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GUEST
ARTICLE
Free and Cheap
Home-Schooling Materials
So,
you’re home-schooling and you’ve sacrificed a second income
so you can stay home with your children. Maybe you’ve
been to a home-schooling curriculum fair or pored through
curriculum catalogs. The cost for curriculum can
add up fast! So, what do you do if you just don’t
have the money?
First,
you’ll need to make some mental adjustments. Relax
your expectations of "curriculum." You
can find a scope and sequence for each grade from various
sources. Some curriculum companies have them and
you can find them online. Your state may have a Board
of Education web site that includes your state’s requirements
for each grade.
Then,
evaluate your priorities. As a Christian home-schooling
family you probably have some spiritual goals that are
over-riding concerns. Are these concerns truly a
priority? I would suggest putting your money where
your priorities are first. Then work backwards from
there.
For
our family, teaching our children a Biblical worldview
is an over-riding educational concern. So, for us,
acquiring history and science materials in line with these
goals is our financial priority, educationally. We
will use the free and cheap alternatives for history and
social studies facts that don’t have a world-view perspective. For
instance, to teach the names of all the States, their geographical
locations and abbreviations we don’t need a curriculum. I
can get materials elsewhere. But to teach world history,
we want material that teaches from Creation onward with
an eye toward "His-story." We’re not likely
to find that at the local library!
Once
you know which materials you must focus your financial
resources on, you can start looking elsewhere for the other
material you need. This may seem very intimidating
but God has answers even for this! When the Word
says God has given us"...all things that pertain unto
life and godliness, through the knowledge of him..." (II
Peter 1:3) it includes our home-schooling plans and materials. Give
God permission to break apart your preconceptions of what
you "must" do or have and enlist His aid in finding
the materials you need.
Here
are some practical suggestions. The first thing is
to take advantage of the free resources out there. Of
course, everyone knows about using the library. But
did you know that many local libraries are part of the
Library of Congress inter-library loan system and can order
just about any book for you? It takes quite awhile
for LOC books to arrive at your library and you can only
check them out briefly but this can be a valuable savings
for you with careful planning. Not all libraries
are part of the LOC system but it is certainly worth asking.
Then
there is the virtually limitless resource of the internet. The
internet is the best thing to happen to research in a long
time! Plan some time to browse and learn how to make
folders in your "favorites" or "bookmarks" if
you don’t already know how to do this. Make a folder
for each subject. Then start searching with your
favorite search engine. You can search for English
grammar, U.S. History, World War I, Spelling, Literature,
Mathematics, etc. You will find more resources than
you could ever use including free worksheets, complete
texts of classic literature, thematic craft projects, etc. Save
links to your favorite finds in each subject folder in
your "bookmarks."
Another
handy resource for you is to request the catalogs of curriculum
publishers. There are several which are literature
based or "living books" and history based. If
you have a copy of the catalogs you can then hunt for the
books that would be beneficial for your child, either at
the library or through one of the inexpensive alternatives.
As
you are able, there are some low-cost materials you may
want to acquire. An older set of encyclopedias will
be helpful. Your children can use these to research
a lot of things even though they don’t have the most current
information. You can pick these up very inexpensively
at thrift stores and Friends of the Library sales. These
are also great places to pick up literature books and "living" history
books. Also, in some areas local home-schoolers hold
annual or periodic sales where used materials are available.
If
some titles still elude you then you can start looking
at used online sources. Check online auctions, used
book web sites, or find some home-school used book e-mail
groups where home-schoolers buy, sell and trade materials.
If
there is a school supply store near you, you can find some
helpful tools there inexpensively if you keep your blinders
on and don’t get sidetracked by all the other glitzy things
you see. These stores have specific-skill workbooks,
flash cards, maps and other such items, usually for under
$5.
Here’s
another possible resource. In some areas local schools
have workshop facilities for teachers. This is a
resource center where teachers can have access to special
cutters, papers, and other tools and lots of room to work. In
our area, this facility is open to home-schooling parents
as well.
If
there are other home-schooling families near you, ask around
to find out what local resources are available. You
don’t have to agree with every part of their philosophy
or theology to share information and resources where you
do agree -- that parents have the right to teach their
own children according to the demands of their consciences. It’s
also amazing what several families working together can
accomplish in collecting or creating resources.
Danette
Tucker
http://www.titus2menandwomen.org/Articles/DanetteTucker/
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