Frugal Home Education: Budget-Friendly Strategies for Homeschooling Moms
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Let's discuss frugal home education, aka homeschooling on a budget, shall we? Homeschooling is education in the home for school-aged children. Usually, parents take the role of tutors. Yet, some wealthy families hire professional tutors or recruit online teachers and courses.
Homeschooling has many benefits. A warm family environment, efficient learning, and academic flexibility are a few of them. However, families can face financial problems during homeschooling. While one parent educates, the other has to provide a salary big enough.
In this article, we will give you some practical advice to get over the financial problems you may encounter during homeschooling. If you consider getting your child homeschooled, these pieces of advice will help you decide in favor of home education.
Use free software and resources
There are a plethora of free apps and software your child student can use. Google offers features such as Classroom, Books, Art & Culture, Earth, and many other interesting items. These features can replace many textbooks.
Besides that, there are free mobile apps. Mindly will help your children make mind maps. A thesaurus will teach them synonyms. The list is limitless. However, if you need help with essay writing, try writing service for students and hire a professional for complex tasks.
These professionals will help you with everything you need. So your child will feel ready to write essays on any topic the curriculum requires.
Find free curriculum
You can’t be a home educator without a curriculum. The curriculum is a list of subjects and content your child should adopt during one school year. You can find free educational programs on Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool or Khan Academy. You should explore open educational resources (OER).
OER Commons offers a database of free resources for all grade levels and subject areas. You can also see what curricula homeschooling bloggers recommend. Instead of spending a big amount of money on educational programs, if you are persistent enough, you can find high-quality curricula for free.
Go to the public library
Nowadays, diverse content is available on the Internet. So we often forget about the roots of knowledge. That’s right – we talk about the library. The membership fee for the public library is usually very cheap.
In return, you have access to all books, magazines, publications, and research papers in this temple of wisdom. You should use this privilege to complete your homeschooling materials. It is allowed to take several books at once.
You will be able to approach one topic from multiple angles. Also, your child can find books for learning and fun in public libraries.
Share materials with other homeschool parents
On the homeschooling forums, you can make contacts with other homeschool parents. You can share experiences and pieces of advice. But, the most important thing for your budget is to share educational materials.
Other parents can send you PDFs of lessons and diverse online data. When it comes to printed material, paying postage is much cheaper than buying new textbooks.
Some parents want to sell their homeschooling supplies when they are done. Buy second-hand laptops, printers, scanners, paper cutters, and other devices.
There are also unused supplies such as notebooks, post-it notes, rulers, scissors, hole punches, whiteboards, and many others. Parents will sell these items much lower than in supermarkets and bookstores.
Print only essential materials
Children nowadays are used to reading and learning on cell phones, tablets, or laptops. It allows you to print only necessary materials, such as textbooks. But any other working material your child can use in a digital form.
For example, homework that involves researching and essay writing can be done online. That way, you will save a lot of money on paper and cartridges. You will also save the planet Earth and teach your children ecology.
Use real-world learning
There are so many things your children can learn from books. But imagine what they can see, feel, and explore in nature. Bring in field trips on the seaside, to lakes, into the woods, or to the farms. Your children will realize so much about diverse animals and plants by looking at them.
They will easily recognize the difference between various animals, their behavior, and their habits. They will also learn where some plants grow, how they smell, and what they can be used for. They will realize how to manage different conditions in nature. Is there a better way of learning science?
Flexibility is one of the biggest advantages of homeschooling. Use this opportunity to spend time with your children outside. Let them explore nature and study from their own experience. You can easily test their knowledge and observations when you get home.
As you can see, we presented six basic tips for frugal home education. If you decide to be a homeschool mom, you should explore similar pieces of advice and make strategies to reduce costs. It is challenging, we admit, but it is doable.
All you have to do is determine your budget, make a good plan, and implement a creative approach. Make learning fun for your children; they will look forward to university, courses, and other personal improvements.
