Cricket in Times Square, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and The Swiss Family Robinson. I found all of these books and more. My 1st grader’s list consisted of Sylvester and the Magic Pebble! I found this book, an awesome Math Workbook that was designed to meet my State’s standards, and even a Reading CD-ROM! For both kids, I found a great book on scorpions and bugs for Science, and a very colorful book on the works of Langston Hughes. I also found a great little book for my toddler with many train stories complied into one, colorful book! In addition, I found a practically new Reading textbook for 3rd graders that I will be using for skill building and reading aloud.

How do you find out if the books you find (especially textbooks) are the grade levels you need? In a word, GOOGLE! Google the entire book title along with the author, and you should find the book with details on the grade level. Just like everything else in regards to homeschooling, it just takes research and patience to build your own curriculum! How much did my entire haul cost me? Are you ready??? $10!!!

Take a look at what I found on my latest hunt!