Avoid my mistakes when buying 2nd Hand Curriculum
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Here are couple of things to ask yourself before you part with your hard-earned money purchasing 2nd hand Curriculum (or new for that matter!) from things I have learnt myself – mostly the hard way!
What version of the curriculum is it??
Buying second hand curriculum is absolutely fabulous and a necessity for most of us as single income households home educating our children. There a few things you should to be aware of before you jump the gun and purchase to avoid mistakes I have made myself as a mum and have seen many times as curriculum supplier.
This is one catches people out a lot – purchasing the teachers/instruction manual 2nd hand and then buy the student workbook new and they are 2 different editions and the lessons don’t match up! This can cause a massive headache for some. Some companies make sure older editions match with new editions but some get revamped so much that there is no way they can match up anymore.
When a curriculum company brings out a new edition of a product, the older edition has already been run down and is low in stock – suppliers (like us) are told in advance and ran their stocks down low in preparation for selling the new edition. Some companies we distribute/on sell for, don’t allow us sell older editions as soon as the new addition is launched and we are under contractual obligation NOT to say a word about it so we can’t even give you prior warning! You can’t always rely on being able to get an older student edition either.
Before to say yes to the much cheaper instructional manual – please check you can still get a student workbook that matches up before you buy. Or at the very least you will be aware they don’t directly match up before you buy them and not be so frustrated.
Am I going to use this with my child in the next 12-24 months?
I am a bit of a set collector and one of the things I did as a new home educating mum is when I found a curriculum I loved, I would buy all the different options I could find! Especially if I was buying them 2nd hand. Yup, the curriculum is so good and so shiny and it’s new and I want the whole set on the shelf! Can anyone relate to this at all?
I understand the appeal and strong pull of curriculum. My warning is this – yes this one book of the curriculum is great and suits your child and your family and is fabulous. On this we can agree. But you will change, as will your child, as possibly will your family situation. A lot can change in 12 to 24 months. For me, I lot of the curriculum I started with suited our eldest but not when we had additional children – it was curriculum that was teacher intensive and just didn’t suit once I was also caring for a toddler and a new born. I needed something different! It wasn’t anything against the curriculum itself but it no longer suited our needs at that particular time.
I have got two PDF versions of curriculums that I loved with my eldest and I have never used them. Not once! I have looked at them, admired them, but I haven’t used them. It was a waste of money.
Digital Downloads and e-books:
Have an awareness of how you use curriculum the most…. For example: I love e-books, they save money, space and are easy to get – however, I have discovered in my homeschooling journey that I don’t tend you use them at all. I personally am a hands on, touch, turn the page, put in bookmarks, highlight, turn the corner over to mark the piece I want, make notes along the way kinda person….. ebooks just don’t invoke in me the same want to pick it up – I can’t flick through a ebook and find the bit I was looking for – you get to know where things are in a physical book – I really struggle to do that with a ebook.
And while PDFs are fabulous and save money and shipping! They still take time to print them out and bind them or money and time to take them to the store and do it….. so for me, e books and PDFs tend to go unused and unread so they end up NOT saving me money at all.
The next thing to be uber aware of when purchasing PDF files is they have no resell value because you aren’t allowed/can’t sell digital files on 2nd hand. They are a one time purchase for you and you alone.
Do you NEED a curriculum to teach that??
All kids are different, all families are different and each have their own unique set of challenges. I know families who thrive on watching documentaries, You Tube, creating their own experiments, getting out library books and the kids will learn and have fun and engage, those families don’t really need curriculum to follow because learning in happening all the time! Or these families a curriculum could potentially squash the naturally flowing learning already happening.
But for the families that just find this way of doing things completely overwhelming and while it may work for some, that family know that in reality - science just wouldn’t get done so causally like that and it would cause mum anxiety and stress – so a curriculum that adults and kids alike thrive on and learning happens is invaluable. This could be reading aloud books, it could be workbooks or it may be a fun experiment book to follow and do – there is no wrong way.
One of our kids taught himself to read! He refused lessons completely but was surrounded with stories and would sit in on big brothers reading lessons but refused to participate…. One day, he picked up a book and just started reading and he hasn’t stopped since. He didn’t need a curriculum to learn to read. One of my other boys needed a really hands on curriculum to read – it had colouring, cutting and gluing, games – lots of interactive things. This he thrived on! Another just needed to get half way through a simple, phonics based reading programme and he was off!! My daughter, who has some learning delays, may need something more indepth and intense like All About Reading as this programme shines for those with learning disabilities.
Handwriting is another huge one. Most of my kids haven’t needed to follow a curriculum. I have personally had the time and space to teach them letter formation when they were younger and then copywork has been enough to ensure they had beautiful handwriting! However with my younger children when time hasn’t been as widely available I have used a curriculum to teach them proper letter formation before moving them onto copywork. Each child, each family is totally unique and has their own sets of challenges and needs different things at different times!
You don’t need to cover ALL subjects EVERY year all the time.
The beauty of home education is you don’t have to cover every subject everyday – multiple things can be covered within one subject! What my kids do daily depends on their ages and stage.
Once kids have mastered something – they don’t need to keep doing it again and again. Typing is a good example of this. My kids have all wanted to learn typing, so typing has become apart of their daily ‘school’ work – until such time they have completed the programme and learnt to type! Then what they have learnt, they put into practice typing up their English stories or creating birthday cards or whatever they fancy! One of my boys wants to learn Microsoft better – so I have got him a course on that which takes him through the basics of using word, step by step. Once completed, he will no longer need to have that as a part of his weekly school tasks but he will use those skills in other areas.
Even grammar and English can be like this – My eldest did approximately 3 years of IEW and the thrived on it! But once he has learnt to writem, he no longer had English as a subject anymore but he took what he had learnt and knew and applied them to his other schoolwork! My other boys have just taken to doing Grammar recently – so copywork as a separate skill has been exchanged for them writing out their daily grammar sentence as their copywork! It should take 13 years of schooling to learn to write well – or do learn grammar, or a midrid of other subjects.
If you have a year or even just a term, that focuses on all things science and not much else because that is where your kids are at and that is what they want to do for the year – then so be it! That is ok. As long as you are content as a family and are engaged and learning together.
Curriculum ages – some well, some not so well
I have seen wonderful home educators who have been home educating for 20+ years and have held onto the curriculum they have used for their children and then generously gift it to a new educator only for them to find that the student materials to go with the curriculum can no longer be purchased or it has been updated 2 or 3 times. While I have been guilty of this a little in our 14+ years of home educating, holding onto curriculum because it was what I used with my eldest, I have learnt that curriculum does age, isn’t great forever and doesn’t always retain its value.
I am not saying to jump at anything new and shiny and to discard what has been around and successful for the last 20 plus years – what I am saying is to use your own judgement and logic.
As a home educator who has been on this incredible journey for 14+ years now and still has 16 or so years to go yet, as our youngest is only 2, I have learnt not to hold on to curriculum we were using 5+ years ago just in case we may get back around to using it again. By the time our two youngest girls are at the stage my elder boys are – the curriculum the boys are now using will be outdated, I won’t necessarily be able to get the correct editions of any student materials needed and our girls may need something completely different because of family situation, learning styles and a whole pile of other reasons.
Please don’t hold onto curriculum for years and years while it collects dust on the shelf – but take a deep brave breathe and sell it on while it still holds some value on the 2nd hand market and can still be of use and blessing to another family and use that money to invest into something you are going to use in the next 12-24 months.