Radically Downsizing Homeschool Materials and Books

[Hunter]

My apartment is truly unique. I'm empty nest and just tutoring, not homeschooling my children anymore, so nobody panic. :lol:

 

Other than my 13 bookcases, my only furniture is cheap folding tables and chairs, and a foam mattress. I used to have 2 pieces of foam. One was the "bed" and one was the "couch" but one of my child guests wet the "bed" and now there is no "couch" :lol:

 

My apartment looks more like an artist's work loft that just occasionally gets slept in. It looks like a hang out place more than a home.

 

There are books EVERYWHERE. Despite 13 bookcases there are books piled on the floors, in the corners, in front of the bookcases and under the tables.

 

Two of the bookcases are next to the "art table" and hold as many art supplies as books.

 

Other than art supplies and books there isn't much here. The kitchen is so primitive, we often bake in the cover to the cast iron dutch oven. The brownies and cakes come out a bit crusty, but still good. :lol: I have a couple cheap kitchen knives now, but for years I just hacked at things with my camping knife. Cottage cheese containers make good bowls, right? When I run out of my two towels, people have to dry off with a t-shirt.

 

It's funny to watch people react to my apartment.

[momto2Cs]

I'm doing this now. My children are older, with one year left in middle school for one and two in high school for the other. So it was time to get rid of all the elementary level materials plus any middle school materials I am sure I won't use. For me it isn't curriculum as much as just books.

 

 

With dd in 5th grade this fall, and ds in 7th, I've been purging our bookcases too. I'm also reorganizing them into sections so that I can easily see what we have. All the early elem materials are going, and anything that we can easily get at the library. Of course, I am also making room for the 35+ "All About" science books I bought :tongue_smilie: but that's another story. We have a lot of book drop-boxes in the area, which helps me easily donate books we no longer need.

 

I'm also purging clothes, knick-knacks, etc. We sat down and decided as a family that we need a lot less stuff than we have, homeschooling materials being near the top of the list.

[elegantlion]

My apartment is truly unique. I'm empty nest and just tutoring, not homeschooling my children anymore, so nobody panic. :lol:

 

Other than my 13 bookcases, my only furniture is cheap folding tables and chairs, and a foam mattress. I used to have 2 pieces of foam. One was the "bed" and one was the "couch" but one of my child guests wet the "bed" and now there is no "couch" :lol:

 

My apartment looks more like an artist's work loft that just occasionally gets slept in. It looks like a hang out place more than a home.

 

There are books EVERYWHERE. Despite 13 bookcases there are books piled on the floors, in the corners, in front of the bookcases and under the tables.

 

Two of the bookcases are next to the "art table" and hold as many art supplies as books.

 

Other than art supplies and books there isn't much here. The kitchen is so primitive, we often bake in the cover to the cast iron dutch oven. The brownies and cakes come out a bit crusty, but still good. :lol: I have a couple cheap kitchen knives now, but for years I just hacked at things with my camping knife. Cottage cheese containers make good bowls, right? When I run out of my two towels, people have to dry off with a t-shirt.

 

It's funny to watch people react to my apartment.

 

 

Your apartment sounds wonderful. I recently changed made the classroom the bedroom, and the bedroom the classroom (ds has the attic dormer). I left all the wall bookshelves in the bedroom, including the one right above the bed. It's so calming to sleep among the books.

[lailasmum]

I had a book clear out recently. I actually made a nice bit of money selling them. I got rid of all the baby and young toddler type books which was two big boxes. I also cleared out a lot of my books so anything I had multiple books in a subject I chose the best one or two. I got rid if a few others where I had multiple books on a topic.

[mamakelly]

I've been unloading books like crazy these past few weeks. My youngest is Kinder, and I wonn't have any other kids to school. I can't do 3 K science programs, 4 third grade maths etc... It's been very freeing to get rid of things!

[Alyeska]

We have a library that has a very tiny working budget, so I donate books to them routinely. I even purchase books at second hand to donate to them. One of the librarians homeschooled her kids and really does an excellent job with keeping good books on the shelves, so I know when I donate, it will be appreciated. Just knowing that other homeschoolers in our area will use the books makes it much easier to part with them.

[shanvan]

5 more bags went to Goodwill today and I haven't even started on the upstairs. As usual, Ds was a tremendous help. "When are we ever going to have time to build our own miniature canal and why would we want to?" and many similar statements were made as the books were bagged.

[EmilyK]

This has been inspirational since I need to purge this summer!

[Just Another Jen]

I brought 8 boxes of books to half price books and got a whopping $25 for them. But, now I have more space on the shelves. I probably should bring another bunch over there.

[RoundAbout]

In two weeks my DH retires from active duty and we will be roadschooling our way across the US until Christmas.  I'm buying a large rolling briefcase and all homeschooling materials have to fit.  

 

Here's what I'm bringing for 1st grade:

 

-Rightstart C books, game cards, and a few manipulatives 

-Sketch pad and colored pencils

-Explode the Code 7 and 8

-Handwriting paper

-History journal

-Basic school supplies (pens, pencils, ruler, glue, scissors)

-Small white board

 

Kindle (SoTW, reading books for DS)

iPad (WWE and other PDFs, tons of educational apps).

 

I think that's it unless I can squeeze in something else.  Science is going to be covered by visiting National Parks and Museums.  We're buying a science center pass in our home city for $100 with reciprocal benefits across the country. 

 

My only concern is that we're 2/3 way through our math curriculum right now so it might not last until December.  There's plenty to practice though, and DS is ahead, so it might be worthwhile to stretch it out with lots of the RS games.  I also need to do something more formal with spelling.

 

I will give an update once we are underway.  No idea if this will be frustrating or liberating!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hunter]

I am purging like crazy. I was slow to actually get to the give away phase, spending almost a year first PRACTICING teaching with less. Now the great purge has begun.

 

I don't care if I have to repurchase some of this stuff. Nothing is worth living under this mountain of books. I used to be comforted by my libraries. In the past my libraries were always taken away from me against my will, by hardships and other people. I was always fighting to be able to have more books, and never feeling like I had enough.

 

I finally got to gorge myself, and to get it out of my system. I'm glad I had the opportunity to fully gorge, because I'm now fully done with experiencing that. I'd rather LIVE lean and trim, than always have all I want in every weak moment.

 

My whole life, other than books, is ultra radically minimalist. This is the first time I've been ready to match my book ownership practices with the rest of my life. I'm not advocating minimalist book ownership for anyone who doesn't prefer a minimalist lifestyle in other areas as well. 

 

My high-rise has a community library. I'm trying to downsize to mostly things that can be donated to a library that caters to adults. I'm keeping 2 small bookcases of cookbooks that could be carted and welcomed downstairs in just a few minutes, because they make my galley kitchen look homey. I'm keeping some of my encyclopedias and reference books which also could be carted downstairs right away. But other than that, I'm trying to get my curriculum choices to just a couple shelves and some ebooks. I'm even giving away the bookcases.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

. As to the rest, my approach will be to look at every item in my home and ask one question: if my house burned down today, would I repurchase this item. If no, it goes.

I love your criteria.

[Hunter]

I'm mailing a 10+ pound box out almost every day. The post office employees are all laughing at me every time they weigh the boxes. I'm like a magician that just keeps pulling more and more out of his hat. Often I don't have boxes of my own and am resorting to filling their priority boxes as full as I can. I just keep pulling more and more out of my backpack and they say I'm "fitting it together like a jigsaw puzzle".

 

I'm having as much fun giving this away, as I had receiving it. Filling the boxes as tightly as I can, somehow pleases my OCD tendencies. :lol:

 

And the bookshelves are getting nice and empty. It's such a relief. During the last earth quake, I really thought one of them was going to fall on me. I've never recovered from that. What a way to go--crushed by a pile of hoarded books. That is NOT how I want to die!

[Angie in VA]

Oops, should have used multi quotes here. About having just a few Billy book cases (said by the OP in that pretty font that unfortunately gives me a headache to read):

 

Please nobody tell my husband this!

Yeah, really! (Check out my signature!)

[Angie in VA]

Before our last move, our house was up for sale and staged. I boxed up about 85% of my books and put them in storage. When the movers came to our house, they remarked on how many books we had. I think DH might have actually snorted. Their eyebrows went sky high when they did the pick up from the storage facility. 

ROFLOL about your DH's snorting!

[FriedClams]

I did a HUGE purge recently. I sold a ton to a used book store for store credit and then chucked a bunch. I got rid of about 15 banker's boxes worth of books and supplies. It stressed me out when I did it because some were things I could sill use - but once it was done and all the dust settled (and the "to go" pile was gone and the trash picked up) it felt amazing.

[FriedClams]

We have a library that has a very tiny working budget, so I donate books to them routinely. I even purchase books at second hand to donate to them. One of the librarians homeschooled her kids and really does an excellent job with keeping good books on the shelves, so I know when I donate, it will be appreciated. Just knowing that other homeschoolers in our area will use the books makes it much easier to part with them.

I used to do this as well. We had a free homeshool lending room with no time limits. Then - the library wanted control (and I think to claim $$$) so they took over the room, categorized all the books, and started charging fines after 2 weeks. All with absolutely no notice to the homeschool community and the people who donated all the curriculum and built up the space for the purpose of FREE use. Really - you can check out a full year math book for 2 weeks? It absolutely infuriated me so I won't donate anything any more. I'll give to a local mom instead or where I used to donate - sell them. Makes me sad.