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How do you afford it all?
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Hello,
I have been home schooling our children for 5 years now and my oldest is going into 4th grade this fall. We live on a very tight budget, and my husband is the only one that works in our home and has a full time job plus a part time home buisness. We usually have money to put back for schooling needs however this year we have been hit hard with doctor bills and well the rising prices of expenses.
So, here it is time to buy school books and things and I find myself having little to NO money for them. We have to pay 200.00 a year to school in under and umbrella school, so that has to come off what little we have first. My question is does anyone else have a hard time buying/funding their school year this year? What do you do about it? Do you use the library for everything except math,english,spelling,phonics? If so how do you go about planning and making sure you have everything you child needs for that year. I love using this site Sonya has AWESOME free resources and curriculum guide and it has so helped me these past 5 years. Our library doesn’t have the things we need most times, and we can do interlibrary loan however their are very strict rules on keepigng the book for so many days only and then sometimes we can’t find what we are looking for through interlibrary loan.
So my question is to any of you that may have dealt with this in the past or are dealing with this, what do you use for school? How do you plan and make school just as interesting and well educational if your resources are very limited. I hope I haven’t been confusing here, if I have I am sorry! 🙂 Have any of you raised money for your curriculum? I guess that might be hard to do, not everyone is willing to purchase in a fundraiser for a homeschool?LOL 🙂
thanks
I think most of us have been here!
Do you HAVE to use an umbrella? If so, is there a cheaper one? What state are you in? That would buy a lot!
Yes, I”ve used the library heavily. Even when a particular book I wanted wasn’t there, often I could find SOMETHING. For example, if I need a biography of George Washington, but the one recommended is not at the library, often there is A biography.
Finding materials used has been a huge help to me. I have rarely bought things new unless it was the workbook portion of something (like math) I also try to get things that I can use over and over again with the children.
There is now so much available online. I am on lots of mailing lists for various homeschool companies and I pay close attention and pick up free things. The Old Schoolhouse puts out a free unit each month for subscribers. Last year we used a Revolutionary War and a Colonial America lapbook with my youngest son–both I had downloaded in free promotions over the years from Currclick.
There are even wonderful curricula that have lots of material online.
http://oldfashionededucation.com/ has a WEALTH of resources. Even if you don’t use the entire thing, you can easily use materials here to “plug the holes” if you have a need and you can’t afford something.
I usually purchase good math and foreign language materials. That’s our priority purchase. Both are things I’m willing to spend for. But other things are easier to find cheap, make do, make up yourself, borrow, ILL, whatever. I spend now more than I did when my children were all young, as high school materials can add up. We’ve tried to squeak out a lot more things (it helps that I’ve sort of built up a collection of things by now.) But I used to average about $300 a year for all three kids when they were little. Of course that was a while ago, lol.
I don’t know that a fundraiser would help much, but finding things I could do to make living cheaper and/or make money did help. We would also ask for special items for birthdays and Christmas for supplementary school items–the grandparents were happy to help us get a microscope, for example, one year for Christmas.
It CAN be done! It just takes more legwork this way than opening up a catalog and ordering to your heart’s content.
Bookworm,
Thanks! I know it can be done. We can’t get schooling cost cheaper we have to school under and umbrella school and thats the cheapest in my area. My dh really likes the umbrella school we use, they are very helpful with legal things and school things in general so we know we can’t change that part at all.
I would love to find some ways to bring in some money for school, we live on a small farm and raise a big garden as well. We don’t subscribe to tv or magazines or anything like that so I can’t cut any of that out either, we live very simply the way it is. I am sure there are ways to cut some more corners though as there probably are in every home. 🙂 What have you done to make money if you don’t mind me asking? I thought of making asking friends and family if they knew anyone that need house cleaning services I could do that for sure and some of my children could help.
You are so right it would be MUCH easier to pick up a catalog and order away, but thats not possible for us. 🙂
Also, I am finding there are more resources at my library on american history than world history. I have a 9yr old dd that is going into 4th and a 7yr old ds that is going into 2nd, would it be bad if we didn’t do module one this year but did American History because we can find more available resources for free? Or should I just get really busy trying to find things for Module 1? It can be very hard, and discouraging when trying to make decisions I know that I always second guess myself and think my kids just are getting what they need. IT seems to be easier to do that when you are coming up with resources yourself, or to me it does.
Thank you so much for your help! 🙂
When we lost our home and all of our school resources through Hurricane Katrina, I went online – we still had a laptop and once settled in a hotel, used the internet to download free things we could use. I used the free books off Project Gutenburg, I used the Old Fashioned Education site that Bookworm mentioned and the library in all the places that we lived while moving to our new location. We just read for the first 7 months and did writing, because we moved so many times. But when we were finally settled, those are the resources we used until we got back on our feet. It can be done, and the quality of the products for free on the Old Fashioned Education site was excellent and met our needs. Do try that site, they have some wonderful things to download, and I would be lost without it. Ambleside online also have ideas for those in an emergency situation and some good downloads. Good luck, don’t give up – you could do this without having to go raise more money if you use these resources along with the ones Sonya offers for free. God Bless, Linda
Let’s see, I have sold used books, made and sold bread, babysat, helped tutor kids at our local community college who needed writing help, worked for my dh’s business part-time, and decorated cakes. LOL Kind of an odd mishmash. Oh, and I also have watched pets when people are gone from home–I have a big selling point in that we have snakes and I’m not afraid of them, so I have fed a lot of folks’ reptiles when they are out of town. LOL
You could certainly try doing American. Have you tried looking for substitute resources for the earlier modules on Old-Fashioned Education? Which items are you having a hard time with, maybe we can help you find subs?
The books in module 1 I would need to sub if I can: Letters from Egypt, Ancient, The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, Exodus:A commentary for Children,Numbers: A commentary for Children, Pharoahs Boat, … Also some of these books I do realize may even be what I children would enjoy or understand because my oldest is in 4th grade. OH an Maps I could do online I am sure.
I am going to check out Old-Fashioned Education now! Do you print books from there? Thank you all so much!
Maybe I should start a new thread to get help on subbing things for Module 1?
I have just found some free resources at the Heart of Wisdom website. Free, Science, History and Bible! Here is the link:
I use a lot of online resources. I did buy a Kindle, which helps for reading online books a lot (more comfortable on the eyes, and lets you sit on the couch and read just like a book. Before I had a Kindle, I got an old palm-pilot used for about $10 that with a free program called mobi-pocket reader lets you read ebooks. (The Kindle also reads mobi-format books – so there are lots out there.) The screen is smaller and it isn’t eink so it can bother some peoples eyes, but it is inexpensive.
Look up Book Samaritan. They provide free resources for homeschoolers, and they have halped me a lot.
I use a lot of ebooks. Project Gutenburg, Old Fashioned Education, Archive.org, manybooks.net
There is a great free math program called MEP – lookup MEP Maths on google and it should be the first hit… it is CIMT. You can also check out another free math program called Khan Academy.
My husband and I have been in this situation for years. We have four children and we have pinched every penny, cut every corner, and still tried to achieve a quality education. We use the library faithfully. I agree with Bookworm. If the library didn’t have the exact title we were looking for, we tried to substitute it with something equivalent. Also, I have borrowed curriculum from friends if they aren’t using it for the year. I have even put out e-mails to friends telling them the exact titles I’m looking for and they’ve loaned them to me because they weren’t using them at the moment. You could see if anyone in your church or homeschool area needs something you have and maybe you could trade for the year.
As far as raising funds goes, I have cleaned houses, tutored, and done grocery shopping for an elderly woman. Do you have enough stuff for a garage sale? We have a lot of people at our church who put an ad in the church bulliten stating that they are having a garage sale and are open to donations. There are a lot of folks who just want to get rid of stuff without going through the hassle of a sale. You could also ask family for donations to the sale. My girlfriend did this just a few weeks ago and made over $1000. Your schooling could go quite a way on that!
Just as a side note, sometimes I think we stress if we don’t follow each part of curriculum instead of doing our best and trusting that the Lord has a plan in this craziness. Is it more important that your children read good books (which are definitely available from the library… especially american history), have good discussions, and truly understand something… or that we follow a particular path laid out by other people. Even the fact that you are voicing the concern shows how much you care about what your children learn. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. I’m sure He’ll lead you down the right path.
I buy a lot of book from our friends of the library sales. Most books were a dime or quarter a piece. We also use free public domain books and non consumable curriculum. The initial cost of a kindle was very worth it for our large family (we now own more than one
). Excellent and economical homeschool curriculum guides and booklists can be found here at SCM, Ambleside, CharlotteMasonhelp.com, Beautiful Feet, and the Baldwin project (mainlesson.com).
Just to note: Math Mammoth will be 50% off in August through the Homeschool Co op ($64 for all levels K-6) and will be on a CD disk (good reuse factor here). I have read high reviews about Math Mammoth lately. It has been compared with Singapore math.
Janell
I wanted to add that we too don’t follow a guide perfectly by using every book suggested. We use what we have in our personal library, free at gutenberg, or in the library system. I don’t worry about library loan times. If we don’t finish a book, we request it again and eventually finish it. My daugher has been reading Abraham Lincoln’s World for over six months because our library loan is for two weeks and every one else in our county seems to want to read this book too. She is doing a Charlotte Mason linger with this book. And when we wanted to study the prints of John Audobon, I requested every child and adult book about him in our library system. We had a dozen excellent books and hundreds of prints of art to pour over. Only a couple of the books in that stack were in any of my homeschool guides/booklist.
A booklist is just a booklist. Here is a little article about booklists.
http://www.valerieslivingbooks.info/booklists.htm
Blessings,
Janell
It’s totally okay to substitute. I made a list of the topics that were going to be covered in the Module, and then just sat down with the books at home and from the library and wrote down which ones covered which topic. Since several of them covered more than one, I included them on the list for each topic. Also, these early years do not go into great detail on some of the things, so on the next rotation (when hopefully you have more money) you can spend more time and pick up more books/details.
If you are going to do Mod 1 and your kids won’t enjoy the Letters from Egypt, just find a geography book about Egypt and make the salt dough map Sonya has put in the Links and tips section for Mod 1. Letters from Egypt talks about the people, the crops, the weather, etc…
An awesome treasure we found at our library was a book called “Once Upon A Time in Egypt”. It is a living book along the lines of Boy of the Pyramids. My 4th grade dc liked it.
We have the Math Mammoth CD and it covers math K-6.
I keep an eye on our used book store. Occassionally they do “sales” and I found several classics and recommended read-aloud literature for a dollar.
The Friends of the Library is probably the most valuable resource I have for finding cheaper books…I get AMAZING deals for under $1.
Here are some places that I use to help keep costs down:
http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/loanfinder/ free art, history, science, and other lesson things on loan to your home from the National Gallery of Art
http://www.knowitall.org/instantreplay/content/LanguageIndex.cfm free foriegn language lessons for kids
http://www.myaudioschool.com/ let him do some handicraft or lego and block building while listening to an audio book – ( http://librivox.org/ is free and myaudioschool uses those)
http://www.livingmath.net/ lists of living books and ideas to make math fun and relevant
http://www.freetypinggame.net/ free typing games for kids
http://www.squidoo.com/drawingwithchildrennature drawing / nature study lessons
http://www.squidoo.com/harmony-fine-arts-mini-units free ideas for artist and composer studies
http://cgfa.acropolisinc.com/index.html free artist bios and picture galleries
http://notebookingpages.com/ these are amazing in the “fun” you can put into narrations – written and drawn for all subjects – I use these all the time quite a few are free
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/Lapbooks_at_HSS.php – free activities to do with your curriculum, eps. literature
We like to mix up our reading with lots of different narration things…this link from SCM is very good:
http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/
We make file folder games to go with our topics (or skills) from here: http://filefolderfun.com/
http://www.khanacademy.org/ free math curriculum
These are all sites that I have found from here, and they have been very helpful to me. HTH
Ok I love this & if you have high speed these are great ideas. For the few of us who only have dial up options I use things through the library a LOT. I find that the late fees at the libarary are so little a buck here or there. Well worth getting the book instead of buying it. Also, if I find we LOVED it then I know to put it on a wish list and buy it when I can.
When grandparents ask what to get our kids I will say things like books to the one side who loves this stuff and clothes to the other set who likes to shop. Then I don’t have to do one or the other and can put that money toward school things.
I actually happened apon a 2-3hr job in town that I can totally do any hour, any day of the week once a week and I know that money will help. But to do something from “home” would be better.
I have had to do without some years and praise the Lord others have helped me with things and I have been blessed. So please pray, listen to the Lord and know that the kids will be fine with what ever you can do. Misty
I hate to jump in here carelessly without having read the comments before me, but I’m running short on time, hopefully I’m not duplicating information.
Amazon Kindle has an app. for your computer or smart phone that will download their books (I believe nook and iBooks do too). There are many free books (many of them listed in the AO selection and SCM lists). It would save you time going to the library — they are especially good for the older books where the copyright has expired.
I’ll think on it some more and get back to you.
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