Homeschooling stuff SCORE!

So I'm going to start up a family daycare. It's going to be all of the good and none of the dogmatic crap of all of the nice philosophies - Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Waldorf. Basically acknowledging that children are, you know, actual people. More on that later.

Anyway, I have been looking at sample childcare contracts and advertisements and stuff to work out what I want mine to say. The other day I did a search on Craigs List for childcare, but not knowing the site that well, I was searching goods instead of services. So I happened upon an ad for a crapload of awesome stuff that a homeschooling mom (who had run a family daycare) was selling. Loads and loads of resources and learning materials, including stuff that I had actually gone shopping for and not bought because they were too expensive new (Cuisenaire rods, 100s board with multiple sets of numbers). Children's thesaurus and dictionary, a rhyming dictionary, loads of space and constellation stuff, a music curriculum. And on and on and on. Art ideas galore, nature stuff, anatomy stuff. It was a score. I placed my (very substantial) order, recognizing that it was a bit of a coincidence (if you believe in coincidences, which I don't) to find all of this stuff so well priced, right when I'm looking into starting up a childcare.

We picked up our stuff today. It was a bit overwhelming at first, just because of the sheer volume (three boxes) and the lack of places to put it (we're still staying with my mom). I sort of organized stuff into "stuff aimed at the adult" and "stuff aimed at the kids" and left it at that.

After dinner, the kids started poking through and found the 100 board and a set of numbers. They decided to put the numbers in order from 1-100. Here's them at work:









After that set, they did the other set of numbers. Then moved onto one of the three sets of Cuisenaire rods. Ahh, the joy of math (when nobody is forcing you to do it).

Good times.