SCM Resource Questions

The books and resources are not included with the Curriculum Guides.  They can purchased on Amazon, bookstores, or some on this website.  It is hard to say how much you can spend since it will depend on how many grade levels you are buying for, how many ebooks you are willing to use and how many you can get used.  I typically make my list and start scouring my favorite used book websites for all of the materials I need and buy them that way.  Another way I manage my budget is to buy term by term.  The guides break it down very nicely for your so you know when you need a resource, some things aren’t used until term 2 or 3 so I wait on those items.  Another way to tame the budge is to use the library or internet for artist, composer, and poet studies.  The SCM produced materials are absolutely beautiful and I buy them whenever I can, but there are years when things are tight and I just take their recommendations and use the library or internet for art, music, and poetry. So you can easily spend a fortune, or get creative and spend very little. Sorry I don’t have an actual figure for you.  I am constantly buying books for future use to line my shelves so come Sept I have a lot of what I need already laying around.  I think for a typical year of everything for 3 kids I spend $1000-$1200 for all subjects.  They happen to be in 3 different book group levels so that makes it a little pricier.

The individual study guides can be helpful, but if not in the budget feel free to cut back here and there as needed and start out prioritizing where you need the most guidance for your family.

I use the history and geography guides by SCM, we really like them a lot! The guides walk you through the year just doing one lesson/day 5 days/week. The individual study guides can be helpful, but I have worked with out them for years

We do picture study once/week. I really like the picture portfolios here, but you can also find art in other places including even old calendars and then find biography information about the artists online or in books.

Poetry my kids write one poem over the course of the month (working on it once/week) and then illustrate it. Just a poem they pick from a poetry book we have. They can pick any poem they want to but have to copy it in their best writing.

Hymn study is one hymn for a month. We sing it twice a week. We have the SCM hymn study book, but resources can be found online or as CDs to listen to and sing along with.

Nature study is a nature walk once/week

Math. Science, language arts… those are all different depending on the ability of my children and I follow the individual teacher guides for those subjects.

If you do SW and ULW through SCM you can follow the ULW guide for scheduling week to week.

SCM makes amazing guides and have wonderful suggestions!

HomeschoolClassifides is also a good place to buy used curriculum online as well.