What strategy do you use when shopping a curriculum fair? What advice would you give for a first timer?
Christine

We are finishing your second year of homeschooling our almost-10 year old son and 8 year old son.

I haven't been to a curriculum fair yet but I will be attending the conference for the curriculum that I do use. Maybe you've heard of it: FIAR

There is a message board at this site for the users of FIAR and over the last 2 years I've made some cyber friends and have gleaned a great deal from the veterans of homeschooling. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to meet some of these indredible moms IRL!

I hope others will post about their strategies and what to look for at curriculum fairs. I have stayed clear of the one in Denver mainly because I know I'll be overwhelmed and I'm very happy with our curriculum choices.

Good topic!

I will attend my tenth homeschool convention this June. My state's homeschool convention is the highlight of my year.

I always start making a list in January or so. I put in bold the items that I definitely will purchase if I see them there at a good price. I put in regular type items that I'm interested in but not sure I want to buy. I include prices on my list, so that I will know a good deal when I see it. In the header of my shopping list page, I put the things I want to take with me: convention tickets, cash, checks, paper on which to take workshop notes, pencil, tote bags, rolling crate, book inventory list (we own over 2000 books, and I take a list of books that we own so that I don't buy a book that we already have), highlighter (for highlighting workshops I want to attend), watch, cell phones.

After I check in at the convention, I go through the convention booklet, marking workshops I want to attend. I don't buy anything my first time through the vendor area. I go past all the booths, visiting booths that have products I want or look interesting. I make note of who has low prices on things I want and add things to my list that I want to look at again.

Although I don't buy everything I want at the convention (there are usually things I want but don't see there), I do spend quite a bit of money there. The vendors go to the trouble and expense of attending the convention, which enables me to look at items I would not otherwise be able to see before buying. Purchasing from them is a way of saying thanks and of encouraging them to attend future conventions.

If you don't have a good idea of what curricula you want, don't buy at the convention. You probably will have plenty of time afterwards to reconsider the various curricula in which you are interested. Waiting may help you avoid spending money on curricula you won't like or use.

I had never taken my children to the convention until last year, when my teenager went for the first time. It was nice having a break from the children and enjoying the convention with just my dh. I did enjoy having my teen with us last year, though. He only went one day, but he wants to go two this year.

Hi Alegnab,
Wow, you are a wise woman! Thanks for sharing all that curriculum advice. I shudder to think about how many dollars I have wasted in curriculum purchases. A waste of money and not very good stewardship of my hubby's hard earned money.
Thanks again!
Christine

Thanks for the complement, Christine, but it's undeserved. I'm trying to help others avoid the mistakes that I've made over the last 11 years (I missed the 2001 convention, because my fourth baby was due the day it started).

I have also wasted a lot of money on curricula over the years -- hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I have tried so many history curricula, but each year I ended up dropping the current one and just having the kids read through history. However, history curriculum mistakes are finally over now that I've found TruthQuest. I tried several science curricula over the years, but I ended up dropping them, too, until I found Apologia elementary. There are other subjects for which I've bought stuff I didn't like, but at least I didn't change every year like I've done with history and science. I've bought lots of stuff that looked good and I wanted to do, but I never found time to use them regularly in our homeschool. I decided to make a book inventory list, because a couple of times I had bought something I already had. I'm still learning from my mistakes.

Oh, another thing I've learned from past conventions is to not visit the used curriculum sale. Dh and I always buy stuff we don't need there. Dh is worse than I am in there. Last year, we went in, saw the looonnnggg line, and went right back out. I was rather relieved, since I knew we'd spend money on stuff we didn't need if we stayed there. We can afford to buy curricula new, and I prefer new curricula, so we just get extra books, games, etc. at the used sale. Hmmm. Maybe I should discourage dh from going to the convention. Last year, he bought at least three new games. We already had well over 100 games! We didn't need any more games. But our family loves games, and there are always so many there that look fun.

We had our local used sale this week and I thought that was really smart - the moms were walking around with lists to cut down on that impulse buying. Great idea!
Christine

We have a used curriculum sale coming up June 10. I rented table space to try to sell some of our books, but I'm going to try hard to resist the urge to buy too much! My daughter is helping me, so I'll probably let her go around and see if there's anything she wants, but most of the time I plan to stay at the sales table. Otherwise I'd end up spending as much money as I make at the sale, and I don't need to do that!
Lori