Our Homeschool Journal: Lucky Finds

In our homeschool this week…

I didn’t get much that I had planned accomplished this week, but it was mostly due to some great luck.  We acquired some amazing things for our homeschool this week for very little money.  That’s the luck part.  The only not-so-lucky part:  our schoolroom now looks like a tornado hit…and spread debris throughout the whole house.  I’m not complaining, though, because these items (some of which were on my wish list, some of which I didn’t even know I wanted!) are now ours:

1. Snapshots Across America:  a game I’d had on my Amazon wishlist since a friend told me about it.  Learning about U.S. geography and famous places with a game?  Perfect.  Finding it at Goodwill for $1.00?  Lucky.  The only thing it was missing was directions, and after I emailed the company, Talicor, they kindly emailed them to me.
2. Focus on the Family Radio Theatre of the complete Chronicles of Narnia:  basically free.  No, don’t hate me.  Our library has an amazing summer reading program where the kids earn book bucks to “spend” at a celebration at the end of the program.  I easily persuaded my daughter to have this be one of her choices.
3. Microscope and a box of slides:  a town in our area built a brand new high school and had a yard sale at the old one.  It was great fun–they’d walk you through the old building and you could just make offers on anything not nailed down:  we scored these for $20.
4. Roll-down maps:  this was the item I was actually hoping to find.  After seeing how Tricia at Hodgepodge used them as window blinds I really wanted roll-down maps.  We don’t have much wall space left in our schoolroom so it was the perfect solution.  I saw these on a wall in one of the classrooms, and they were mine for $5.00.  Seriously!  Never mind it took us half a day and around $30 to hang them–it is still an amazing find.
5. Lockers:  who knew I needed these?  For $10 these are going to be a fun addition to our schoolroom.  I had to make some major furniture adjustments to accommodate these, but I just couldn’t pass them up.

Places we went and people we saw…

We did do some of what I planned–the first was attending an airshow at Owl’s Head Transportation Museum.

That same day we also checked another Maine lighthouse off our list!

And said goodbye to some little friends we’d become pretty attached to (full post on the Monarch butterflies later).

Things I’m working on…

So my almost-ready-for-the-new-school-year schoolroom is now completely torn apart.  But it will all be worth it.  I’m telling myself that as I am doing this:

I’m grateful for…

My husband.  I was feeling overwhelmed, partly because my priorities were getting out of order.  We went for a walk and I blabbered on and on and he kindly and gently reminded me of what mattered most and how much he valued my role in our family.  After his pep talk I felt completely renewed.  He is an amazing man, and I don’t know what I would do without him.

Thank you to the wonderful hostesses with fun link-ups on Fridays. Be sure to join the fun and see what other homeschoolers are up to!