How to Find Homeschool Supplies at Yard Sales

Homeschooling can run families hundreds to thousands of dollars per year. Homeschooling swaps, while beneficial, aren't always available to every homeschooling family. Most people can find a yard sale or two where hidden homeschooling treasures are affordable and plentiful. The key to finding homeschooling supplies at yard sales is to look beyond what an item is supposed to be used for and look at how it can be used for teaching.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Newspaper with yard-sale listings
• Bags or crates for holding purchases

1. Get a newspaper on Thursday or Friday night depending on when yard sales are held in your area. Review all of the yard sale ads and see if anyone lists items you need for school.
2. Write down yard sales you definitely want to hit, and plan what time you'll leave in the morning. Make a list of supplies you need for homeschooling such as books, art supplies, paper, folders, boxes, movies and music.
3. Go straight to the books and movies first when you get to the yard sale. These are usually easiest to sort through and reasonably priced. Look for fun books and movies that cover themes you'll work on in the future. Most yard sales won't have text or workbooks, but it's not hard to find a VHS of "Indiana Jones" for an archaeology unit or a compilation of Shakespeare's greatest works.
4. Take advantage of cheaply priced costume jewelry that can be cut apart and used for art projects. Look for jars or boxes of buttons, lace or beads that people usually sell for two dollars or less and snatch them up for use in projects and as small manipulatives or counters for younger children.
5. Check out the music selection, especially if the people holding the yard sale are older, because you may find tapes or CD's of classical music. Reasonably priced instruments such as drums, keyboards and guitars are sometimes at yard sales along with the accompanying sheet music.
6. Look at any board games for sale because many board games can be customized for your homeschooling needs. Even if you don't need the board game, some of the game supplies might be useful for school such as fake money, clocks, timers and pawns.
7. Watch for supplies that are useful for teaching basic skills. Decks of playing cards, dice, magnetic letters and numbers, blocks, Legos, drawing tablets, inflatable beach balls you can write on with permanent markers and diving sticks for the pool are great yard sale finds that are useful for homeschooling.

Tips & Warnings

• Arrive early to any yard sale noted as a teacher sale. These have great supplies and the good stuff goes early.
• If an item seems like something you would use for teaching, but you're not quite sure how, buy it if it's cheap enough and store it away for later.
• Buy anything that is an excellent deal, such as a game of pickup sticks for a quarter, because you can always resell it at your own yard sale if you don't use it.
• Don't try to think of how you would use each supply for homeschooling. If you don't use some items right away, you'll be glad you have them in the future.