It’s that time of the year again when I start looking for the kids’ learning material for next year.  Where I have chosen not to use a prepared curriculum, choosing the right books and resources to use can be a daunting task.  Although I feel that I am very thorough in my investigations, the best measure of my choices is my children. 

My absolute favorite company for information is Rainbow Resource Center. Their catalog, the size of a phonebook from a major city, has a permanent place among my homeschool resources. I refer to it often whenever I want to learn more about a particular program or book.  It not only has excellent product descriptions, but they also provide very helpful reviews among its thousand plus pages.  I have ordered from them many times and they have an exceptional customer service.  For example, shortly after receiving a book I had ordered, I received a phone call from Rainbow.  They had just received the revised version of the book and they were sending it out to me, no charge. I didn’t even have to return the older version.  Another time I had e-mailed a question about a product and a personal reply was sent the next day. I really appreciate being able to deal directly with a person and not have to deal with a ton of automated services.  Their commitment to personal service has kept me going back to this company. Their website is easy to use and has reviews and product descriptions also.

Along with Rainbow Resource, I also rely heavily on a few web sites to get different views of the product I’m checking out.  A lot of books on Amazon have a ‘Look Inside’ feature so you can get a better idea of what the book is about and there are also customer reviews.  Christian Book Distributors also offers views and insights to the books they carry.  Then I usually try to go to the publishers’ sites to see what information they have to share. I don’t always buy from these companies but I do appreciate the valuable information that they provide.

So, with these ‘tools’ at my disposal, I set about the task of next year’s choices.  I’m sure I will make some good one’s and I know there’ll be some bad, but with much prayer maybe my kids won’t be scarred for life. LOL