Posted in Resources and Organising

People often ask me what are the homeschool resources that I would recommend they acquire for their homeschooling journeys.  While I can't answer that for other people as I do think it's a very personal thing, it has made me ponder what resources I truly value.  Knowing what I value helps in knowing whether I really need/want to part with money to buy a particular resource. 

So what can't I live without or rather, don't want to have to live without:

1.  Paper - probably pretty obvious but we seem to use a lot of paper each and every day.  The boys draw on it, write on it, cut it up (and leave trails of paper clipping everywhere - THAT I could live without), fold it, wrap things with it and seem to forever have a chunk of it at their sides...just in case the urge hits to use some of it I suppose. 

Myself, I'm a print-aholic.  I print hoards of pages.  (Hubby does not approve of the willy nilly use of ink.  I affectionately call him the printer ink police officer.)   My reasoning is that I don't like to spend time reading at the computer.  If it's lengthy I'd prefer to print it and read it in the evening.  I also print things that I want to file to refer to later.  I know.  The greenies/environamentalists would hate me.  But I do use recycled paper if that helps .

2.  A good Computer or two with good Internet access - Definitely a must have for us.  We have three computers at present that are revved up to the max with RAM and hardrives and all that technical stuff hubby and Ethan drool over.   We could live with only one and did for a long time but the luxury of more than one is handy at times.  Internet access is a must too.   We use the internet as our encyclopedia.  It's also my teacher library and social network.  Yes, we defintely need a computer with internet.

3.  Good books - Of course!   No surprises here.  I need to have books on hand.  While it's nice to be able to look up a quick answer to a question on the internet, nothing can replace the specialness of snuggling up on the couch with a good book to enjoy or gather information from.  Yes libraries are great for supplying good books but I prefer to have a good smattering of the basics on our home shelves.  If the boys are interested in stars today there's no guarantee that they'll still be interested in them by the time we get to the library and home again.  For this reason I have collected a relatively good collection of junior non-fiction titles on various topics that may arise.  Having said this, we still do go to the library once a week and fill our bags with as many books as we can haul home.    You can NEVER have too many books...unless you are moving house which thankfully I don't plan on doing again.

There you have it...my "Must Haves".  Yes I could live without all the other stuff.  We barely use our math resources or games.   When we do use them it's for a specific use that only seems to come around occasionally. 

What would be great would be a homeschool resource library that you could borrow these "sometimes" items from.  If I ever come into a whole lot of time and money I might consider starting one of these .