The perils of being a book hoarder
The school planning is going well. I have found a free middle school chemistry resource that looks as though it will be a great structure for what we will be doing; I'll just need to add extra things. Having found this, I decided to first work in earnest on Ancient Greece. My studio table is piled with books. I have a lot of books about Ancient Greece and there is not enough time room to have them all spread out singly. Last year I had found the Oxford First Ancient History which we used quite a bit for Ancient Egypt; it is proving equally useful this year. I'm using it as our outline for what we cover and when. I'm currently up to the Persian Wars, focusing particularly on the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis.
(Since I've just been writing down lists of readings, activities, and documentaries so far, I'm starting to be concerned I'll have far more than we will be able to use during the school year. There is still quite a bit I need to add... philosophy and science, the Olympics, Alexander, drama, as well as the later part of Ancient Greek history. We'll see how much I end up cutting when I start to slot it into the calendar.)
One thing I really like to try to do when I can is to add in historical fiction for our teatime read alouds I had come across an older, out of print, title that looked interesting about the Battle of Marathon. After looking it up on the library website and not finding it. I started to look at used books on Amazon. Well, it's a good thing that often a picture of the cover is shown. I was excited to find a copy of the book and waited for the picture to load before hitting 'buy'. I look at the cover and realize it looks familiar. I look closer at the cover and it begins to occur to me that I might actually own the book. I glance around the table, and there sitting on the top of a pile behind the computer is the exact same book. I was very glad I had paused before hitting that buy button.
I'm afraid to say that if I had purchased it, it would not be the first time I had bought a book I already owned. I don't mean to, but I do own a lot of books. A lot of books which don't always get read when we are on a certain topic, so they are not fresh in my mind. Since there also happens to be quite of bit of other stuff inside my head, it is easy for my mental card catalog to malfunction every now and then. It's always nice when I can catch myself first, though.
(Since I've just been writing down lists of readings, activities, and documentaries so far, I'm starting to be concerned I'll have far more than we will be able to use during the school year. There is still quite a bit I need to add... philosophy and science, the Olympics, Alexander, drama, as well as the later part of Ancient Greek history. We'll see how much I end up cutting when I start to slot it into the calendar.)
One thing I really like to try to do when I can is to add in historical fiction for our teatime read alouds I had come across an older, out of print, title that looked interesting about the Battle of Marathon. After looking it up on the library website and not finding it. I started to look at used books on Amazon. Well, it's a good thing that often a picture of the cover is shown. I was excited to find a copy of the book and waited for the picture to load before hitting 'buy'. I look at the cover and realize it looks familiar. I look closer at the cover and it begins to occur to me that I might actually own the book. I glance around the table, and there sitting on the top of a pile behind the computer is the exact same book. I was very glad I had paused before hitting that buy button.
I'm afraid to say that if I had purchased it, it would not be the first time I had bought a book I already owned. I don't mean to, but I do own a lot of books. A lot of books which don't always get read when we are on a certain topic, so they are not fresh in my mind. Since there also happens to be quite of bit of other stuff inside my head, it is easy for my mental card catalog to malfunction every now and then. It's always nice when I can catch myself first, though.
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