Library Visits

We go to the library a lot. We check out lots and lots of books! We depend on the library for much of our homeschooling. 

Books from the library (except for that Taboo game)

While we don't follow the Charlotte Mason model exclusively, I do love the CM philosophy of using living books, rather than textbooks for learning. It has really made learning come alive.  I feel like *I'm* learning so much, reading through these books. Perhaps I would have developed a stronger passion for learning as a child if I was reading living books, rather than textbooks! (I would say most of what I learned in history was textbook style. I read the text, memorized some facts, regurgitated it on the tests, got straight As, and promptly forgot everything I read.)

Most of what we've done for science, history, and geography has been done using living books rather than textbooks. I do supplement with a textbook sometimes, just to make sure I'm not missing anything, but I can tell Monkey loses interest quickly with them. So each week, at LEAST once a week, we visit the library. I usually reserve books online ahead of time, based on book lists from various curricula (Sonlight, KONOS, My Father's World).  We don't always use all the ones we check out, and sometimes we request things through Inter-Library Loan when our library system doesn't have it. It's been an incredible resource for us to keep our homeschooling costs low. I don't buy any books unless I'll have to use it for longer than a month. Most of our units go 1-3 weeks, and we can always renew them, for up to 3 months anyway!

With so many books checked out though, there's inevitably misplaced ones and overdue ones. While it's annoying to have to pay the fines, I think it's a small price to pay for the enormous amounts of books we have access to. I consider it a donation toward the library.