A repost from 2005
Book Fairs? Curriculum Fairs? Don’t you love them? I do!
But, I had to devise a strategy so that I could get the most from them. Here are the things that I try to do in order to survive a book fair.
Check with friends as to their *must-have* books. Devise plan of action so that we do not fight 😉
Have a pre-arranged amount of spending money and know that I will stick to it.
Take esky and/or thermos for drinks and sandwiches and also doubles as a stool.
Backpack containing : Sandwiches. Water bottles. Snacks for kids.Thermos of tea. Lego or other toys for kids.
Large bags for books. (Red & White stripey bags) Or bag on wheels. (Gee, a shopping trolley would be ideal eh?)
Wear layers of clothing- t-shirt, jumper, etc. I have to be comfortable. Wear comfy shoes.
Take my glasses!
Assign ‘Miss R’ and ‘Miss A’ to areas. Devise their booklists. (‘Miss A’ takes cooking and literature while Miss R takes Rare, Children’s and Nature)
Find suitable area for younger kids to settle.
Go up and down the aisles so that I can read the spines of books.
After collecting and gathering, sit down with a cuppa and go through them all. Weed them out and see if other homeschoolers want to go through discard pile. Ask other homeschoolers if I can peruse their discard pile 🙂
Sort books by category- HB, PB, etc
Queue in lines and pay. Accepts credit and eftpos but take cash!
Have pizza delivery slips on table for easy access or we starve that night because Mum won’t be cooking!
Have table cleaned down to peruse my new books with a fresh cuppa.
I wrote this back in 2004…posted it to on my blog in 2005 so I’m sure that many of you have many more great ideas! (Especially now that some of us have a little more experience now) Feel free to share your book fair survival tips!
We don’t have Book Fairs too often but the few we’ve had have been great!
I have noticed that Home Schoolers, particularly Christians, have a great love of all kinds of books. We have way more than any family can possibly utilize fully but I find it hard to weed them out.
The last year or so as my guys have gotten older, I have purposed to hand down as many re usable books/ workbooks to new home schoolers as I can.
I’m sure that won’t prevent me accumulating more if the opportunity arises and there is always the wish list!
Blessings!
Ruby
LOL!
I’ve never been to a homeschooling book fair, but I’ll be well armed now if ever I do!!
Used book sales? Now there I am dangerous…
Oh, I remember my first ever Lifeline Book Fair! Whoa, what an experience. While not specifically homeschool sales when one uses living books as a large part of the curriculum you can see why it would be so popular LOL
I have enough trouble with books in op shops… let alone book fairs!
LOL – oh definitely second hand book shops. Why wait for a fair? Do you know how many books I’ve gotten second hand? TONS. Just being in the right place at the right time also helps.
Hi Deborah,
Thanks for popping by! Oh for sure- I remember that we used to live in Op Shops and 2nd hand book stores. But ah, the thrill, the adrenalin rush of a book fair- then ya know you’re really alive. 😀
You have a lovely blog! Mind if I add you to my feed reader?
That would be nice to add me to your feed reader ( not exactly sure what it is but it sounds nice ).
We have a book fair coming up in September at a homeschool conference. I am thinking of going. 🙂
Hi Deborah, I can’t sub to your rss feed as you don’t publish a feed. Would you mind publishing your feed? You can enable that in your admin–> Settings–>Site Feed –> Allow Blog Feeds –>Full (or short).
Using RSS allows me to check many blogs without necessarily visiting them everyday. It’s the most time efficient way there is! You can see more about it here at this post.
I had a look and I think it is turned on. ?? It should work. Hopefully. 🙂