We Got A Package Today....

Actually we get quite a few packages at our house.  Part of that is due to being a reviewer, you get lots of goodies in the mail.  The other part is because for me it is much easier to shop online than to load everyone up and drive over an hour to go shopping and when you homeschool you need to buy stuff to homeschool with.  FedEx and UPS are regulars at my house (and actually today it was kind of funny because as one truck was going down our long driveway, the other truck was coming up.)

Today's package was a little different.  When I make money through my affiliate links, I use that money to buy things for our homeschool.  Usually I have a pretty specific idea of what I am going to buy, once I bought the Sugar Creek Gang audios for Alex, once  I bought the next level of AAS when we finished in the middle of the year, and a few other times I have bought little things on my wish list that I just didn't have the money for in my homeschool budget.

This month I made some money through those affiliate links (a big thank you to those who purchase through them!) and had to decide what I was going to do with the money.  There was nothing we absolutely needed but there are (and always will be) things on my homeschool wish list just hanging out there until we get extra money.  With this money I agonized over what to buy (I don't want to waste money!)  Finally I decided to get:

The Melissa and Doug map of the United States  We have been working on geography a bit as we study US history this year, so I thought this would be a great hands on tool for some of my little ones to learn where each state is, plus the capitals, and what they are known for.

The Melissa and Doug Shape Sorting Clock Fun for my two little girls (although looking at the picture we need to work on putting the numbers right side up), but also to teach my 6 year old how to tell time.  My 11,9, and 8 year olds taught themselves, but Christian wants to learn how to tell time and hasn't figured it out for himself yet.

Liberty's Kids DVD- Since we are studying US History this year, I was looking for something that the younger children can watch to help reinforce what we are learning.  Chelsea used to watch Liberty's Kids when she was little and it was on TV and I have heard a lot of great things about the series.  When I was shopping on Amazon the other day, I noticed that the series was only $5.99 for 40 episodes, so I bought it.  I am hoping the children will really like it!

Max and Ruby DVD-  Not really for school, but as I have mentioned before when we are working on afternoon school work, Emelia and Lily get to watch a show.  Recently we made the decision to have our satellite turned off.  Max and Ruby is one of the girls' favorite shows and it was a great price so I picked it up.

The Matchlock Gun, A Lion to Guard Us, Phoebe the Spy, and The Bears on Hemlock Mountain- Alex is on his last reader that we bought in the middle of the year last year.  His reading has come so far!!  I was looking for some new readers to buy him.  We are using America the Beautiful for our history curriculum this year.  The suggested books to go along with it are fantastic, but I am reading them aloud to everyone.  To find some readers for Alex I went to the Sonlight reading list and looked at the core for American History and chose some of the readers off of that list.  Several of them are out of print so I will have to buy them used, but I thought these four would be a great place to start and I will try to pick up a few more over the next several weeks.