Homeschooling High School on a very tight budget, the duct tape and WD40 way

[elegantlion]

I'm starting this thread to show that homeschooling high school does not have to cost a fortune. As most of you know, I am a college student and now a single parent. In my case, the budget was tight, after separating it became tighter. Public school is not an option due to several factors and at this point ds is entering his junior year. 

 

These thoughts may ramble, I know there are others out there facing similar issues and I hope to highlight how you can properly homeschool high school without feeling like you have to spend $1000 or more per year. 

-          Read these forums. Find publishers and editions that might appeal to you and check used book sites, library sales, and thrift stores. This paid off for me as I used to live near a great thrift store and bought ahead many books recommended here at pennies on the dollar. It helps if you know authors and editions to look for. Obviously not everyone has that, but I do have a wish list on amazon where I periodically check prices

-          Do some preplanning, looking at the whole of high school. What courses are must, what electives might your dc want to complete, what language will they need, are they on a high AP honors track, regular college prep track, or undecided.

-          Seek input from your child. Listen and create compromises if they have interests they want to follow. It’s easier to homeschool a child who is interested in what they are studying, it also makes it easier in some respect to custom design courses.

-          Understand what colleges in your area want to see. My plan is 4 x 4 (4 each of English, math, science, and social studies/history) 2-3 year of foreign language, 1 fine art + electives

-          Pay attention to open source classes. In the last two years the number of free options available via places like Coursera, Saylor, Khan Academy, etc has grown.

-          Use parts to create a whole. If you understand how to structure a credit, you can utilize multiple free resources in some subjects areas. For us, math is not one of those areas, yet texts can be purchased cheaply.

-          Know what subjects will require an outside teacher or someone else to facilitate. Either keep the majority of your budget there or see if you can barter

-          Also know what subjects will require more $. Lab science can be expensive.

-          Remember testing fees and extracurriculars. 4h and Civil Air Patrol seem to be fairly affordable options. Do not limit your options to high school areas, some kids work well with adults and you can find those activities.

-          Check your shelves. Use what you have or sell it to offset the purchases of something else.

-          Look at dual enrollment options for your area. Some states provide free CC classes, some have discounts

-          Don’t think you need a huge number of resources to a do subject well. Literature anthologies such as Norton or Longman can be found online for less than $5. These won’t be the latest editions but a previous one will do.

-          If you’re utilizing textbooks check for student support websites online. Some have built in quizzes and study guides.

-          Appeal to family and friends that might purchase gifts and ask for help for a schooling expense. A grandparent might be glad to help with an extracurricular or buy school supplies.

-          Plan your expensive subjects either to do in different years if possible. For instance chemistry lab supplies can be expensive. Foreign language materials can also be expensive, depending upon language and what you choose. Many foreign language materials can be spread over a two year period to break up the cost. Google for a syllabus for your particular text and you can see how other high schools and colleges schedule.

-          Own your homeschool. Do not compare what you have or don’t have with others.  Reading about multiple outsourced classes and expensive extracurriculars can be daunting. We can’t do those and yet I feel ds is receiving a quality education, it just looks different than some homeschools. That’s okay

-          Consider block scheduling so not all your expenses are due 1^st semester.

 

 

I’ll be honest, I’ve had some help financially to buy materials in the last few years. Yet, even with the help, I’ve spent less than $400 per year. Ds is an average student who will most likely attend a state school for college.

I’ve rambled and I may come back to post more specifics and if you have suggestions, please add them.

My goal for our homeschool is not to simply finish, it is to finish well. It is more challenging on a small budget, but it is possible. Some days I feel like it’s all put together with duct tape and WD40, but those two things can solve a lot of issues. 

 

[regentrude]

Great general suggestions. I'd like to add a specific one:

many of use Teaching Company courses to homeschool high school. Your library may have some. Some are available used on amazon. The cheapest way, if you can't get them free from the library: get an audible subscription. It is $15 for the first month, I got two credits, each of which is redeemable for a full TC course (that can be 24 or 48 lectures!). At the end of the month, try to cancel the membership; you will be offered a half-price membership for 3 months if you don't cancel. You can get 3 more TC courses during that time, for $7.50 each. That's five lecture sets, 100+ hours, for $38.

I don't remember whether they have one month free trials sometimes....  but you get the idea.

 

[lewelma]

This is an x-post from the General Board which had some really good ideas for foreign language, specifically chinese.  My Language Exchange sounds like excellent value.

1) Chinese Saturday School:  Ours is Sunday afternoon.  Our Chinese School caters to students from Chinese speaking households, but a year ago, they started a pilot parent-child class for non-Chinese.  We go for 1.5 hours every week.  Each family shares one workbook, but the teacher passes out practice homework worksheets to every person in the class.  At home,we do a lot of work on the whiteboard; dd writes in her workbook, and I write the same characters on the whiteboard.

If you have a local Chinese school that does not offer a parent/child non-native beginner class, then propose it.  It took our school a year to get it up and running, but they did it!  PM me if you want our school's contact information/location for reference to your local school.

2) Some libraries have the Pimsler set.  If yours does, you could at least try it out before dropping $$$ on it.

3) These two videos are the best I've seen for teaching tones.  Make a note of them somewhere for when you are ready.

Tones

Tone Pairs

Be sure to download the lecture notes, too.

4) My Language Exchange matches you with a language buddy for practicing your language of choice.  There are people all around the world who want to learn English.  You then Skype independently with your partner.

It is rather like a dating site in its software, but without the dating.  You can request a specific age, gender, and location of your partner (Taiwan?  China?  France?).  It is free to sign up for a membership to explore the site, but you pay a modest fee to actually contact people.  The cost is $6/month to $24/year  (Gold Membership). 

I use this for practicing my own Chinese.  I practice with a couple of different gentlemen (In Shanghai and Sydney), then I practice with the kids.

Disclaimer: If your children practice with an online partner, do not leave them unattended.  MOST PEOPLE are good and kind and honest, but there are people in this world that will hurt and exploit children.

Advantages:
--affordable

--accessible

--in your own home, you don't have to drive

--the Chinese I have met speak much better English than I speak Chinese, so communication on my part has not been a problem.

 

Disadvantages:
--China is on the opposite side of the world.  They guys I Skype with are finishing their day as we are starting ours.  If I want to practice, I need to be up EARLY.  And I am NOT a morning person.  You could always search for a speaker in the Western hemisphere.
--You have to learn how to Skype.
--I've had about a 50% success rate in finding people to chat with.  I had 4 people that said they were interested; 2 have followed through.  Like anything in life, it's a numbers game.  It's not personal.

 

[Kareni]

What an excellent thread.  Thanks for starting this, EL. 

 

We started homeschooling on a serious budget back when my daughter was in 7th grade.  Our local libraries were my biggest resource.  We have a small local library that I used.  A friend in the neighboring bigger city was kind enough to borrow books and DVDs on my behalf.  In addition the local state university allows state residents (over 18) to check out two items at a time at no fee whatsoever.  Also, since the university has degree offerings for education, the university library also has a curriculum collection and a juvenile collection. I've shared this last fact with many area homeschoolers who were surprised to learn it.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

 

[Kareni]

  My Language Exchange sounds like excellent value.

 

It does sound good; thank you!  I am passing along the information to my husband who is learning Korean.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[laughing lioness]

Our library offers Mango Languages on -line for free- you can study from home.

 

Our library carries The Modern Scholar- very similar to GC - ds19 has been doing CLEP studies with Modern Scholar. 

 

Don't overlook CLEPing during h.s. $80 for the test -our state college system counts a 50 or above as a 3 credit college class and will accept up to 10 CLEPs. 

 

Co-op with other high schoolers- bio lab is at my house this year- I provide the space and microscope and someone else is providing the dissection specimen's and expertise. 

 

Also, put the word out if you want to borrow things. We have a local homeschool FB page and homeschool FB swap page. If you don't have a local one, consider starting one.  I've loaned out my Adv. Bio book 3times, and microscope twice for a year at a time. (these were people I knew ahead of time). but it doesn't hurt to ask /barter for what you are looking for  - I'd rather my very expensive microscope was used vs. gathering dust, if it's someone I trust.

 

What do you have in your hand?  Our house re-build garnered my kids some serious hand-on skills that I translated into h.s. credit and have allowed them some side-jobs where they make excellent money for their age.  ds 19 is doing roofing this summer making some really good $. He hasn't roofed before, but he's dry-walled and tiled and built furniture and landscaped and knows that he can figure stuff out. Plus, he's a hard worker. Winning combo. He has offers of side-jobs drywalling like you wouldn't believe. And when he takes them he is paid like crazy because it's usually from women my age whose dh's are too busy and kids are all grown. 

 

If you blog, consider doing reviews in exchange for curriculum. I did this very successfully for a couple of years and had hundreds of dollars of resources pass through my hands. It was mostly barter but in that time I didn't NEED to buy curriculum for 3 kids (incl h.s.) and had tons of gently reviewed curriculum to re-sell or gift to others. Keep in mind this is not FREE curriculum. Reviewing products and writing honest, good reviews is hard work.

 

Include your kids in your passions. My ds is a science lover, theologian and social scientist. He and the kids are on NOAA and NASA sites weekly together and he is constantly reading out loud articles from different theology sites, including archeology and language sites. My kids get a lot of quality education as a result of dh's passions. 

 

I love this EL: Own your homeschool. That about sums it up. My kids won't be math and science scholars like Regentrude's. I'm grateful hers will be. 

 

[JennW in SoCal]

Excellent post, Elegantlion, with lots of excellent advice.  I only have a couple of things to add.

 

California homeschoolers are probably aware of all the public charter umbrella schools that offer lab courses and have money for families for textbooks and materials.  It can be a Faustian bargain as some schools want to micromanage your homeschooling, but not all schools and teacher/facilitators.

 

Your library is your friend.  Maybe they don't have the exact title you want, but they probably have other good titles, and with interlibrary loan you can likely get anything specific.  Used book sales are a delight, especially with retired homeschoolers like me donating books to area "Friends of the Library" shops.

 

The internet is your friend.  Khan academy and other courses have been suggested, but there are also lesson plans and all kinds of resources for your student to use in doing research on one topic or another.  Just keep plugging away on your favorite search engine til you find what you want.

 

 

 

-          Seek input from your child. Listen and create compromises if they have interests they want to follow. It’s easier to homeschool a child who is interested in what they are studying, it also makes it easier in some respect to custom design courses.

 

 

Allowing my children to pursue their interests wasn't always cheap, but the dividends made up for the cost of gas in driving them!   Before he even graduated high school, my oldest son was being hired to do tech work by local schools and community theater groups. It all grew from all the volunteer work he had done over the years, the time he put in with some good mentors.  My youngest was also hired on at a museum after a summer internship.

 

But more than the paid jobs they got, shaping courses around their interests was actually quite easy, especially with resources from the library.  Text books didn't have what they needed, but the library and the internet did, and my kids were engaged learners (for the most part -- they were teens after all....)  

 

-          Own your homeschool. Do not compare what you have or don’t have with others.  

 

Can I hear an "amen"?!!   Preach it sister!!  Do what fits your child and your family, and be proud of it!  Your children WILL go to college, WILL become productive members of society and best of all will be interesting young adults with whom you enjoy spending time!!  

[foxbridgeacademy]

Great general suggestions. I'd like to add a specific one:

many of use Teaching Company courses to homeschool high school. Your library may have some. Some are available used on amazon. The cheapest way, if you can't get them free from the library: get an audible subscription. It is $15 for the first month, I got two credits, each of which is redeemable for a full TC course (that can be 24 or 48 lectures!). At the end of the month, try to cancel the membership; you will be offered a half-price membership for 3 months if you don't cancel. You can get 3 more TC courses during that time, for $7.50 each. That's five lecture sets, 100+ hours, for $38.

I don't remember whether they have one month free trials sometimes....  but you get the idea.

Does Audible usually offer 2 free "books" with the first month?  Right now it says get 1 book free with trial membership. 

[Jenny in Florida]

For several years, I harbored a not-so-secret plan to write a book about how to homeschool well on the cheap. I had looked around and found a few books that amounted to mostly personal anecdotes and lists of resources (usually out of date by a year after the book was published). What I wanted to do was to write about general strategies for how to collect and use inexpensive materials to create any kind of curricula you might want.

 

I never finished it. However, in case it helps anyone here, I offer the following notes from the incomplete draft of my introduction to the book:

 

1.      Be Brave

2.      Plan Ahead

3.      Be Flexible

4.      Use What You Have (and What You Can Find Online)

5.      Use Your Local Library

6.      Put It Together

 

Most of those are probably self-explanatory, but here is an excerpt from what I wrote to explain "Be Brave":

 

It’s very popular in both healthy eating and frugal living circles these days to advocate buying “ingredients,†rather than packages of food-type products. What I’m going to suggest in this section is that you can take the same approach to homeschooling.

Think of all those expensive, planned-for-you curricula as boxes of macaroni and cheese. Now, they may be lovely, all-natural, organic macaroni and cheese and might be worth it if your family is really in a rush for dinner now and then. But I’m pretty sure we all know you can make truly great mac ‘n cheese with some simple ingredients. Most of us think it tastes at least as good as the boxed stuff (maybe better), and it costs a fraction of the price.

 

If, like me, you grew up on the stuff in the blue box, buying ingredients instead of that shiny, familiar package can be very intimidating. Using the box provides consistent, if not exciting, results. And it doesn’t require much from us. We can be pretty sure of getting it right every time of we just follow the directions printed on the back.

 

I’m sure most of us who are parents understand that our children’s education is something extremely valuable and important. And there is certainly a sense of security in being able to rely on someone else to tell us how to do it correctly. In other words, since most of us probably went to brick-and-mortar schools for our own educations, the idea that education is something defined by an outside authority offers just as much ease and security as that store-bought pasta side dish.

 

In order for these ideas to help you save money, though, you have to be willing to walk away from the convenience and security of letting someone else plan your child’s education. You have to embrace the flexibility and frugality of planning a curriculum just for your child.

 

You have to be brave.

[MarkT]

Because of your particular situation your son may qualify for reduced tuition at a CC for DE classes. Remember lots are online these days.

[regentrude]

Does Audible usually offer 2 free "books" with the first month?  Right now it says get 1 book free with trial membership. 

 

I have no idea whether that is usual - all I remember is that I got one extra free book in addition to the regular credit for the first month.

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Paperback Swap can be a good source of books, especially classics and older editions of textbooks.

 

Realize that a textbook can be a couple to many years old and still be just what you need. I have copies of art history textbooks that are decades old. Same with math and literature and history.

 

Know when you need a TM and when it won't really add anything.

 

The library is your friend, especially if you can free yourself from thinking you need a particular volume of a particular book when there are several other options that are similar but aren't on your list.

 

Don't be afraid to ask groups if they have a scholarship fund or work study. I know the scout groups I've been part of never wanted someone to be held back because of cost. If there wasn't a formal fund the committee could find ways to pay or some folks would quietly cover costs. But they can only do this if they know there is a need.

[flyingiguana]

If you want textbooks, go for college textbooks and use an older edition.  They're usually very cheap used.

 

We live near a lot of colleges, so I've found that I can pick up a lot of old textbooks from rummage sales -- for a quarter.  These may tend to be a little older, but for math they've worked just fine.  I'd spend a little more for science as I'd want to get something that was more recent.

 

Buy more than you need -- ahead of time.  I have several different math and science textbooks for each year, so we can pick and choose.  As they all either cost a quarter or were free, this didn't cost me much.   I spent years picking these up at rummage sales, knowing my kids were going to study calculus eventually.  (Although it might have looked silly for me to be buying them for a 3rd grader)

 

Join the AP teachers' forums if that's still a possibility.  Even if you aren't teaching to the AP tests, those teachers often have a lot of useful suggestions.  And find their websites!  A lot of these teachers are putting up lots of essay topics for their students in a wide variety of fields.  Or they have links to other good websites.

[flyingiguana]

Teacher's versions of college textbooks -- I have several.  We have used them extensively.  It took me a very long time to realize they were the TM.  The big difference is that they have answers to the even problems as well as the odd ones.  So I suppose that's been useful at times, but some of these books have so many problems you'd be fine with just the regular student version that only gives odd numbered answers.

 

A more useful book to get for math and problem heavy science fields would be a solutions manual.  Lots of times, publishers will put out a teacher's version of the textbook, a teacher's "guide" (which is generally useless), AND a solutions manual.  You'll probably only get use out of the last one.

 

BUT you might not even need that -- if the problems are common ones, in a common textbook, if you google the problem, you'll often find solutions right on the web.

[FaithManor]

Excellent post! Also, we have used textbook rental from amazon for a couple of electives that would not be repeated by other sibs and owning was not necessary in the long term. Last semester we rented a $200 text we could not find cheaper elsewhere for $30. I was very happy with the cost savings.

 

MIT Opencourseware is by donation so very cost effective if you can find the texts and supplemental reading cheaply enough.

 

Love this thread. High school homeschooling can seem so financially daunting at times.

 

I also 2nd 4H. It is $10.00 a year and we have local businesses and corporations like Toyota as well who fund our science endeavors. It is rare that we charge even so much as $5.00 for an expensive project and mentors are easily found in science, fine arts, and activities such as canoeing/kayaking, camping, fishing, and cross country skiing or even natural resource management. These are all volunteer based. No cost to parents except some supplies occasionally and transportation.

[elegantlion]

My caution of the day: There is a plethora of free material online. It can be overwhelming honestly. 

 

Open source and MOOC classes are popping up everywhere. They can be a credit, part of a credit, or supplemental extras. For science and math especially, check what level of instruction is a prerequisite. Many of the MIT science classes look exciting but they presume exposure to calculus. Also, especially at the MIT site, there may be limited resource. There may only be lectures or assignments but no solutions. The OCW scholar courses are set up to be self-studied and offer a full course. Again check math requirements as free is great until it goes over your student's head and there is no one to ask for help. 

 

Coursera classes are similar - check the pre-reqs before signing up. For short classes, we watched the videos as a supplement even though the math was over his head. 

 

Saylor.org has some K-12 courses available. It says they're still in beta and they've been adding much in the last year. 

 

CK12 is another free resource. 

 

Again, free is only good if it works. I like some of the CK12 offerings, but we don't well with reading off a screen. I prefer to print and printing 600 pages is not necessarily cost effective. 

 

Answer keys, solution manuals can be another issue as addressed above. Most college textbooks, either in the book or on the site, outline what teacher components are available. Many are moving toward CDs or websites for teacher materials. These can be harder to find on the used market. So before you purchase that cool text, make sure you can find the answers or are willing to work through it yourself. Many online student study sites have quizzes that are designed as helps, but could be used for grading in a pinch. 

 

That's another thing with the Duct Tape/WD40 way, grading doesn't have to be end of chapter test. It could be oral (we do those a lot) using a rubric. It could be essays. It could be tests you design. Again, using some of the MOOC options, they offer assignments. I generally don't have ds do those, mostly because the math part has been over his head, so I have to come with another way to grade. Some we've just watched for interest and discussed without grading. 

 

Outside of textbooks, there are a number of well written books for the layman that would work for a variety of subjects. We used part of "The Power of Babel" to discuss language development last year. I googled and found several colleges using that text and a few had their assignments online as well. 

 

 

[elegantlion]

Here are 3 options for unique courses that you can do for free or low cost: 

 

1. Big History Project  - this is essentially a history of the universe and humanity. It discuss big bang theory and evolution, so if you are YEC, this would not be for you. It is designed for high school students, or there is a shorter layman's version for the public. I've looked through this, but not in a while and they've updated the webpage since then. 

 

2. Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature - I read through many of the lecture notes. We had the first ten lectures scheduled, but had to drop them because of life. The readings are interesting, the notes are very thorough. this falls into the philosophy/cognitive science realm. 

 

3. Learner.org has several classes online. Preview several. Some are older with videos from the 80s and 90s. Others such as the 21st century physics one are more up to date. I've also used parts of the World Literature and American LIterature sites. 

[Tammi K]

Several major colleges including MIT, Johns Hopkins, and several others have courses the are free to the public. I believe you can google OpenCourseWare and find several links. This is a great idea for bright/advanced high schoolers.

[Maddysmom26]

Great ideas!! I love this thread! I am doing our year fairly cheap I would say definitely  under $400 because also a single parent here. Found a few things at yard sales and also on eBay. I also have some of my old college texts  from past few years..which I may use for her.  Also love the idea of free and low cost college courses. Thank you for sharing!  I was really nervous about high school, but now I'm feeling more confident and ready for this journey!

[KarenNC]

We're using two free resources that are generally available and one that is local to us. The Virtual Homeschool Group has some nice free courses and we've been happy with the math and the lit classes we've used so far. They have other classes like science, very Christian-specific (Apologia), which don't work for us but look to be quite good. www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.com. We're using Harari College Worldwide for Spanish this semester and it's going well. They are secular and offer lots of humanities, including AP classes, for free, but this is the first class we've used, so I can't speak from experience. They also have an odd schedule--summer semester is late June through Sept, fall is late Oct through Jan, and spring is Feb into May.  www.harari.edu.pl Our local resource is our public school system, which is offering two free online classes per semester with teacher and facility support to homeschoolers as part of a new program. We're also lucky to have access to a good, inexpensive local secular co-op.

 

This is actually turning out to be one of our least expensive years in a while. My big expenses are $35 a month for an hour and a half a week drawing class through the local parks and rec and paying for aikido (she's added on to my husband's membership for a small fee, can't remember the breakdown between them as we've been doing this for 7 years). For materials, a used Saxon algebra 2 book (less than $20? I bought it a while back), $12 for a current events magazine subscription, $5 for a used civics textbook and another $10 for the TE, and a classical mythology text for a course I'm teaching at co-op (paid about $35 or so for hardcopy and that again for TE, this was totally optional but will likely re-use to teach the class again in another co-op). We'll have a few expenses like co-op membership ($35/year) and testing fees for ACT and possibly PSAT.

[flyingiguana]

I've given up testing in high school.  The kids will do quizzes and such if they're part of a package, but they don't use them as tests but as learning material.

 

Whenever I'd find a test to use, it turned out it didn't cover anything I thought was important.  Or asked it in some crazy, confusing way.  The only option would be to write my own tests, and I've really lost patience with that.  I'd much rather be teaching than testing.

 

The only tests my oldest did in high school were the required standardized testing (which we only continued with so she would still qualify for dual enrollment courses), the PSAT, the ACT, and a couple AP tests.  She did fine when dropped into her dual enrollment college courses.  (She even remembered to write her name on her paper....)

 

The second one coming along has taken NO tests in high school except the ACT, but she did fine on the placement tests she's just taken for college courses.  She didn't panic or act like she had no clue what she was supposed to do.

 

So, yeah, you can get a kid through high school without worrying about formally testing their knowledge -- or teaching them how to take tests.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Here are 3 options for unique courses that you can do for free or low cost: 

 

1. Big History Project  - this is essentially a history of the universe and humanity. It discuss big bang theory and evolution, so if you are YEC, this would not be for you. It is designed for high school students, or there is a shorter layman's version for the public. I've looked through this, but not in a while and they've updated the webpage since then. 

 

2. Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature - I read through many of the lecture notes. We had the first ten lectures scheduled, but had to drop them because of life. The readings are interesting, the notes are very thorough. this falls into the philosophy/cognitive science realm. 

 

3. Learner.org has several classes online. Preview several. Some are older with videos from the 80s and 90s. Others such as the 21st century physics one are more up to date. I've also used parts of the World Literature and American LIterature sites. 

 

 

Awesome thread.  We are starting to use just these kinds of free resources to pull together classes for 7th grade, and I expect we'll continue through high school.  Just an example of how you can create a whole greater than the sum of its parts:

 

Do the Big History project - which is just excellent, a nice mix of videos, readings, and activities/writing assignments, and add some Coursera courses, and you will easily have two credits, one in history and one in science.  Here are some current Coursera offerings that link up topically and would flesh this out into a full, two-credit course (you couldn't do all of these at the same time, but this is a list of things that fit w/ Big History that you could choose from):

 

Confronting the Big Questions: Highlights of Modern Astronomy

Origins - Formation of the Earth, Solar System, Earth, and Life

Planet Earth

Emergence of Life

Astrobiology: The Search for Extraterrestrial life

Introduction to Evolution and Genetics

A Brief History of Humankind

Human Evolution: Past and Future

Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets