Heavenly Homemakers

I’m a little bit hesitant to share about our homeschooling budget because…oh, I don’t know…I just am. I want to discuss it…I just think it can be a bit of a touchy subject. It’s a good thing all of you are so nice.

There are different ways of thinking about how much money families should spend on their homeschooling materials.

Some people look at it like:  “It’s my child’s education. I’m not going to skimp one bit and I’ll spend as much as I can to make sure my child gets the best education possible.”

Then there’s the flip side:   “I can teach my child using everyday things around the house and a pencil and a notebook and the Bible. That’s all I need.”

I agree with both ideas to a certain degree. I think that it is very important to invest in the education of our children. And I also think that our children can learn a great deal by just living and experiencing life with their families…without spending a dime.

I used to skimp more than I do now when Asa and Justus were in the earlier grades. That worked fine because at that point it was really just about teaching them how to read and a few other basics. I tried to just get as many of the Sonlight recommended books at the library as I could, while spending just a little bit on their math books and a few other things.

As my kids get older (and as I’m schooling more of them) I’ve found that it’s harder and harder to get to the library to get all the books they need to read so that we can cover everything I want to cover in the school year. Having the books at our house on our shelves has been so helpful.

So while I’ve struggled with the fact that I could save quite a bit of money by going to the library everytime one of the kids finished one of the books on their list…I’ve just been unable (or yes, possibly unwilling) to make it happen. I LOVE having all the books we’ll need right on the shelf ready to grab at a moment’s notice.

And these books that Sonlight recommends? They are worth paying money for. They are worth reading over and over. They are really great books. (Sonlight is not paying me to brag on them, by the way.)

Having said all of that…I will tell you that our annual homeschool budget is $450. Total. For all the boys. For the year. That amount includes field trips and school supplies from Walmart. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it’s enough, but that’s all there is. Some of you may see that number and be shocked that I spend that little. Some of you may be shocked that I spend that much.

I’m able to keep it at that number by doing several things. First, I combine curriculums as I mentioned in this post. I don’t buy a separate curriculum for each child.

Second, I reuse many “consumable books”. There are a few exceptions, but many of the History and Science books I ordered for Asa when he was younger, I am able to re-use with all of the boys now. If there was question-and-answer stuff in those books, we did them orally. (He got plenty of writing practice elsewhere.)

Third, once I buy a book for Asa, it is passed down and used for the other boys when they’re ready. I don’t have to buy lots of books for each boy each year.

Fourth, I look for some things on ebay. I got a pretty nice deal on ebay for a Teaching Textbook 7 for Asa this year.

Also, this year I saved up all my Swagbucks…redeemed them for Amazon cards…and ordered a whole bunch of readers for the boys. For free. If you haven’t signed up to earn Swagbucks while you’re doing online searches…you should. Their program helped us get many of the books we needed this year. They were truly a blessing. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for Swagbucks.

So there you have it. If you homeschool and care to share a bit about how you budget for it, I’d love to hear!

I promised a long time ago to talk more about our homeschooling. Since we’re coming up on a new school year I thought I’d better get my act in gear and answer more of your questions. (We’re starting August 3. Read this post  from last year to understand more about why I like to start so early!)  Here’s the question I’ll cover today:

How do you design your curriculum? Do you do the pre-packaged stuff or customize your own?

I guess I do a little bit of both. And I kind of go about it in a weird way…but it works for me and I love it. It takes several hundred hours to figure out and put together…but I love that too because I love surrounding myself with our books for the year.

Here’s how it works for us:

We’ve chosen to use Sonlight curriculum.  We completely, totally and absolutely love Sonlight.  It is literature based and teaches the kids about history and science and life and all of God’s people all over the world in such a fun and natural way. Instead of textbooks…we read and learn from regular books. Regular really, really good books. I can’t believe how much I’ve learned from this curriculum (and the kids have learned an awful lot too!).

The reason I say that I sort of put my curriculum together myself is this:  I’ll have a 7th grader, a 4th grader, a 2nd grader and a four year old this year. I love all of Sonlight’s recommended books, but I’m not able to teach four different grade levels to my four different boys (and still keep up with their laundry).

I use Sonlight curriculum catalog as a guide…then I piece together what books and subjects we’ll cover for the year. I do this for history, science, Bible and read-alouds.

This year, for instance, we’ll all be studying American History. I will be using several of the books recommended for the 3rd and 4th grade level…and several from the 7th grade level and use them altogether for all the boys.

So far this method works well for us (although this year or next year may be our last year for combining all the kids together since Asa’s working his way toward <cough> high school).

What I’ve found is that my littlest boys catch quite a bit of information…Justus catches more…and Asa learns even more than that. It’s working great and I love that we’re all working on the same materials together. It makes for some pretty cool discussions and some awesome times together plopped together in the living room on couches and pillows.

The beauty of homeschooling is that you can teach your family in whatever way works best to teach your family. Almost all curriculums out there have a very easy and detailed teacher guide to make homeschooling possible and simple for every parent. Sonlight rocks in that department with super detailed week-by-week teacher guides. I just go about it in a different sort of way and create my own teacher guide/school outline because that’s what works best for my family at this point in our schooling.

And…have I ever mentioned how much we LOVE homeschooling in our family?  Our books have started arriving and you would think it’s Christmas. I love how excited the boys get! Coming up…I’ll share about our homeschool budget, what books we’ll be using this year…and I’ll answer more of the questions mentioned in this post. I’ll also try to share more of the books and programs we like for math and phonics, etc.

Any of you other homeschoolers care to share what curriculum you like and how you go about planning your school year?