Welcome to the September 2013 Natural Living Blog Carnival: Extending Natural Living to the Classroom.
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Natural Living Blog Carnival hosted by Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project through the Green Moms Network. This month, our members are talking about how they extend their family’s natural lifestyle to their child’s school. Hop around to each post to get some tips and share your own!
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With the new year in full force around here, and homeschooling is in effect. I decided that this year instead of spending of ton and dropping out the cash. I decided to go a littler greener this year when it came to my home school plan.
So instead of opening a catalog with homeschooling supplies and you might quickly get the impression that homeschooling is going to cost thousands of dollars. While you may opt to go this route it’s not necessary. You can get your homeschooling supplies inexpensively.
Here are a few tips:
Set a budget
Just like anything else that involves your finances, it’s wise to set a homeschooling budget for the year before you begin purchasing supplies. If you see some awesome math DVD or whiz-bang chemistry set, you’ll have to see where you’re at, budget-wise before you make the purchase. Just doing this might keep you from buying a lot of unnecessary stuff that will end up in the storage closet.
Get clear
Decide on your homeschooling style and test-drive curriculum and other tools before you start buying. One of the reasons buying homeschooling curriculum can be so expensive is because most of the time you’re buying it sight unseen. It may not be right for your child so you end up selling it at a fraction of retail on eBay.
I might have to do on one of math set’s, right.
But hey you live and you learn right!
To avoid this problem, get with the other homeschooling parents in your support group. Ask them what they like and dislike about curriculum they’ve purchased and used. Read messages on homeschooling support forums online and do the same. Deciding in advance what your style will be means you can adapt the tools to the method, not the other way around.
I’m apart of a couple local groups now that do swap and meet’s. Sort of like an bartering system. Really cool right!
Once you’re decided however, curriculum in a box programs may be cheaper than obtaining everything piecemeal. You can also purchase inexpensive basic curriculum at bookstores for under $30 apiece. For example, www.mkkids.com offers basic skills curriculum as well as thewww.educents.com
Buy used
You can find great deals at swap meets organized by homeschooling support groups. Hooking up with your local group also means group discounts on field trips. To find one, check with your local home school association – a simple internet search will turn some up. Try joining booking coops too.
Yard sales, thrift stores, eBay, Craigslist, Freecycle, “for sale or trade” message forums for home schoolers online are some more places to find cheap supplies. Public library sales is another place to find inexpensive books to fill out your family’s bookshelves.
Get creative
Nowadays many parents are getting creative and opt to design a curriculum. You can create unit studies, you can go for a “living books” curriculum by making lists of reading material and getting these from the library. You can print an almost infinite number of free online worksheets (just search for what you need, for example “free third grade math worksheets” etc.).
Using Curclick has tons of cheap and affordable ways that you could do this. Love this site!
Math manipulatives can be frugal. Instead of buying fancy things, use stuff you have around your home to teach the kids math – dried beans, dried macaroni, Lego toys, wooden blocks, etc can teach addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions and basic geometry.
Find freebies
Did you know that many office supply stores host teacher appreciation days once a year around August? These are a source of free and discounted items and giveaways. Many larger bookstores such as Barnes and Noble also offer discounts to teachers throughout the year, including homeschooling parents. They also have free book giveaways in the summer.
Public libraries are a never ending source of free homeschooling materials. From the obvious – unlimited free books – to educational DVDs, great music on CD, arts and crafts activities open to the public, symphony days, story time, even continuing education for older teens and adults.
Public domain books can also be downloaded and printed freely from the internet at http://www.gutenberg.org/
With a little creativity and time, you can home-school frugally – saving not only money but also allowing you more flexibility in the educating of your kids. The Green Way!
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We homeschool as well and it’s always nice to hear how others do it. We also buy used (homeschoolclassifieds.com is great!) I also imput our lesson plans into the computer so that the following year I can sell our instructor guides (thus essentially buying next years guides for free) and then there’s the fact that my kids will be reusing each others books. 🙂 It definitely doesn’t have to cost a ton to homeschool. Oh we also combine some of our subjects so my boys are in 2nd and 1st grade and do their own grade levels for things like math and reading but for history and science they do the same level (which means less book buying and less reading aloud for me)
These seem like great tips for a frugal homeschooler! 🙂 I never knew it could be that pricy.
As I start to embark on the schooling journey with my young kids I know that full-time homeschooling is not a viable option for me but I am interested in how I can use homeschooling lessons and other materials as enrichment. If the curriculum lacks something my kids have an interest in I want to be able to let them explore it anyway. These are great options for a parent with the same idea. Thanks!
Great tips for homeschooling families! While after much thought, we decided not to homeschool, I can appreciate these tips because I did so much research about homeschooling before deciding it would not work for us right now!
I had no idea homeschooling could be so expensive! You give some great advice! I really like the swap meets to trade materials!