Half.com is an excellent source for textbooks, and their postage is slightly less than amazon.com. Paperbackswap.com has both paperbacks and hard covers. Swapping is one for one, and you get points by listing and sending books to requestors. I've been a member for over a year, and love it. Thrift stores, if they're well-stocked--not for textbooks, but for classics.

National Parks are another rarely explored resource, but an amazing teaching tool. Almost every park has a Jr. Ranger program that will guide the kids through exploring the park in general, and then the kids will get a badge when they complete the activities in their booklet. The Visitor Centers have displays relevant to the park, and there are always Park Rangers there who will answer questions or talk to the kids about the park and nature in general. Some of the bigger parks have teaching materials online as well (to do once you get home, or to print out and take with you to the park). I am fortunate enough to live near a lot of National Parks, and we do 3-4 week-long camping trips a year. My son is only 7, but he has been to over 20 parks and visited 27 states so far.

Does it matter how cheaply you're homeschooling if they're missing most of the important social stuff anyway? When I was in high school, homeschooling (is that how you'd say it?) seemed like a great idea. Now, however, after being in college 4 years, I've met and hung out with at least 15 home schooled people and all of them have pretty rough social skills. Several past roommates have been home schooled and, a year after graduating, have continued to work menial jobs occasionally because they're still too coddled to go out in to the "real world" and think they're above any sort of entry level career position. But I'm sure you and your kid is an exception/brainiac, so by all means, rock on! But don't mind me, I'm 22 so I wouldn't actually know anything about anything. Feel free to ignore.

Another place to look for homeschool resources is VegSource. Try http://www.vegsource.com/homeschool/ They have message boards and places for swapping resources.

Jeff N.: Homeschooling can be good or bad and can have good or bad results, just like anything else. I know many homeschooling families and most of the children turned out great and are doing well in life/careers. Some haven't done so well. Sometimes you get both results from the same family - one kid does great and the other kid doesn't. You're dealing with people here, not robots. The same input in two different people does not guarantee the same output. Personalities, personal ambitions, etc. all play in to it, too. There are plenty of public school (or private school) kids who got all the "socialization" you're talking about yet still work in low-paying, mediocre jobs their entire lives because they're not motivated enough or self-confident enough to look for a better job. I agree their there are some homeschooled kids that don't do well because they didn't have good opportunities for "life experience" when they were homeschooled, there are also plenty of public school kids that end up the same way.

My sister and I were both homeschooled and lack the "socialization" you mention. Instead of being stuck in a classroom with 29 other people the same age as we were, we were out dealing with older people, younger people, middle-aged people, and all the other ages in between. Believe me, we never lacked socialization. However, I'm not always comfortable in group situations. I suppose you could blame it on the homeschooling, but my sister doesn't have an issue being in groups of people. Perhaps it's just personality differences. I'm more of an introvert and she's more of an extrovert. We're both pretty successful in our careers - she's a dog trainer for a VERY well known dog trainer (her previous job was also with a very well known dog training place) and I'm the manager for an entire boarding kennel. We're both still in our early/mid twenties, too, so it's not as if we've finally gotten around this this at 35 years old.

We spent tons of time at the library, did lots of volunteering and job-shadowing, did hands-on projects, got together with other homeschoolers for "classes" and science projects and every other kind of project, researched, went to parks, and had pretty much everything turned into a learning experience.

For home-ec, my mom would have us cook a meal every so often (we had to do that before we "officially took" home-ec, too). She incorporated a recipe book in the curriculum: she bought us each a recipe book and told us we couldn't put a recipe in it until we had made it. I hated the project at the time. Absolutely hated it (I was not an indoors person - I wanted to be outside). Now I'm married and living on my (our) own and I love that cookbook. It's crammed with recipes, magazine cutouts, printed out recipes from online, and recipes scribbled on scrap paper. It was really a good project (even though I loathed it at the time).

I completely agree with the previous poster - when people find out that a child is homeschooled, they immediately look at any fault or bad habit that the child might have and blame homeschooling as the reason the child is the way that they are, but if a kid is in public school and has the same bad habit then the school is never to blame. When a homeschooled kid is shy then homeschooling is always the "reason", and yet when a public/private schooled child is shy then it is just assumed that that is the kid's personality and the school isn't to blame. Homeschooled kid talks a lot? Blame the fact that they get one-on-one attention at home. Public school kid talks a lot? They are outgoing and just acting like a kid. Homeschooled kid seems anxious a lot? It is because they are homeschooled, but if a public school kid is anxious then it is just part of their personality.

Socialization isn't always a great thing you know. Go to a public school and ask the fat kid how fun it is to be teased all the time by a class of his peers. Ask the stutterers how they like being around a ton of kids every day who make fun them for something that they can't control. Ask the wallflowers who don't get asked to Prom how much they love the social aspects of public high school. Being forced to interact with a never changing group of kids isn't always a good thing. Being homeschooled and never leaving the house isn't a good thing either. You have to find what works for your kid.

My son has been home-schooled for the past 2 years and he is much more social than many of his peers who are in private and/or public schools. Why is it that we all think the only way to "socialize" kids is to make them spend 7-8 hours per pay day locked up with a bunch of people their own age? Where else does this happen? In the real world, you need to be able to interact with people of all ages, not just your own. I find that many of my son's friends haven't the first clue about the appropriate way to greet an adult. Most of them ignore adults. Conversely, my son looks people inthe eye, greets them, and politely answers any question they may have for them.

Between sports, Boy Scouts, friends in the neighborhood, and weekends at the playground, there are myriad opportunities for kids to socialize with peers.