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Do you keep all of your books for the next child?


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Or do you get rid of them and buy something else for the next child? Right now I am debating whether it would be better to save all of these books so I already have them for my youngest or to sell them and get new.

What do you do and why?

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I know I am not as thrifty as I should be but with an age gap like that, I would sell anything that is easily replaceable. Who knows what you will want to teach in 7 years. You may change your whole philosophy may even change. Maybe it's just that I like to shop for books and I don't want to run out of books to shop for.

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I have 5 years between mine, and I am only saving the things that I absolutely love (like SOTW). I figure, what works for this child may not even work for the next child. But something like SOTW is easily adapted to different learning styles by adding/dropping readings and projects.

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I would do a little of both. I plan on saving Omnibus for all of my kids especially since the cost is so hefty. I plan on saving our latin program because it has worked for us and was also costly. Things that are tried and true for us like certain history books, art books and other favorite books to turn to I save.

 

Things like math, grammar, science curriculum I would probably just sell and replace when you need them. Same with Hhstory if I had a full curriculum, but I have lots of different things. I think I will just keep my SOTW's and my Guerber's books instead of replacing later.

 

Just my thoughts on how I do things around here:)

 

My age gap is about 6 years between the youngest and the next up so I will be implementing this myself.

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I've saved all my stuff, and have only one kiddo. It is going to be a very strange library when it is done.

 

Do you have a specific reason for doing this? I always keep thinking "oh I might need that for reference sometime", or something to that effect.

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I keep most of our books for my second child. Some things I get rid of because they didn't work well. Also, when that second child is at the stage of needing those books, I sometimes get rid or one or two things that I know will not fit his needs very well. But, we re-use the vast majority of our books.

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Do you have a specific reason for doing this? I always keep thinking "oh I might need that for reference sometime", or something to that effect.

 

I always think certain books would make great references and they do. I think those are keeper's. My dh and I love to continue learning and if something pop's up on tv or in conversation I love to be able to pull out a book and look it up. Isn't that why we all buy so many books?:)

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I save almost everything.

 

Part of it has been that my youngest is not far behind my 7 and 5 year olds, so I save their stuff in case I want it for him. I save my oldest son's stuff for my other kids- the age gap is bigger, but this is mostly Sonlight cores, and those books are always going to be great. Even if we decided to use something else, I'd have the SL books to add in, or I'd just have them around for the kids to read as they feel like it.

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Or do you get rid of them and buy something else for the next child? Right now I am debating whether it would be better to save all of these books so I already have them for my youngest or to sell them and get new.

What do you do and why?

 

It depends on the books, but I tend to buy books with the idea that I will reuse them withthe rest of the upcoming kids.

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Do you have a specific reason for doing this? I always keep thinking "oh I might need that for reference sometime", or something to that effect.

A lot of what I've purchased for the grammer stage are read alouds. I'm hoping that dd will read them on her own during the logic stage. Then there are the hypothetical grandkids. I can't see prices of anything going down ever. Even mass market paperbacks will be readable in 20 years.

 

I've got the space for them and we are a family of book lovers.

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I'd say keep, unless you need to sell to fund next year.

 

But then, I still have most of my interesting college texts, and started collecting children's books and interesting nonfiction before I even had kids, so I'd be ready, and have only parted with ANY book in dire straits (must sell to buy food, etc.)... I sent like 4 or 5 cases of books home from having them stashed on my ship when I got out of the Navy, even (and all my other possessions fit in a pair of seabags).

 

My nutzo bibliophile tendencies may not be the best guide...

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My kids are close together so I keep everything. But with such a big age difference I would sell unless there is something that you really, really like.

 

With RS, if you are sold on that program I would keep it but make sure you have all of the workbooks cause they could change by the time your youngest is ready to use them. I plan on buying the workbooks all at once for my youngest just in case.

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My kids are close together so I keep everything. But with such a big age difference I would sell unless there is something that you really, really like.

 

With RS, if you are sold on that program I would keep it but make sure you have all of the workbooks cause they could change by the time your youngest is ready to use them. I plan on buying the workbooks all at once for my youngest just in case.

 

I already have all the lessons and workbooks for rightstart (except c, but I will have that soon too). I did this because I really love the program and I have gotten A,B,D, E, Geometry, and manipulative's for around $200. Awesome deal I thought. LOL

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I'm keeping my Math and Handwriting only because they aren't worth selling. I used Rod and Staff for Language Arts and I don't know if I'll go that route again (my girls are 3 years apart). I've already sold the 1st grade Rod and Staff and have the 2nd grade up for sale (we're done with it). My reasoning was two fold. 1-I am the absolute opposite of a pack rat. Since I don't know that I'm going to use it, why keep it? 2-I need money to fund the next year's resources. Science and History are different. I've had a couple of things BOMB so they are out of here. But the things I really liked, we keep :) I guess I should qualify that statement. When History or Science didn't work for us, I sold the Teacher's guides. However, I kept ALL the books because they are always worth keeping:D

 

Even with my girls being only 3 years apart, there is still enough time for new curriculum and improvements. With the age gap you have, I wouldn't feel hemmed in. If you could sell your teacher's guides and make money, I would do it! Then again, I might not be the best influence (see my signature):lol:

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It depends on the curricula. Both of mine did Singapore math, so, yes, those books I kept. However, dd was always stronger in language arts, spelling, etc, so what I used for her will not necessarily work for ds. I sold Spelling Power at a recent used-curriculum fair because it would most definitely not be for him.

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I keep most of everything, especially literature. I only keep other curriculum that I really like. I only have 1 daughter (11) that I homeschool, but I have 2 grandkids that my daughter hopes to homeschool. I also have 3 other adult children who hopefully will give me many more grandkids who will be homeschooled. I even put it in our will that all of my school books are to be shared by those who choose to homeschool their kids.

Janis in DE

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I plan on keeping most of our things. We don't have a lot of "curriculum" but mostly living books. Since we don't have a very good library, I plan on keeping those things. I have some curriculum type things that I'll probably sell pretty soon. We're also doing Rightstart, and I plan on keeping all of those books. My DC are each 2 years apart, so it's a little closer than yours, but math isn't going to change that drastically is the time you'll need it again. ;) I'd keep those for sure!

 

The only things I'm planning on selling were things I wasn't too crazy about to begin with.

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Or do you get rid of them and buy something else for the next child? Right now I am debating whether it would be better to save all of these books so I already have them for my youngest or to sell them and get new.

What do you do and why?

 

If you are talking story books. I keep the classics then donate the ones that were child specific i.e. oldest son loves, arthur books, another son loved curious george. Also, I am quite bored of some stories after reading them to 4 children so I have purchased or dh picks up a new book for our dd so we have something different to read.

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I save them unless they just really don't work for *me* as a teacher, in which case I tend to get rid of them right away. If something doesn't seem to be working for one kid, it might work for the next, or I might be able to adapt it to work for them. But, with programs I really like I'll buy the whole series in case it goes out of print or changes edition (like Singapore did) before I am finished using the series with my kids. If I sold a great curriculum (which is all I use ;) ) then I might not find it again when it's time for the next kiddo to use it.

 

This way I can focus on researching and buying the next year's curriculum instead of having to reinvent the wheel.

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