I have gotten a lot of comments from family and friends who comment that since we are homeschooling we aren't making the money we could - you know if we both went to work and had someone else educate our child. It always makes my blood boil because well - for starters I WORK FROM HOME already and I homeschool and usually these comments are coming from people that haven't taken the time to bother researching the costs of homeschooling.
Wanting to homeschool and being able to afford homeschooling is often two different things. Generally I have run into two different situations when it comes to this in the last year of homeschooling. First you have the families that one parent has a good job and the other can afford to stay home and teach the kids - of course there is a budget, but money (at least from the outside) doesn't seem to be an issue. The other (and the more we are personally familiar with) is that both parents find ways to make an income, and money isn't so plentiful.
Homeschooling need not be expensive - in fact if you plan properly, it costs about nothing aside from the initial start up fees - books, resources, etc.
Getting Started:
Save money by skipping on the premade plans and make your own. You will find a lot of companies that want to charge a lot of money for homeschooling curriculum and lesson plans - which while they can be very helpful... they are often charging way more than need be. Barnes and Noble has plenty of books to start with - whether beginning at Kindergarten or 10th grade. And also to save even more ebay is your friend.
Some good books when starting at younger ages are the "All you need to know books" that you can find that have math, writing, and spelling in one book. They range anywhere from 12-25.00 and cover the basics of what your child will be learning for the year. They have one of these for each year.
You can get an accompanying work book while you are there as well - with questions and problems for the year.
I usually accompany a work book with online games - so for example if my son is beginning addition I would direct him to pages with learning games about the type of addition he is using such as:
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/grade_level_help.htm
http://www.primarygames.com/math.htm
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/math/
And there are plenty more where that came from.
Make sure you have a printer
Because while you are teaching from a book, it is also nice to have accompanying pages to enforce what your child is learning. I mainly use www.enchantedlearning.com for this (20.00 a year and so worth it to have all the work sheets you will need at your fingertips).
Once you get started, you write out a lesson plan and know about generally what you are going to be studying for the year, the library is your friend. There is no need to purchase pricey books when you can rent them for the duration of your lesson then take them back.
Realistically you could homeschool on just this - and when you add it up...
All you need book - 15.00
Website fee for yr (ie enchantedlearning) 20.00
Work book - 20.00
Total for year 55.00
Now this is a very small amount of money to assure that you know what your child is learning - and don't get me wrong there are other expenses you will incur if you go on field trips or if you give up your job to do this. Homeschooling though is a lifestyle as much as a choice - it means sometimes you need to cut back on things you are used to. . . just like if you were to stay at home for any other reason.
The key though is that it need not be expensive - and it can be done on the cheap.
There are some other really good resources for this as well which can be found at:
other ideas for cheap homeschooling
discount homeschooling supplies
Help for financially needy, widows, and single parents
Please feel free to post any other links you find :)
Peace, love, and happy homeschooling!
Showing posts with label getting started. Show all posts
Showing posts with label getting started. Show all posts
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Introduction: Why We Home School
Hello there. To start off, I figure we should get situated with the idea of home schooling. First of all let me say that my husband and I have been home schooling for a year now. We began first in October of 2006 when we moved to Las Vegas and found the schools there shall we say... less desirable. However this wasn't the first time we had thought about home schooling our son. I had said I wanted to ever since he was a baby, but to be honest, I secretly questioned whether or not I ever would.
However viewing the bleak school in Las Vegas and the other issues that came up during the enrollment process, as well as the fact I just so happened to land an at home tarot reading job which really freed up my time and gave me flexibility that October we decided we would give it a try.
Home schooling in Vegas was a challenge. For me personally the biggest challenge for our son is socialization (something we will get to later on as it REPEATEDLY comes up). For me it's not so much the worry of HIM meeting other kids or becoming socially inept from home schooling... For anyone that has met my son, they know he is quite the social butterfly! However my issue is ME meeting with other people. I am nervous around people and it is a trait I fight with constantly so he doesn't pick upon it, and so I push myself to make sure he has friends. But this has been the biggest problem for us.
At home we started off at a kindergarten level and it was easy enough to teach the material. Tristan was resistant at first, so we began what some call "deschooling" which is a process where you allow your child the time they require to get used to the home schooling mode. Whether you pull your child out of school at kindergarten, 5th grade or 11th grade there is going to be SOME need for deschooling. Home schooling and public school can be quite different and there is always the trick of getting them to see you not only as mom or dad but as a teacher as well.
So that is what we did. We gave him a good 2 weeks off - let him have an extended summer. Then in mid November, we started working on easy projects, that involved learning and skills such as critical thinking, reading, math, writing etc. For the rest of the year, we began to do more and more projects.
In January Terry (my husband) went back to school to complete his degree as a massage therapist which meant that my cushy part time at home tarot gig was to become full time and he took over the home schooling. Once again we had to compress. His way of schooling and mine were VERY different. I have to admit, it was quite a struggle on us all.
However by the end of the year, Tristan tested right about at grade level 2 for both reading and math. Not that grades or testing really matter in this house - as we have no actual grades. We never even actually told Tristan what his testing score was. We just had him take it (it was done through the testing for the K12 program which is used by many states as the standard on line curriculum) and then simply told him he did well and not to worry. But it was nice to have some confirmation we seemed to be doing things correctly - without the regimen that is used in public and private schools nationally.
Our home schooling style is about 65% kid based - which is common with unschooling. This basically means Tristan gets to generally pick what he wants to learn about. If he wants to learn about dinosaurs (as he did for a few weeks last year) we focus his studies on Triceratops, Brontosauruses, and Pterodactyls - we get him books on them to practice reading, the sheets he practiced his letters on had dinosaurs, we learned about carnivores and omnivores and herbivores, learned about the paleolithic era, we calculated how fast a comet would go and theorized if this was what caused the dinosaurs to become extinct, we learned new words like extinct, we did art and talked about body parts.... basically we made sure he was learning but in a manner and about a subject he wanted to learn about. We let him pick the direction and focus, and keep a list of regular activities to do to keep his writing, math, and social studies on track.
We believe that this is his life and his education. So we give him the choice. We recently moved to the Denver area in Colorado and when he got here he asked if he could go to school. I was apprehensive about moving him back and forth, but he wanted to then I would support his educational decision. I told him he could try it for 2 weeks - and let me know what he thought but after that he would have to make a choice between home or school and remain in one or the other for the rest of the year. I explained to him that education, however you choose it needs to be somewhat constant and he had to decide. He agreed and just about at the end of 2 weeks something happened at school that he decided he didn't want to return.
So he is back home with me. I now work full time while my husband finishes up his last month and a half of school and also home school. We study or do learning activities 3 - 4 hours a day, get out to meet other home school families 1 - 3 times a week depending on the school, he has formal piano lessons, and will starting karate as well as a cooking class early December. We certainly have our hands full!
My husband has been understanding to a point. He still worries about the control issues, socialization, etc. However over the last year I think he has come around to see the brighter side of things. He has seen our son grow in leaps and bounds and has something in him that he didn't really have in public school... the honest DESIRE to learn. It's been a journey to get here, and I feel many many more are ahead. It's an adventure and we are loving every minute of it!
However viewing the bleak school in Las Vegas and the other issues that came up during the enrollment process, as well as the fact I just so happened to land an at home tarot reading job which really freed up my time and gave me flexibility that October we decided we would give it a try.
Home schooling in Vegas was a challenge. For me personally the biggest challenge for our son is socialization (something we will get to later on as it REPEATEDLY comes up). For me it's not so much the worry of HIM meeting other kids or becoming socially inept from home schooling... For anyone that has met my son, they know he is quite the social butterfly! However my issue is ME meeting with other people. I am nervous around people and it is a trait I fight with constantly so he doesn't pick upon it, and so I push myself to make sure he has friends. But this has been the biggest problem for us.
At home we started off at a kindergarten level and it was easy enough to teach the material. Tristan was resistant at first, so we began what some call "deschooling" which is a process where you allow your child the time they require to get used to the home schooling mode. Whether you pull your child out of school at kindergarten, 5th grade or 11th grade there is going to be SOME need for deschooling. Home schooling and public school can be quite different and there is always the trick of getting them to see you not only as mom or dad but as a teacher as well.
So that is what we did. We gave him a good 2 weeks off - let him have an extended summer. Then in mid November, we started working on easy projects, that involved learning and skills such as critical thinking, reading, math, writing etc. For the rest of the year, we began to do more and more projects.
In January Terry (my husband) went back to school to complete his degree as a massage therapist which meant that my cushy part time at home tarot gig was to become full time and he took over the home schooling. Once again we had to compress. His way of schooling and mine were VERY different. I have to admit, it was quite a struggle on us all.
However by the end of the year, Tristan tested right about at grade level 2 for both reading and math. Not that grades or testing really matter in this house - as we have no actual grades. We never even actually told Tristan what his testing score was. We just had him take it (it was done through the testing for the K12 program which is used by many states as the standard on line curriculum) and then simply told him he did well and not to worry. But it was nice to have some confirmation we seemed to be doing things correctly - without the regimen that is used in public and private schools nationally.
Our home schooling style is about 65% kid based - which is common with unschooling. This basically means Tristan gets to generally pick what he wants to learn about. If he wants to learn about dinosaurs (as he did for a few weeks last year) we focus his studies on Triceratops, Brontosauruses, and Pterodactyls - we get him books on them to practice reading, the sheets he practiced his letters on had dinosaurs, we learned about carnivores and omnivores and herbivores, learned about the paleolithic era, we calculated how fast a comet would go and theorized if this was what caused the dinosaurs to become extinct, we learned new words like extinct, we did art and talked about body parts.... basically we made sure he was learning but in a manner and about a subject he wanted to learn about. We let him pick the direction and focus, and keep a list of regular activities to do to keep his writing, math, and social studies on track.
We believe that this is his life and his education. So we give him the choice. We recently moved to the Denver area in Colorado and when he got here he asked if he could go to school. I was apprehensive about moving him back and forth, but he wanted to then I would support his educational decision. I told him he could try it for 2 weeks - and let me know what he thought but after that he would have to make a choice between home or school and remain in one or the other for the rest of the year. I explained to him that education, however you choose it needs to be somewhat constant and he had to decide. He agreed and just about at the end of 2 weeks something happened at school that he decided he didn't want to return.
So he is back home with me. I now work full time while my husband finishes up his last month and a half of school and also home school. We study or do learning activities 3 - 4 hours a day, get out to meet other home school families 1 - 3 times a week depending on the school, he has formal piano lessons, and will starting karate as well as a cooking class early December. We certainly have our hands full!
My husband has been understanding to a point. He still worries about the control issues, socialization, etc. However over the last year I think he has come around to see the brighter side of things. He has seen our son grow in leaps and bounds and has something in him that he didn't really have in public school... the honest DESIRE to learn. It's been a journey to get here, and I feel many many more are ahead. It's an adventure and we are loving every minute of it!
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