Homeschooling At/Near the Poverty Line

[Classical Katharine]

I haven't read the whole thread but a few people recommended the YMCA for summer activities. There is also the Boys' and Girls' Club in some areas. I know a few children who have gone there and enjoyed it.

[elegantlion]

I homeschooled high school mostly as a single parent. We've homeschooled since first grade with years of tight income, sometimes poverty level before the divorce. 

 

These are some of my personal dos and don'ts:

- free is good, but free is not always right for you. There are so many free things out there now, it is a good time to homeschool on a budget.

- try to find a one good source for each subject. Thrift store finds can be great, but you don't need 14 grammar books and 8 math books. Pick one and use it well. 

- read these forums and get familiar with names and products that might work for you. Then look at thrift stores, cheap books from amazon, better world books, and see if you can find them used. I was able to successfully homeschool high school because I had purchased a few name products before high school. I knew the names to search for and what might work for ds. I also used some of them for self-education along the way. I don't recommend everyone do that, but it worked well for me. 

- evaluate homeschooling year by year. Take care of yourself along the way. My ex is very supportive of homeschooling. If yours isn't, make sure you have some testing done each year to prove progress. 

- Don't make homeschooling the only thing you and your dd together. Homeschooling is fun and exciting, I could talk about it for days. I needed to take off that hat and just be mom sometimes.

- keep a running list of books or supplies you want/need. Prioritize them and buy a little at a time. I generally bought books throughout the year as it was easier to spend $20 a month than $200 at one time. 

- know your state homeschool law. print it and put in your teacher's book. Have confidence that you are following it should anyone give you trouble

- If someone offers you help, allow them to help. That part can be humbling. 

 

:grouphug:

[idnib]

The Public Domain Curriculum from last year is much more rigorous and difficult to juggle than the newer Rainbow Curriculum in my signature.

 

The Rainbow is the one I'm using myself right now.

 

Oops, I somehow missed that part. It's great to have so many options!

[Hunter]

Oops, I somehow missed that part. It's great to have so many options!

The two curricula are very different. One is an attempt to mimic high priced textbook based curricula. The other is an alternative to Robinson, TJEd, and AO.

[basketcase]

I just wanted to add a success story. My husband was raised in a no-frills homeschooling family. They had no money for classes or more than the most basic curricula. He was a Boy Scout, but that's it.

 

Now he owns and runs a successful business, speaks three languages, holds two degrees, and helps manage a food bank. In no way has his unconventional upbringing slowed him down.

[shinyhappypeople]

Angelina Jolie referred to a health crisis as polarizing and peaceful. Poverty can be the same way. If you let it be.

 

Upward mobility and an excellent education are two different things. An education designed to ensure upward mobility is difficult to afford for lower income families; an excellent education is not.

 

How is a good education different from an education that ensures upward mobility?  

[Apple Bean Tripod School]

Sorry for being MIA, guys.  I've had a rough couple of days. I'm going to catch up on posts now :)

 

[Hunter]

How is a good education different from an education that ensures upward mobility?

A good education can be many things. It's a wide concept that will differ from subculture to subculture.

 

Upward mobility on the other hand in a very narrow goal, and usually requires resources not readily available. It generally requires a lot of explicit instruction by people from another subculture. If you want to CHANGE cultures, it means disregarding what is common and plentiful, for what is not.

[Hunter]

We know that the definition of "good mom" differs from one subculture to another. But when it comes to "good education" we are so much more rigid and narrow.

[RosieCotton]

Dude that sucks.

 

I am glad you posted here. Now stick around. Visit often.

 

There are tons of great people who will go out of their way to help you.

It will take some time and research, but all is possible  . . .  you just have to take the time to find it. (Coffee helps!)

 

Do the Y if you can, try the Scouts and get it for free and any other thing you want to, and DONT feel one bit bad about it because THAT is why the program exists. It exists for you right now. AND what a wonderful thing that is. (Pride really just stands in our way doesn't it? What a waste of our brain power. Truly. )

 

There is so much you can do for free it is amazing. All the links from Hunter and others already mentioned. Digging through Ambleside Online is an experience for sure.

 

I'm not sure what I might have that you could use, but let us know what you are looking for and needing so we can help out if we have it.

 

I'll be looking at a few things to possibly add for enrichment here because of your post so thank you for reaching out, now I have a chance to learn about other resources too which is super cool as I don't always have the time to surf here as much as I would like to.

 

Keep us posted.

 

 

 

 

[FO4UR]

I am not single, but I have homeschooled below poverty line several years.  It sucks.

 

 

But, like Pollyanna, I have gotten good at finding what there is to be glad about when life sucks.  I can be glad that poverty forced me to prioritize.  I can be glad that poverty forced me to self-educate rather than simply purchase a $$$ curriculum that did the thinking for me.  I can be glad that poverty forced me to spend T.I.M.E. with my kids at home, at the park, and in nature (instead of driving them to sports, etc...).

 

Adversity is fertile soil for growth.

 

 

Pep talk over...it still sucks!

 

I have 101 tips and plenty of practical advice for achieving a great Classical Education at home and on the cheap.  I'll save all that for another thread.  Suffice it to say, that being forced to forgo the $300 teacher plan book and just READ real books was also a great blessing that came after much mourning over the amazing currics that I could not afford to buy.  Narration. Copywork. Dictation.  Those 3 things are free if you learn to do them.

[SeekingHim77]

I homeschooled for years on a very limited budget. We used the library a lot and ate a lot of beans and rice. :-) I bought all of our curriculum used and I used real books whenever possible. Math was the only curriculum I bought for years. We used living books for history, science and literature. We used those same books to cover language arts through copy work, dictation and oral and written narrations. A wonderful homeschool mom taught my son to play guitar for free. We had a nice homeschool group and got together weekly for free park days and free educational activities. I miss those days. Life was good and life was simple. It was very common to finish up our more formal academics and head for the city park with a large bag of books and some peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

 

Of course all of that was for elementary grades. High school gets a bit harder to do on the cheap but it is totally possible. If you have internet, there are so many free or almost free programs out there. Our founding fathers were way better educated than the average student is today and their education materials were extremely limited.

 

 

 

 

[Hobbes]

Just want to encourage - my parents lived for years below the poverty line. One time my mom was at the mall and there was a "poverty education" booth - the volunteer was shocked to discover that my parents made well below the 'low' that the booth listed.

 

My parents homeschooled five kids and we all graduated, moved on to post-secondary, and are doing well in our careers of choice. I know that being single and doing this is a whole other ball game, but just wanted to add to the voices saying that finances don't make the homeschool.

 

Things I remember from my frugal education that I keep in mind as I homeschool now:

 

- Simple curricula can work very well - most of what we did was basic, but we learned it thoroughly.

 

- Kids learn so much from free time, and financial limitations make them be creative. There was so much creativity in our home, often due to necessity, and it has really shaped me.

 

- Garage sales, thrift stores, and freecycle are wonderful ways to stretch dollars. We still garage sale every spring Saturday. It fills so many of our needs and is also environmentally responsible. Our daughters see garage saling as a great event and save their money all winter to get items at 'good prices'. :)

 

- It's free to give your daughter an education based on discussion and inquiry. Get free e-books as others have mentioned, read them together, and ask questions that teach her to think. If she learns that, she will do well.

 

All the best to you! I hope you find a lot of encouragement here.

[FO4UR]

I've had this blog post sitting at the bottom of my pile.  You inspired me to pull it out, dust it off, and publish it.

 

 

You most certainly CAN educate your children well, and squeeze every drop of living out of life meanwhile, and not let poverty rob you of the most important things. :grouphug:

 

ETA: I know my faith shines through in this post, and that may offend some.  Know that I am not "preaching"...just trying to share how I make this work in my world.

[stm4him]

We don't have much money here and lots of debt and eight kids. I am trying more and more how to homeschool without buying much. Sometimes I think living and using what is right in front of us is an interesting way to live. Like what will we discover that is right in front of us today? I think people underestimate what the library and dollar store have to offer. Sometimes I think we think education has to be so systematic, but maybe the last generation didn't do it that way and still had excellent results.

[G5052]

We've had our ups and downs homeschooling.

 

There were times that I spent about $200/year on curriculum and supplies for two kids, and nearly all of our reading came from the library and loans from friends. I couldn't curriculum hop if I wanted to!

 

I had to make what I had do, and that in itself wasn't bad.

 

When we did splurge on a local group that we really liked, it meant no vacation and barely enough to buy gas to there. There were times that the tank was so empty that I wondered if we'd get home. But we did, and it was worth it to me.

 

It got better when I figured out that I could barter for some classes.  I do web design and some teaching in other areas, so I did that for piano, martial arts, and ultimately other subjects that I needed paid classes for. Just to show that sometimes doors aren't as closed as you think.

 

Times got better now, but I'm still very thoughtful about where we came from.

[Guest mlawn]

Many Hugs, I am right there with you. I can not afford much of anything right now except the bare minimum and I do mean the bare minimum. But that is ok because I have learned to be creative and it has made me reevaluate many things. Not being able to afford the things you need stinks but I can tell you that there many of us on these boards are going through similar situations.

 

This may not be true for you or anyone else but I have found I had better results when I used cheaper alternatives or what I already had. For example Websters speller and OPGTR worked great for us but when I switched to AAS it bombed. I have several expensive curricula I bought years ago when I had the money that are now sitting on the bookshelf or HDD collecting dust. Not being able to buy like I use to showed me several things:

 

For me I needed to stop buying everything I thought I needed or wanted ( like shiny new curriculums)

I do my best work I stay away from the bells and the whistle type programs.

Sometimes less is more - I am getting great results using vintage books like Maxwell's

 

Things that may help:

Using google books

Going to craigslist

Free book organizations

The Book Samaritan

Thrift stores

 

Also, what ages and subjects are you trying to find curriculums for so that others can chime in and better help than I could.

 

This is exactly me !  We were comfortable up until a year ago and I bought new curriculums like bags of apples, it was crazy. Now I am always trying to find a cheap or free way to do the same things. I have sold many of those Shiney curriculums because neither i nor the kids even really liked them. 

[mommaduck]

When we lived in the city, we took advantage of any free opportunities. Of course, that was up North where people were open to providing such for kids and families that lived in the city and/or below the proverty line. Down South here, there are too many that fight such things as they feel those below the poverty line haven't "earned" it. 

 

Duolingo, Coursera, MIT, CK-12 Flexbooks, Gutenberg, Amazon free kindle books, Khan Academy, Houghton Mifflin...Google is your friend. You will find plenty of free sources.