Homeschooling for FREE or NEARLY FREE (part 1)

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We have been homeschooling for 9 years.  While my curriculum and methods have varied from year to year, one thing has remained consistent: considering the cost of supplements for my student’s weekly lessons.

Anyone who has homeschooled knows that choosing a curriculum is tricky at times.  Often, the curriculum that you—the teacher—enjoys using, your students often hate, and vice versa.  To alleviate the pain involved in this process, I always have ‘free’ curriculum options to supplement and/or replace curriculum mid-year when the teacher or students can’t handle the already-purchased subject curriculum.

Below, you will find an article on some FREE or almost FREE resources to help you if you need all-free or mostly-free resources to assist your homeschooling classroom.  The resources that I have used before will be commented upon in RED within Kris Bales article. 

I want to encourage you to not become discouraged with your homeschooling.  No matter if you are new to it or simply feeling burned out from the responsibility, don’t give up!  There is no better teacher in this world for your child except for YOU!  There is not a more loving, understanding, and compassionate mentor to the growth and esteem within your children.  There are support groups to provide guidance and co-ops to provide curriculum sharing.  Stay focused on all of the reasons you began homeschooling, and you will persevere.  If you feel overwhelmed, speak to your family and request additional support in your homeschool.  No matter your family-life, you can do it!  AND more importantly, your child needs you to do it.

  

Resources › For Educators

How to Homeschool for Free (or Almost Free):

Resources for Free and Inexpensive Homeschool Curriculum

By Kris Bales 

Updated February 20, 2018

One of the biggest concerns for new homeschool parents – or those who’ve gone through job loss or divorce – is the cost. There are many ways to save money on homeschool curriculum, but what about parents who find themselves in the position of needing to homeschool for free or almost free?

Believe it or not, it can be done!

Free Homeschooling Resources

Homeschooling doesn’t have to be expensive. Thanks to the Internet (along with smartphones and tablets), high-quality, low-cost homeschooling resources are available to anyone anywhere.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy has a long-standing reputation as a quality resource in the homeschooling community. It is a non-profit educational site started by American educator Salman Khan to provide free, quality educational resources for all students.

Organized by topic, the site includes math (K-12), science, technology, economics, art, history, and test prep. Each topic includes lectures delivered via YouTube videos.

Students can use the site independently, or parents can create a parent account, then set up student accounts from which they can track their child’s progress.

We have had an account through Khan academy for years.  While we do not use it every day, we use it for clear videos to supplement our own math curriculum (Saxon).  Also, we use it during the summer when we lessen how much Saxon is assigned in our homeschool.  Since we are a year-round homeschool family, and we have reached a level in our Math curriculum that can be stressful for my students at times, it is a nice break for them to vary the curriculum at times.  However, we still keep plugging along with Saxon since it has proven—in my family—to be the most effective at long-term retention and comprehension in Math.

Easy Peasy:  All-in-One Homeschool

Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool is a free online resource created by homeschooling parents for homeschooling parents. It contains full homeschool curriculum from a Christian worldview for grades K-12.

First, parents choose their child’s grade level. The grade level material covers the basics, such as reading, writing, and math. Then, the parent selects a program year. All of the children in a family will work together on history and science covering the same topics based on the program year chosen.

Easy Peasy is all online and free. It's all planned out day by day, so children can go to their level, scroll down to the day they are on, and follow the directions. Inexpensive workbooks are available to order, or parents can print the worksheets from the site at no cost (other than ink and paper).

We have used Easy Peasy since the very beginning of our homeschooling.  Again, as a year-round homeschool family, we often finish our curriculum before we are ready to begin the next year’s textbooks.  Therefore, Easy Peasy allows us the ability to stretch our ‘real’ curriculum by integrating Easy Peasy lessons 2Xs a week.

My students are old enough now—and have been exposed to the website long enough—to be able to enter the site, locate the next assignment, and complete the Easy Peasy work on their own.  If a problem does arise, they simply let me know, and we work through it.

I highly recommend Easy Peasy.  It is a great supplement to your regular curriculum, and it is a wonderful place to test out what ‘level’ your students are operating at in their studies.  Without labeling the yearly levels as traditional grade levels from public school systems, your students can be placed into any level, learn, and not feel as if they are behind or accelerated.  Learning for learning’s sake is sooo important.  No matter what other students are learning in private, public or homeschool that week, if your child is advancing in his learning daily, then you are doing GREAT!