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Don’t sleep on your local library. Do the kids still use that phrase? I’m definitely getting old.

Seriously though, you are missing out on a great, FREE resource if you’re not up to date with what your local library offers.

I am a book-fanatic, always have been. When we moved into our current house, building a giant bookshelf and creating a library room was one of the first projects I wanted to tackle. It’s now my favorite room in the house.

Same with our current homeschool space. We have a homeschool bookshelf where I keep all of our school and kid-oriented books. As much as I love having books in the house, a home only has so much space.

A library however, (usually) has much more space and one main job, house books! Also, in a country with a pretty steep political divide, can we all get behind our tax dollars funding public libraries?

I mean, come on, what a gem! A place for all citizens to come and be educated on hundreds of different subjects for free. What a lovely resource.

Plus, depending on where you live, most libraries are up to date in all sorts of tech-related activities.

Our own local library has a pre-school-oriented iPad station with interactive games geared toward young ages. I love being able to go and sit in an open space, read a book or do some online work, and see all my kids engaged in productive activities.

Baby bear usually on an iPad (but learning!), middle bear making friends with any kid he can find (totally karate-chopping the unsocialized-homeschooler-stereotype in-half), and big bear searching for his next book series (he’s an avid reader like his momma).

Owning Books:

In my early years of homeschooling, I invested in a ton of books. (I’m a bargain shopper so many were from eBay.)

I have a different philosophy about owning schoolbooks these days. I have no problem owning resource books; think atlases, history and science textbooks, bibles and bible studies. I also am fine with owning classic literature or really great stories that we’ll read multiple times.

However, I’d rather not spend money and space on any other type of book, especially when we can usually find a plethora of what we’re looking for at the library.

Our history curriculum, which I love, (shout out to The Homeschool Historian), works through all of history chronologically every year.

Imagine how many subjects we’re going to encounter. I think I’d be plumb overwhelmed with the number of books we would own if we tried to buy a book on every subject-matter and story we planned to learn about.

Instead, I can go to our local library, type in some keywords in the online library catalog, and find the exact shelf location holding the books I want to check out for the week.

For example, this week we are studying the civil war. I walked away from the library with at least four books on the subject all geared towards my kids’ ages: one on Fredrick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, a submarine mystery, and a fiction-piece about a civil war museum.

There are some weeks where I will bring a heavy-duty bag and walk out of the library with over 20 books. Everyone in my family loves the library, and that feels like an accomplishment in and of itself.

Free Activities:

Also, many libraries will offer extracurricular activities, again, for FREE. Ours offers a wide range of classes like sing-along stories for toddlers, 3D printing workshops, and teen book clubs. My big and middle bear went to a Pokémon card battle class last month. How neat is that?

And if you’re determined like me to make sure your kids have social skills and friends, the public library is just one more area to develop this!

DVD’s:

Regarding technology, I often forget that most libraries offer DVDs to check out as well. This may have been more appealing 10 plus years ago when everyone didn’t have Netflix and three other subscriptions.

Let me tell you what I do love though about the DVDs the library offers. The preschool learning selection of DVDs is usually broad and good. Anyone remember Leapfrog learning? So good!

I am a proponent of limiting screen time, a huge proponent actually. However, I don’t consider myself a legalist on the matter either. There are some days when big and middle bear need more of my attention to accomplish their schoolwork and I need for baby bear to be engaged elsewhere.

The learning DVDs are usually under an hour and a wonderful supplemental source for his learning. I found these DVDs both at our local library when we lived in a small 2,000-person town and our current big city library. That being said, there’s a good chance you can find them at yours also.

What’s your favorite thing about your local library and how often do you go? I’d love to hear what you’ve discovered in the comments below.