How to homeschool with out buying alot

[Guest momtyson3]

This will be are first year to homeschool. I will be homeschooling a 4th and 6th grade. I would like to know if I can do it with out spending alot.

 

Heather

:001_smile:DD11/ADHD

:)DS10/Gifted

[Twilight Woods]

I have lucked out with what I have been able to find used or at the library.

[Daisy]

Can you give us a dollar amount to play around with?

 

Are your kiddos on grade level?

 

Do you have access to a good library and would you use it?

[Guest momtyson3]

We have about $500 to $800. My 6th grader is just below grade and my 4th grader is above grade. Yes we have a good libary and yes I will use it.

Heather

 

DD11-ADHD

DS10-Gifted

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

This is more of a general tip, rather than a curriculum specific tip: collect the information you need from here to accomplish your goal and then ...

 

..... block the forum from being accessible from your computer! That will save you from buying a lot more than ever needed than anything else. :D

[RobinF]

There is a list on here of free homeschool resources.

 

http://welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109114&highlight=free+curriculum

[Crimson Wife]

There's a book called Homeschool Your Child for Free by LauraMaery Gold that might interest you.

 

Ambleside Online is a great free resource for ideas. Most of the books are available at a decent library.

 

Many homeschool support groups sponsor used curriculum sales in June, ask around to see if there are any near you.

[lorrainejmc]

This is more of a general tip, rather than a curriculum specific tip: collect the information you need from here to accomplish your goal and then ...

 

..... block the forum from being accessible from your computer! That will save you from buying a lot more than ever needed than anything else. :D

 

 

May I come in to ask how to block myself from accessing the forum from my computer? I'm technically challenged:lol: BUT I am driving myself CRAZY choosing then wondering if I made the right choice then asking more questions then contradicting myself. I need an intervention!

[VBoulden]

I'm speaking from my own experience here... this may or may not help you... it may not even apply to you...

 

But, if you are afraid to buy anything because you are afraid you won't use what you buy or it won't be the right fit or it will be a complete waste of money, etc. etc. then you may end up paralyzed and not doing much of anything...

 

That's what happened to me, actually. :glare: I feel like we missed a whole year because of my indecision.

 

I wanted to know about everything (EVERYTHING!) on the market before I made any decision about what to use... I was worried what I wanted to use would be second to something else I didn't know about.. so I waited and waited and rung my hands...

 

But, I've been homeschooling for a few years now and I STILL find out about new (terrific) stuff everyday!!! :tongue_smilie:

 

You should research and ask questions. Do due diligence. In this way, you will find some resources that are totally free or ways to save serious money.

 

I did. I almost bought Saxon math... but I met up with a lady (who I barely knew at the time) who used it, looked through the book and just like that, I knew I'd hate it. I got Math U See instead and even though that program was pricey, I saved serious money because I didn't have to waste money on a program I wouldn't use (Saxon) to find one I did.

 

But you have to spend money, eventually. Not everything you will want to use or need to use will be free, especially the stuff you will need to use on a daily basis (like Story of the World). Our library has this, but we need it daily.

 

Doing research helped me avoid some bad purchases, but not all of them. (I hate our spelling program, for example. But, there was no way to know that till we bought it and tried it. I am planning to try something else next year but I am not sure the problem isn't just spelling. We might just hate spelling. I think we have to wait and see. :D)

 

So, some of home school is trial and error and you just have to try stuff to know how your kids will do with what you picked.

[MeaganS]

I'm not homeschooling yet, but I've researched a ton, and the gist of what I've seen is that when you pay a lot of money for a curriculum, generally it is paying for convenience. Convenience like scripted, open and go, all the materials in one place, DVD instructors, etc. You can homeschool for free or really inexpensively if you are willing to put in more work planning, coming up with lessons, creating your own materials.

 

A great example of this is the Writing With Ease program. There is an instructor text and workbooks. You could just buy the instructor text and create your own dictations and narrations. Or you could buy the workbooks for each grade and have them already prepared for you. The latter ends up costing about 4 times as much as the former for one child, and double that for each child after that. You could get a math program that has DVD to instruct for you, but they cost more. You could get a program that includes all the books in one big package... convenient, but costs more that compiling them yourself or creating your own list. More money usually doesn't mean better. Usually it means more convenient.

 

That said, check out this thread. It discusses a bunch of public domain textbooks that are high quality (mostly language arts), but may take a little more work on the instructor's part than another program.

[Aurelia]

Vintage books are certainly one way to go. They're either free for the printing (like at GoogleBooks) or fairly cheap for a printed version. There are math programs like MEP or Math Mammoth that are either free or cheaply available for printing in those grades.

[lmrich]

Go to your library. Is there a helpful and friendly librarian? Make friends with her/him and you will save lots of money. You need to educate yourself on scope and sequence for your children. You should be able to stay in your budget with use of a good library.

[Critterfixer]

This is more of a general tip, rather than a curriculum specific tip: collect the information you need from here to accomplish your goal and then ...

 

..... block the forum from being accessible from your computer! That will save you from buying a lot more than ever needed than anything else.

Smile. But it is useful to see how people are using things so you can figure out if it will or won't be a great fit for you.

 

I would add to the posts above to really consider what you actually have time for. I tend to overestimate the hours in the day when I go to buy the curriculum and then I don't have the twenty-nine or so hours needed to implement the school day, the essential housework, the cleaning of the chicken-den, and cook at least one thing so we can eat! It is easy to get caught up in a curriculum that is not forgiving if you have to take a break because someone is throwing up or if the day is the first sunny one in two weeks and everyone just "needs" to go mad outside, KWIM?

 

The library is a great help for me. I also love the used bookstore, because I have found so many treasures there in the vintage book dept, and also just resources to have on hand. For whatever reason, they get a lot of Eyewitness books. I also use the library for many of my science DVDs.

[Supertechmom]

Find a local group now and post your questions. Many members will invite you over or meet at the park to show you stuff. Like pp said, you can sometimes just look at it and know it's in or out. A lot of groups will do curriculum night and show off their stuff and tell you how they used it.

 

Best advise I ever received was to sit down and write out a plan for each kid. What are their strengths, what are their weakness, what are your strengths and weakness ( maybe you are an English buff and have no problem winging grammar, maybe math makes your eyes cross - you may have to buy in you weak areas and go cheaper or free in your strengths). Then write what you are required to teach and how to keep your records for the state. At this point you will have good idea of where your focus needs to be and you can begin to look at your bookshelves to see what you may have on hand and what the library has. Then look at whether you want consumable or something used from kid to kid ( though that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't). Decide if you can desire/dislike religious overtones or just don't care as long as it teaches the material. Lots of material can be excluded based on belief systems. Then come here and search/post for comments :D

 

 

Do all that and it will help give you some direction on where your dollars need to go.

[dovrar]

I've enjoyed KISS Grammar (FREE online program) tremendously.

[hopeallgoeswell]

My only suggestion is to combine whenever possible. Your children seem to be pretty close ability-wise, right? If so, you could combine them for all (or most) subjects. History and science lend themselves well to combining different age/ability levels. Math and language arts might be trickier; even if they are on the same level, they might have different learning styles.

 

One more thing, (to add to a pp) notice how your kids like to learn. Are they independent and like workbooks. Are they social and like one-on-one time? Are they hands-on and like projects? This will save you from buying a workbook and then having to switch to a project-based curriculum (or whatever the case may be). It is better to put the time in on the front-end and only purchase ONE curriculum instead of switching throughout the year. A great book for new (or old!) is Cathy Duffy's Top 100 Picks http://www.amazon.com/100-Top-Picks-Homeschool-Curriculum/dp/0805431381/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1304708876&sr=8-1.

 

Enjoy!

[twoxcell]

With $500-$800 dollars you should be able to get plenty. I spent around $500 dollars for this coming year. I try to buy as much as I can used from the internet or thrift stores. If I had purchased everything new it would have cost me around $900 dollars.

[Hunter]

I tend to spend the most money on ungraded skills curriculum, like 5-12 writing curriculums, that will be used for several years.

 

I never buy graded materials for knowledge areas like history or science, that can easily be taught with videos, computer games, library books etc. Sometimes I will buy ungraded materials though, if I know they are super fun or super easy to use.

 

Start buying for the basic skills first. Buy what you like, despite the price. It might be free. It might be pricey. When it comes to skills do not bargain shop. Keep some money set aside to replace a skills curriculum that does not work and expect at least one flop that must be replaced immediately.

 

Then buy some knowledge curriculum, but do bargain shop here. And know that whatever you buy, you will hear about something "better" tomorrow. In Ecclesiastes. Solomon says there is no end to the writing of books, and it's true :-)