Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Elizabeth
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Posted: July 20 2006 at 7:28am | IP Logged Quote Elizabeth

marihalojen wrote:
As far as purchases go, I try to buy nothing. Last year my total purchases came to $25 for supplies plus the Prairie Primer.



I couldn't let this go. Jennifer homeschools on a boat, so presumably there is no extensive home library. Please Jennifer, tell us in detail how you buy nothing--I have a lot to learn .


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marihalojen
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Posted: July 20 2006 at 10:55am | IP Logged Quote marihalojen

I am brimming with ideas and links! I'll be back late this afternoon after our co-op's big planning meeting. Local Catholic school shut down this year and the Montessori moved to a new building further south so potentially there could be lots of people show up, or it could be the regulars...

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KC in TX
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Posted: July 20 2006 at 9:52pm | IP Logged Quote KC in TX

I'd like to know more about this too.

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Posted: July 20 2006 at 10:22pm | IP Logged Quote Rebecca

KC in TX wrote:
I'd like to know more about this too.


Ditto!
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Posted: July 20 2006 at 10:33pm | IP Logged Quote gina

Yes, please shart, you might save my homeschool!
I am going down the tubes, emotionally, over planning the new year.

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Posted: July 21 2006 at 9:11am | IP Logged Quote Bookswithtea

I'm all ears, too. I really need to curb my spending habits!

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marihalojen
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Posted: July 21 2006 at 3:55pm | IP Logged Quote marihalojen

Well, I didn’t quite make it back by late afternoon, our co-op ran over 2 full hours and they had to boot us out of the building! Lots of ideas flowing, new potential homeschoolers showed up, lots of exciting things in the works. Then there is the sharing of computer time at home – patience is still a virtue, right?   
Elizabeth wrote:
marihalojen wrote:
As far as purchases go, I try to buy nothing. Last year my total purchases came to $25 for supplies plus the Prairie Primer.

I couldn't let this go. Jennifer homeschools on a boat, so presumably there is no extensive home library. Please Jennifer, tell us in detail how you buy nothing--I have a lot to learn .


Well, the Prairie Primer cost $10 on E-bay, all needed books came from the library. A notebook, 2 binders, page dividers, 3 folders, 2 sketchbooks, nice colored pencils, play dough, pipecleaners, mulberry and cardstock paper, glue sticks, tape and a ruler, a French CD and a Typing CD rounded out our purchases last year. I printed lesson planning sheets and such off of sites like Donna Young's.

I used the library extensively, of course, but our system is pretty lousy. There are lots of good books but they are shelved so haphazardly, it is frustrating. For many months last year after the hurricanes the computer system was down. The card catalog had been thrown out when the computers came in, so no one could look up a thing. The Dewey Decimal System promptly appeared for memory work.   

It was so exasperating last year finding the books and then corralling the books on the boat (picture huge stacks toppling as the boat rocks) that I vowed to not rely on the library this year but to utilize the Internet. Our dockage is in a great hotspot (7 networks to choose from and if the next spot we move to is not hot, we have decided to then buy Verizon Wireless’s Internet card that is good down to Puerto Rico last time I checked) and there is so much available on-line, from free e-books to blogs recreating famous authors, thinkers, or explorers to websites with free lesson plans for every conceivable subject. Today’s students will need to be technologically savvy, I feel I’d be doing Marianna a disservice to not utilize the available resources.

So I took a good look at what we’d covered in our years of homeschooling, what we enjoyed and what was in our Timeline, or Book of Centuries. After the Prairie Primer and two years of American Girl Club, it was heavy on US History and nearly empty on Ancient History. With a broad goal in mind, I hit the Web starting with CM sites as I loved that influence in our schooling. I found good guidelines but most used lots of book suggestions. A recommendation from a co-op friend brought me to Tapestry of Grace, a classical program for large families. It happens to have free extensive resources online including a section for each week of each year of their curriculum. It is a program written by a Protestant but she has separated the Church History sections so Roman Catholics or Greek Orthodox can post resources. Using that as our loose guide, I think we’ll be able to cover the Ancients pretty thoroughly!

Science is not available through Tapestry of Grace, but just look at McBeth’s Opinion or the Free Science thread for great ideas. A brief look at the Core Knowledge will give ideas to study as well.





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Posted: July 21 2006 at 4:19pm | IP Logged Quote marihalojen

I just ran through the Active Topics and there is just so much here, it's amazing! Don't ever forget this as a resource! I didn't even list Relious Ed. or Artist/Composer Studies - all from here.

Would it be helpful to have a Freebie thread for each subject as we have for Science?

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Posted: July 28 2006 at 10:11pm | IP Logged Quote stefoodie

just wanted to add this in case it's useful for anyone. i've canceled our audible subscription this year after 2 years, because i just found out that our local library offers free audiobook downloads. a year of basic audible is ~$150+ so this should be a substantial amount of savings if you've got libraries that will do that for you. i *love* that we have 3 library systems available to us -- at first i thought it would be really confusing, but other than the driving to 3 different libraries i have my choices tripled! and usually what's not available at one is available at the others. i'm still kinda disappointed about the ILLs though. in PA our ILLs were free (though changing soon, i hear, if they haven't already). here, one library system charges $1 per book, the other $3 per book, and the third $5 per book! at that price i might as well just buy a used book online!

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momwise
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Posted: July 29 2006 at 9:00am | IP Logged Quote momwise

stefoodie wrote:
just wanted to add this in case it's useful for anyone. i've canceled our audible subscription this year after 2 years, because i just found out that our local library offers free audiobook downloads. a year of basic audible is ~$150+ so this should be a substantial amount of savings if you've got libraries that will do that for you. i *love* that we have 3 library systems available to us -- at first i thought it would be really confusing, but other than the driving to 3 different libraries i have my choices tripled! and usually what's not available at one is available at the others. i'm still kinda disappointed about the ILLs though. in PA our ILLs were free (though changing soon, i hear, if they haven't already). here, one library system charges $1 per book, the other $3 per book, and the third $5 per book! at that price i might as well just buy a used book online!


My dc switched the mouse on me and now I have a little button by my thumb which takes me "back" a page so of course I lost my whole post. Here goes again....

I thought it would be hard using 2 systems.    Here in CO the local library system participates in Prospector which give us accesss to about 25-30 systems around the state. The books come right to our branch! Even more amazing, the late fee is the same: only .20 per day, including DVDs.

We still have no fees for ILL but with fuel prices what they are that may change.

Speaking of gas...will the cost keep you closer to home? We will have to do more local field trips (and I mean very local) and combine them with errand days; I hope to keep that to about 2-3 days per month. Not to mention our van has 168,000 mi. and we can't buy another. I'd consider the bus but by the time I pay for myself and 4 kids (baby's free) I don't think I would save much.

What can you do close to home (acutally what do you consider close to home? 10 mi., 5mi.,more or less?)??

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Posted: Aug 13 2006 at 3:21pm | IP Logged Quote marihalojen

I was going to post this under the Notebooking thread but I think it belongs here instead. Much too large for a notebook!
Erin wrote:
And a tip for keeping the cost down is to visit your local printers and see if they have paper and cardboard offcuts to give away. Ours does.

Something I was told in college Art is that BillBoard Paper is fabulous for murals, cannot get much huger than that! And the paper is super thick. The professor stopped while coming to school one morning and just asked the guys pulling off the old paper if she could have it and they said to take it. It is one of those random things you can't count on, but what fun if it happens!

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JennGM
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Posted: Sept 07 2006 at 9:54pm | IP Logged Quote JennGM

I know this is an older thread, but Lissa posted this free resource of books online called The Baldwin Project. I wasn't aware of this, but I thought this would be a great resource for the "Free" aspect.

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Posted: Jan 10 2007 at 3:13pm | IP Logged Quote marihalojen

Kristen in TX has more ideas here!

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