Homeschooling can be expensive — especially if you panic and buy the first curriculum you see! However, it’s possible to start homeschooling for under $100, leaving room in your budget to buy the perfect curriculum once you’ve decided on how to homeschool your children.
“How do you do it?”
It’s a question that I get asked about homeschooling a lot, usually with disbelief. I usually mumble something about it not being too bad — that it’s easier that packing a lunch every day. I’m not the best at speaking words outloud. Honestly, I should just print up some cards with a few links to my blog listed and hand them out when people try to talk to me. And you all thought the homeschooled kids were the ones lacking social skills…
Here’s the thing though: homeschooling itself isn’t that hard. You know what’s hard? Being home all day with nothing to do. Believe me, I dread summer vacation just as much as every other mom. But being home all day with a solid learning schedule is actually fairly easy — especially once you’ve got a good curriculum that tells you what to do and when.
“Great,” you might be thinking. “What curriculum should I buy?”
That is the $100 question. Well, actually most curriculums cost a whole lot more than $100, and that’s why I wanted to share some thoughts about how to homeschool when you’re just starting out.
One quick caveat: there might be strict laws concerning homeschool in your province or state. When that’s the case, find a local homeschooling group (searching Facebook is probably easiest) for advice as these tips may not work for you.
How to Start Homeschooling for Under $100
Finding a curriculum that works for you and your kids can be an exercise in frustration. Some people luck out and fall in love with the first program they use, while others need to kiss a few frogs before they find a curriculum to commit to. And then there are people like me, who pretty much fall in love with every curriculum in every style and then live with the deep regret of only having three kids to try the various curriculums out on.
So this is what I recommend: just focus on a few core subjects at first. Ignore the rest for now, unless you discover that unschooling is your true calling. The rest of us, though, can relax and know that all the familiar subjects will be back soon enough.
This is how I would do it.
Step 1: Start with the bare minimum.
For your own peace of mind, you’ll want to cover the basics like math and reading. With that in mind, find curriculums that are inexpensive but reputable, such as the following:
All prices are USD unless otherwise indicated and current as of September 28, 2018.
Math
Math curriculums vary widely and can get pretty spendy, so don’t commit right away. Buy something inexpensive but solid.
I’m a huge fan of Math Mammoth. We’ve tried more flashy curriculums like Beast Academy and more hands-on curriculums like RightStart, but somehow Math Mammoth always wins in the end. My kids prefer workbooks over comic books, I guess.
They’re not the only ones that like it. Math Mammoth is one of Cathy Duffy’s Top Picks and it’s listed in the fourth edition of the Well-Trained Mind — which is just to say that smarter minds than mine agree that it’s a decent curriculum.
An entire grade is $37.50, but you can buy it in two halves for $18.75 each if you don’t want to commit to an entire year. The curriculum is a downloadable PDF too, so you can reuse it with your other children in the future.
Compare that to $159 for Math-U-See Alpha or $211.96 for RightStart Level A — both very good, well-respected programs that I have purchased in the past, but both on the pricey side. Especially once you add in shipping in Canada and currency conversions.
It’s entirely possible that you might not love Math Mammoth; you might find a math program that you like better. That’s great! But in the mean time, you will have been well-served by Math Mammoth and you’ll only have spent $18.75 plus the cost of ink and paper.
History
Wait — history? Okay, so I don’t think that history is an absolute must-do subject if you’re trying to stick to the bare minimum, but I’m going to throw it on the list anyway because I absolutely love Story of the World. SOTW is a fascinating four-volume series in which history is told as a story, and it’s so delightfully schooly feeling.
The books themselves are about $11 on Amazon — cheaper if you buy the kindle version. We love listening to the audiobooks in the car, and I think they’re worth every penny (usually $25 on WellTrainedMind.com, though today they’re marked down to $16.00). You can even purchase the activity book if you’re feeling ambitious, though you can probably tell from the photo that we don’t use ours as often as the main book.
A lot of the popular curriculums use Story of the World for history — Ambleside, Sonlight, Bookshark, Timberdoodle. Classical Conversations. Well Trained Mind, of course (same author). Memoria Press doesn’t schedule SOTW, but instead recommends it as a summer read. So who know? You might end up needing it anyway.
SOTW is aimed at grades one through four, but many people use them for the older grades as well. If you are using the books with younger kids, I’d pre-read the chapters first, given that history has a lot of beheadings and wars and what not. Some kids are more sensitive than others.
Just a note — some Protestant Christians prefer Mystery of History because it starts with the Genesis Creation story and includes more Biblical content. MOH is more expensive than SOTW, though. I haven’t personally tried this series, but I have friends who really love it. And Cathy Duffy says it’s one of her top picks. (I don’t actually know who Cathy Duffy is, but I often just do what she says). There’s also the Story of Civilization series from Tan Books — it’s a new series written from a Catholic perspective, and the audio versions of these books are even available on Audible. I’m jealous.
Phonics and Reading
If your child is already reading, then focus on books — really, really good books. Have your child read at their own level and listen to books written at a higher reading level — family read alouds and audiobooks are both good for that.
I like to take booklists with me to the library so I know what books to take out, and there are a lot of book lists to choose from. Classical Academic Press has a site call ClassicalReader.com that has great suggestions. I like how you can search by grade or level or genre. A lot of homeschooling parents also just look at the books for each grade in the Sonlight/Bookshark curriculum for ideas. We used Wayfarers for years, and you can see the entire booklist for each subject if you download the sample from lulu.com.
If your child isn’t reading yet, you might want to try a reading program. All About Reading is very popular, and I’ve heard a lot of good about Logic of English. They’re both expensive though.
At our house, we’re having really good luck with First Start Reading from Memoria Press — the first four books and the teacher manual will set you back $42.95 US, so yes, it’s a bit pricier. They’ll get you started, though, and if you decide to switch to another program later on, you can always sell the teacher’s manual and the unused workbooks on homeschool swap sites.
Even cheaper? I know a few people that simply used the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons quite successfully. It might even be at your library.
Okay, that’s math, history, and a bit of English. What about science, or geography, or … I don’t know, foreign languages?
Add them in once you’ve decided what homeschooling style your prefer.
Step 3: Find out what type of homeschooler you are.
So how do you figure that out? Quizzes! I can never turn down a good Internet quiz, and I’m happy to have found a couple that I found that will introduce you to different homeschooling styles.
What Kind of Homeschooler Are You?
On this quiz from Eclectic-Homeschool.com’s, I scored:
- Score for Waldorf Education: 9
- Score for Traditional Education: -6
- Score for Unit Studies Education: -6
- Score for Montessori Education: 19
- Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: -8
- Score for Unschooling: 5
- Score for Classical Education: 19
- Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 15
Pretty accurate, I think. We started off Waldorf, then moved to Charlotte Mason, and now we use a Classical curriculum. And I’ve always liked those Montessori maps with the flags, though I’m too cheap to buy them.
The site also includes a Homeschool Philosophies: A Resource List to find out more about the different philosophies, complete with books to check out and blogs to follow. It’s a pretty good list; I’m impressed.
Funny enough, I scored highest for Traditional Homeschooler on the quiz from homeschoolon.com, even though the first quiz scored me a -6 in that style. It’s all for fun though, so take both tests — accurate or not, the results will introduce you to various homeschooling methods.
Not a quiz person? A third resource that can explain different homeschooling styles is on SimplyCharlotteMason.com — SCM has a brief introduction to five styles of homeschooling (Traditional, Classical, Unschooling, Unit Studies, and Charlotte Mason) post that I found helpful when I started out. Sonya Shafer also offers a free ebook on the SCM website that promises to help you determine which style will suit your family best.
Personally, I would do it all: download the ebook, take the quizzes, read the descriptions of all the answers, and then decide what ring truest for you (no matter what you score). Something is going to make your heart flutter — go and read more about that method.
Step 4. Research homeschool curriculums.
Once you’ve decided on a style, it’s time to pick your curriculum. Google your selected homeschooling style and get ready for a long list of choices. Take your time — remember there’s no rush.
Once again, I’m big on holding off on a commitment as long as possible. Yeah, this coming from someone that got married at 22. 😛
My best piece of advice is to download samples from the curriculums that interest you and use those samples until them as long as you can. I can’t count how many times I’ve found the “perfect” (science, always science) curriculum only to find that it just didn’t work well for me or for my kids.
Some curriculums only give one day’s worth of samples (*shakes fist angrily in the air*), but some give you up to four or even six weeks! Use every last bit of each sample and be sure you love it before handing over your money.
Don’t feel that you need to commit all at once to an entire program either. When I was considering Memoria Press last year, I simply bought a couple MP books for each of my girls to work through. It gave me a better sense of how we would do with the complete curriculum before diving in. So. Many. Baby steps.
Overwhelmed? It might be helpful to join a Facebook group or two dedicated to the particular style that you’ve chosen — just do a search like “unit studies homeschool” or “charlotte mason homeschool”. You might want to search for something local to your city or province/state too, if you haven’t already.
Another option is to check out the curriculum that people around you are using. Homeschooling families are really good about helping each other out, and there might be local moms that will let you come over and flip through a curriculum. They might let you observe their family for a day. They might even let you borrow their books for awhile!
I’ve also found that homeschooling support groups are a good place to go for advice — the real life, in-person groups more than the online ones. I don’t know why, but I find that people give more honest reviews in person. You know, “I liked this part, but that part was hard” or “My oldest loved it but my youngest hated it because…”. Those honest reviews are available online too, of course, but sometimes they get lost amidst the glowing reviews left by die-hard fanatics.
Can you Continue to Homeschool for Under $100?
Can you homeschool for less than $100 in total? I’ve been told that you can, with a really good library near by. There are a few free curriculums online that I know of, like Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool, Ambleside Online (Charlotte Mason), and Mater Amabilis (Catholic Charlotte Mason). I haven’t tried them personally, but they all have Facebook groups full of people that can help you get started.
Personally, I’d rather pay for a solid curriculum. I know that I have limited time and a low stress threshold, so I prefer to have a curriculum that is entirely scheduled out for me. Time is money too, right?
That being said, I keep things as low cost as I can. I search for used curriculum and I’ve even been know to buy books that I’ll need a year or two down the road. I buy most of my used curriculum on Facebook, but I’ve also had great luck on Kijiji (or Craigslist, which I think is bigger in the US). Some people have found great deals on eBay. Look around, used curriculum is everywhere.
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