Cutting Curriculum Cost

This is from HSDLA's Homeschool Heartbeat.  If you click the link below, you can listen instead of read!



Cutting Curriculum Cost
Volume 102, Program 8
1/12/2011

How do you find homeschool curriculum on a budget? Do you check the library? Used book sales? E-bay? What about extra-curriculars? Join Lisa Baughn and HSLDA President Mike Smith on Home School Heartbeat as they discuss homeschooling in tough economic times.

Mike Smith:

Lisa Baughn joins me this week with suggestions for economizing in tough times. Lisa, homeschoolers face the added financial burden of buying curriculum and paying for extracurriculars. What are your top tips for homeschooling frugality?

Lisa Baughn:

At our first homeschool seminar, we learned you can homeschool for almost free with a library card and a math program. First, look at life and homeschooling as an adventure. How can we create a solid education with the tools and the books and the resources that we own now? Focus on real living books, teaching history, literature, geography, with a guide or a spine, rather than canned curriculum which must be purchased yearly for each grade.

Use the library. We’ve gotten the best books, music, movies, audio books. The internet is full of free resources on everything imaginable. You can find worksheets for math and every subject, organizers, ideas, and even unit studies that you can implement.

Did you know that most museums have a free day? Explore the history, nature, and activities in your area. Go to a historical reenactment, smell the smoke, here the cannon fire. Just expose yourself to everything that is naturally going on in the world around you. And most of it is free.

Mike:

Well, Lisa, I know these tips will be very helpful ideas for our listeners, and thanks for those suggestions! And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.