Homeschooling on a Shoestring by Terri Miller

Homeschooling on a Shoestring

by Terri Miller, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

When I first started homeschooling, I read every bit of information I could find on the subject. Granted, back then there wasn't the plethora of information there is today, but there was still enough to overwhelm me. I remember reading that good homeschool families spent as much per year on their curriculum as a private school family would spend on tuition. I knew our budget would not be able to do that.

For the first couple of years, I found a simple curriculum that didn't cost much money, relatively speaking. By our third year of homeschooling, though, our financial situation changed. Looking at our single-income-civil-servant-budget, I understood that we just didn't have the money to buy anything. I realized that if God had called me to homeschool, He would also have to provide what was needed to homeschool.

While I was thinking He would provide the money to buy all of that glitzy, cool curriculum, it turns out that He provided the creativity I would need so I wouldn't have to buy it. God does have a way of showing me that my plans aren't exactly His!

Being a teacher, I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of not using textbooks. I realized, though, that I needed to heed God's call. Because I desired a bit more structure back then, I decided that if I was going to do this, I would have to develop a plan.

Thinking back on this time, I giggle at the thought. It was almost as though I was in one of those cartoons with a little red devil and a pitchfork perched on one side of my shoulder and a little white angel on the other. "I could teach it!" "But what if you miss something?" "If I just came up with a plan to follow, I could come up with my own curriculum, Surely I could." "How will you ever find time to do this?"

Math
Casting the red devil of doubt aside, I did come up with a plan. I decided that math was the subject that frightened me most, so I would start with that. I ordered the scopes and sequences of a couple of different math programs. They were surprisingly similar, and gave me a skeleton to work from. I simply mapped out our year by following the units in the programs. What was neat was that I was unencumbered by a lot of "fluff" and busy work that often accompanies curriculum, and my daughter breezed through several levels very quickly. Our math lessons were done on a white board or on pieces of scrap paper, using beans glued on Popsicle sticks and other homemade manipulatives to understand more difficult concepts. It really worked rather well, and until her 6th grade year, that's the method we chose.

Grammar
I don't believe that young children need to be formally taught grammar, but I do believe they need to be exposed to good writing and learn to write well. I had my daughter choose a book from our home library that was more technical and not quite at an easy reading level for her. She was required to copy from that book -- word for word and punctuation for punctuation. A dramatic change occurred in her writing and her speaking skills. What I noticed is that this approach allowed her to read material that was actually kind of hard for her because by doing the copy work, her reading was naturally slowed down to accommodate her writing, and her mind was allowed extra time to mull over the meaning of the passage. She learned good punctuation skills and she learned more formal word usage, plus her vocabulary increased dramatically.

Social Studies
Alyssa loved (well, she still loves) to learn about other cultures and countries. I would ask her what country she wanted to study, and she would pick a country. We would research that country using the Internet as well as our local library. She would find out about their religions, culture, their government, natural resources, etc. We tried new recipes and sometimes we learned a few words of their language. Through her studies, she learned where the countries were located on the globe, and she gained remarkable knowledge of other countries.

Another year we learned about the United States. Alyssa wrote a report on each state, and she memorized the state capitals. Through her study, she learned about the states' history, special features of that state, natural resources, etc.

We combined history and reading, because basically, Alyssa learned about historic events through literature. We would decide what era to study, and then Alyssa read books that described the historic events of that time period. There were times we kept a timeline, and other times we simply just delved into the study. She read biographies, historical fiction, and non-fictional works. We found a book one year called More Than Moccasins when we were studying American Indians that was a wonderful activity-filled book. That year we built a teepee for our front yard. That was a blast, and while we used drapes we had found at garage sales instead of animal skins, we still had a good idea of what life would have been like for the Indians. We found great books full of great information at the library, and we also found fabulous resources at the Half Price Book Store and at garage sales.

Science
Garage sales provided much of my science curriculum in the early years of our homeschooling -- books I still use with my younger kids. I found whole sets of science books and nature books that have been a valuable asset to our homeschooling. One year I found several books on the solar system at our local Multi-Purpose Center that were beautiful. They were dirt cheap, thankfully, and have been used by all of my kids. One year we found a couple of books -- Science in the Creation Week and Genesis for Kids. These were great hands-on books that I actually used in teaching creation science to the kids at church, but I also incorporated them some in our homeschool. The plus side of this method of homeschooling is that my kids have a great grasp of physical science and biology simply by reading these interesting books. They have a scientific foundation laid, and yet I have never purchased a science textbook curriculum for them in the younger grades.

Today
I learned something during this time. I liked the type of learning that was going on in my home. I liked being able to incorporate all of my children in the studies we were doing. I also like the freedom we had. We were on our own schedule, learning about things that interested us and this type of learning actually instilled a passion in my kids. I felt that the kids got more information in this type of study than they would have received using a textbook-only approach, and I felt they had a broader education. I also learned that answering questions doesn't promote learning, but asking them does.

While our financial situation has improved slightly since that time, I've got to admit that I haven't gone back to the "old methods" of educating our younger kids. I do use a curriculum for math because I have kids at different ability levels and because I'm busy, but for the rest of the subjects we continue much the same way we did a few years ago. I am excited about the depth of my kids' educations, and it is fun to watch a passion grow in them for learning.

Homeschooling can be done very inexpensively, and it can be done well. I must not ever underestimate the power of conviction. I knew our family was called to homeschooling, and I knew that God would provide. He did. He provided me the ability to think outside the box a bit, and He supplied the creativity I needed to get me through that time. What is awesome to me is that I believe that through that time, God also prepared me for the needs of my younger kids. They have very different needs than their sister did, and by learning new methods of education, He prepared me to be able to meet their educational needs now. How cool is that?

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