Upcoming Trip!

It's Saturday, but Connor is doing school-work all day because of our upcoming trip to China. He has to finish his vocabulary up to lesson 10, and he is spending extra time on Chinese lessons too. Of course while we are in China he will be learning a TON of stuff, just not the things I have listed on my IHIP plan.

On the cheap

Now that we are adopting two children, I've been trying harder to home-school on the cheap. There are many families that do not spend a ton of money on tutors and lessons, and they do not lack for educational resources. I know it can be done, I just didn't spend enough time trying to save money, and I never took the time to add up exactly how much I spend to home-school. When I add up all his lessons, books, tutors, curriculum materials, field trips etc., I spend as much on Connor as we do to send Austin to a private school. Yikes! We do need to economize now that our family is expanding. Recently, I discovered how much money I can save by taking Connor to the library in Rochester, instead of to the bookstore. Our public library in Geneseo is quite small, so up until last month I would let Connor order books online, or I'd take him to the bookstore every week or so. Well, as I mentioned before, Connor reads constantly, and I'm spending a fortune on books. On Tuesday, I returned 18 books to the library, and I let Connor check-out 9 more. That will get us through the next two weeks. I also took him to the bookstore to buy books for our China trip. I read online that Borders gives its educator's discount (25%) to home-schoolers, with proper ID. I saved $26.00 on one trip to the bookstore with my new educator's discount card!! I'm also starting to cut coupons and shop for groceries at Tops, instead of Wegmans. Last week I entered my name in a drawing, and we attended a performing arts show in Rochester because I won the tickets. That show would have cost us $150.00 or more. Yep, I'm going to cut-back on nonessentials while still giving Connor the best education possible.

The one who has the most words...

Walking out of the library today, with our arms literally overflowing with books, a woman stopped to say to Connor, "Wow! That is a whole lot of books for one little boy." I replied, "Don't worry. He'll read them all before they are due back at the library. " She walked around the van specifically, just to tell Connor her philosophy on life. She said, "You know who wins the game of Life? The one who has the most words. " Yes, it was a little strange, but interesting too. I often tell Connor that it is important to write well because people have changed the world with their writings, and I think that is sort of what this woman meant today.

Books

The other day Connor blogged (entitled My Wish Upon a Star) that he wished that he had more time to just read books. I find that rather humorous, considering that we checked 18 books out of the library when we last went to Rochester, and he finished all but one of them within the three week loan period. Yes, he definitely gets enough time to just read. He reads while he's eating, he reads while we are in the car, and he reads for at least an hour every morning, before our school day officially starts at 9am. I'm grateful that he enjoys books, and considers reading a reward, rather than a punishment. When we get home from Tae Kwon Do today, I'm going to let Connor go online and order a bunch of books to take with us to China. I don't want to risk losing Library books, and we should bring soft-cover books to lighten up the luggage. All I have to do now is figure out how many books we can jam into a carry-on bag!