7-21-08

I received an email from a Mom who is considering homeschooling her two sons. She, like the rest of us, wants the best for her children in the least expensive way possible!

Hi Jacque,

My husband and I are considering homeschooling our younger two boys. Hunter going into 5th grade and Daniel going into 7th grade. Currently I am looking for any way to do this cheaply. I would have loved to use the A Beka DVD series but we just can’t afford that per month. I have been teaching for 4 years a Christian school and my boys were going there. I taught a combination class of 3rd and 4th graders so I am familiar with A Beka curriculum.

Any tips on how to acquire curriculum cheaply?

If you can give me some great ideas about how you homeschool cheaply, with great resources, let the ideas fly!! If you would prefer to Email Me, that is fine too!

Here are mine:

First of all, if you know the LORD, trust Him to lead you.

Ask Him to guide your decisions and show you ways to homeschool your family. He is concerned with them and you and your relationships – your sanity! – and does want to be a part of these decisions!

Homeschool them in the same subjects you can together.

A lot of times, doing a unit study of a topic, using the same books and movies or crafts is a great way to not have to buy separate textbooks. What can you teach together as unit studies??

Buy non-consumable textbooks.

We use Saxon for some of our children, and then we pass it down as necessary. Some workbooks we have them write in, but some of them they copy out of.

Make up your own worksheets and curriculum.

Honestly, anyone can do a google search and find resources and information on a specific topic. Children can even do their own research on safe sites after a certain age and can certainly read topic-specific books and articles and write reports to learn about them.

Teach out of the Bible.

There are many truths and a lot of history in the Bible. The Word is so precious and can sustain you for an entire year if you wish it to.

Teach life skills.

Life will last a lot longer than school days, and it is so important to equip our children to live in the world and with others. Life skills is not really a class, but a mindset. It is ok to stop and take time out of a day to talk about or include your child in your everyday jobs around the home. It is important that they learn a good work ethic and how to care for a home and family.

Buy on EBay.

A lot of times homeschoolers purchase something they loved, only to find it didn’t fit them or they didn’t have time for it. I have built up my homeschool resources library on EBay.

Stick with something you trust and love.

If it works for you, don’t change it. I am saying this because it is easier to use a curriculum you know and love instead of spending time and money looking for something else. We used to use all A Beka. Now we are eclectic in our approach, but I still buy the math workbooks and some grammar for the Littles from A Beka. It works for us.

Look into several different homeschool approaches/methods,

and choose what will fit your family lifestyle and philosophy best. There are many ideas out there and resources online that are free using these approaches.
Some that come to mind are:

 The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach

The Charlotte Mason Method-Ambleside Online

The Delight-Directed method

Unit Studies

HOW has a chart with many different homeschool methods listed. They are ones that are incorporated into the HOW Teaching Approach

Do what you can for free.

There are many sites that allow you to use their resources for free. Search the internet and see what fits you. Some of my favorite FREE Resources are from:

CurrClick Free Weekly EBook

The Home School Mom

Let’s Homeschool has a list of Educational Freeware site
A to Z Home’s Cool Homeschooling has a LIST too.

Donna Young’s site is so awesome, you can find so much there! She has a lot of organization resources for mom, but also a lot of worksheets for use with textbooks in Math, History, Science, English, Handwriting and Art.
For new homeschoolers, Donna also has:

• Planning for Beginners
• How To Make Simple Lesson Plans
• (Surviving) The Curriculum Fair

Homeschool Math has free worksheets and information on free resources and math books.
Google search “free homeschool resources“, and you will find pages and pages.

Become and Affiliate

with online stores you love and trust. You can earn credit and sometimes cash with them by referring people to their sites.

We homeschool our writing skills by Blogging To Learn.

I explained that a bit in my TOS article. Basically, I read and correct and teach them from writing assignments they publish on their blogs, but there is so much more to it. There are also so many ways to work it. I am working on setting up my site to add more information to it. It has opened up doors for graphic design and web design. Amazing! and, we all learned HTML by designing our Homeschoolblogger blog templates. Jocelyn is now proficient enough in CSS to design blogs and just finished upgrading her blog version.

Use your local library.

We use ours for the books as well as videos and DVDs. I do not, however, let my younger children (and I mean 14 and under) go there very often. The books on display in the children’s and youth section alone are mostly inappropriate. Most of the videos are definitely inappropriate. They do not go down those aisles. A couple of great things about the library are their inter-library loans, where you can borrow resources from other libraries through yours, and also access from my own computer to their database. I can search for resources and request them and not spend time searching at the library. We rarely have our children on library computers, and, as I said, never the younger ones. We have been thoroughly disgusted at what adults and children are allowed to view and play online just a few feet from another computer user.

Make up a schedule or a plan.

As with all things in life, homeschooling economicallyworks better with a schedule or a plan. You won’t feel like you are lost and have to buy something – anything – and make an unwise purchase you will later regret.

Buy things at a convention or display with a discount.

A Beka does local homeschool displays where the shipping is free. It saves me at least $50 if I drive to it, and also gives me the opportunity to check out the products and make sure they are in line with where my children are in their studies.

Get on some mailing/email lists.

Don’t get me wrong: I do not like junk mail. However, if you are looking at a product, it is a good thing to know when they are having a sale or there are discounted items you may be able to purchase.

Have a homeschool budget.

Plan to buy. Work it out with your husband/wife how much you can reasonably sock away to use when you find something at a good price. Sometimes our children work through what we planned earlier than expected, and we will want to purchase something at an off-time. A budget ensures that you won’t be taking away from your household budget, and it won’t appear to be a burden (which it isn’t).

Subscribe to reputable a homeschool magazine, like The Old Schoolhouse.

A subscription isn’t exactly free, but for what you get in 4 issues a year is definitely a wise purchase for your homeschool. There are many encouraging articles, tons of homeschooling information, and it is a great way to read up on and “meet” other homeschooling families. There are always free tips and ideas, and many times a free unit study. You can also get their digital version, which is a great deal too!

Subscribe to and read homeschool blogs.

Find like-minded homeschool families – bloggers and familiarize yourself with what works for them. Most homeschool bloggers will readily tell you what they use in their homeschool. A blog is a great tool, in that it allows you to search what they have already written about their favorite curriculum. You will certainly glean a lot of information and find some ideas that will work great for your family. If you find a blog you like, a good way to find like-minded bloggers is to check out what blogs they read. Those are usually listed on their sidebar.

Read homeschool sites

 Homeschool Blog Awards for tips, contests, resource reviews and homeschool-related articles to find out more about homeschooling and the homeschool community.

If you would like to know more about how we homeschool here at our home, I am happy to tell you that I have an article in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Summer 2008 Issue (and I got mine first!! LOL). You can also search my archives here or read them at my original blog, Seeking Rest in the Ancient Paths.

I hope this is an encouragement and some good information as you seek God’s plan for your homeschool!

Thanks!!

blessings!

We all start this homeschool journey with preconceived ideas and expectations of how it should go or what we ‘have’ to do to teach our children. We enter into homeschooling, knowing it will set us and our children free from the perils of the public school system, but sometimes those ideas and expectations are like shackles that keep us from teaching and loving our children the way we really want to. It is as if the method is more important than the goal. Which it is not. I have met a lot of new homeschool moms recently through Jocelyn’s meme on the HSBA Post: Homeschool Memoirs Meme and through Cindy Rushton’s Talk-a-Latte I have attended. I remember being a new homeschool mom.

Fifteen years ago, there were not so many resources out there that could be easily found, and considering I did not have the internet or even a computer, I had little in the way of outside encouragement. Add to that the fact that I was a 3yo baby Christian, just learning how to train my children at all. I feel for these new moms who are searching for the ‘best way’ to home school their children. I remember being a new home school mom.

Looking back to when I was a new home school mom, there are a few small things I can think of that would have made such a difference in my homeschooling had I only been told. I think I would have wanted someone to tell me we did NOT have to go into debt buying every complete set of each grade. I would have wished they had introduced me to a Bible-based homeschool method like HOW – Heart of Wisdom. I needed to know that God MUST come first. The WORD truly is our life, and outside of that, there is no wisdom.

Job 28:28
And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

Psalm 111:10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

Isaiah 33:6
And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure.

We get so caught up in what we learned in the government schools, and some of us just aren’t the ‘break the mold’ type of people. We were bound by society, and we have yet to break free. God is the one who can set our hearts and expectations free so that He is the Leader in our homeschools. If we bring all things through Him, we will not fail. It was He who told us to walk with our children and talk with our children to teach them His ways.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7

6And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

Read all of ‘these words’ of Deuteronomy chapter 6.

As society continues to move towards socialism, it is imperative that we stand firm in teaching our children as they need to learn. They are not cookie-cutter children. They each have their own strengths that we need to recognize and allow them to learn in, according to their bent (training up a child in the way they should go – according to their bent).

Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

This is a freedom that will stop the tears and frustration. Some children just won’t read until they are nine. Period. Two of mine didn’t. They are voracious readers now.

The three books I suggest to a new homeschool mom are these: Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach (you can get a free 75 pp. excerpt online), Educating the Wholehearted Child, and Teaching the Trivium. I like Teaching the Trivium mainly for the chapters on teaching the Bible, as the method is not necessarily for everyone. Oh, and also, I found GREAT freedom to educate in high school through the 2004-05 Elijah Co. Resource Guide (get yours now-they are $1!!) and Barb Shelton’s Senior High: A Home- Designed Form+U+la. These last two are are EXCELLENT for the discouraged high school parent who has been relaxed homeschooling their children and feel lost at the high school level.

When we listen to God and see the hearts of our children, recognizing their purpose and needs and walking in that with them, there is a freedom that will take us places that far exceed our original little expectations!

blessings to you on your home school journey,