Have you been pricing home schooling, lately?
I sure have!
I see that as the provider companies’ costs go up, ours must, too.
Yet, I know there still is a way, so pay attention!
Having begun presenting informative slide shows to parents who are thinking about home schooling, I know the subject of cost always comes up, so I figure I should bring it up myself, instead of making someone ask.
The cost!
The least expensive actual curriculum I’ve found isn’t bad—around $225 or so per child, per year, which is not even $2.00 per school day.
The big thing that hits some home schooling families hard is having a large family. At $225 per child, six children’s curriculum could end up costing over $1000! Per year!
How can I say there could be a way that “pros” provide their children with curriculum, cost-free?
Not too hard, actually.
It depends on the type of curriculum you choose
You see, all curriculum provider companies are NOT equal!
Ruling out those who now claim to be agreeable to the Common Core (Those will cost you LOTS more than just money!) there are several ways to eliminate or greatly, GREATLY reduce your curriculum costs. This is something you may only realize after you’ve been in the business awhile and looked around with more seasoned eyes.
And noticed a secret thing or two. Heh heh.
And spent a lot of money you didn’t need to.
The “fee” for “free” adds up
Not all curriculum types are created equal. Did I mention that?
Before we go on, we should discuss some of the tricks you can find “out there”.
First, there is a deep flood of stuff that claims to be curriculum, provided on the Internet, free for the swiping. That’s great. If it’s what you really want, it’s great.
However, most of it is:
- Aimed at preschool age or slightly above
- Not designed by educational professionals
- Common Core affiliated, linking you to government watchdogs
- Not connected to any overall scope and sequence.
This means you could start a young child easily enough, if you know exactly what you are doing and have time and training to triage it and design a course content, yourself.
Not?
Then you’ll be happy to know the other objection to the free things is that they must all be printed.
By you.
Which means you need a printer, paper, and INK!
If you want to provide your child with, say, ten pages per day of seatwork (after designing and finding everything you need) then you are looking at 1800 pages of printing, since there are 180 school days in a school year.
Printing 1800 pages per child per year can REALLY mount up if you should possibly be able to find all you need for all six of your children (if you have a large family) which would be 10, 800 pages per year.
But that’s just for one year. If you were still not convinced and you were to continue with this plan the rest of their school years, you would potentially have printed 129,600 pages.
No doubt, you would have bought that many pieces of paper, too, and, no doubt, a new printer, sometime along the line…
And large three-ring binders. And gummed reinforcements.
Announcing the solution!
Go back to the $225 company.
Find $225. Pay up. Wait for delivery. Notice the books are hard-bound and very well-constructed. Use the books. Never need to print anything. Realize it all fits neatly on a small bookshelf.
Repeat next year for the next grade.
Wait—how is that free?
The freedom of this way adds up, just as the cost of the “free” way does.
You see, you’ll be passing these $225-books down to your next children.
At no cost.
If you have six children, spaced at every 2 years, you would have to spend about $1300, two years in a row. (This is just an example; No pressured intended!)
After that, you would spend nothing.
Zero. Zip. Nada.
The breakdown:
By the end of home schooling 6 children for 12 years apiece, your cost for ALL SIX children would still be that same $2600, but by then it would be divided by 12,960 total school days, or:
Are you ready for this?
Twenty cents per day per child. That’s all. Merely 20 cents.
Still not free, you say?
Well, I’m still not done.
But I am done home schooling, and I found a way to recoup lots of even the 20 cents. Hold on to your seat belt, here…
When you buy great, well-made curriculum, you can always find a market for it online.
YES! You can sell those used books to someone else, who needs “free” even more than you do.
Of course, the shape they are in will determine how much they will be worth, but if you teach your children how to make book jackets, and require them to do so, the books will be clean and mostly un-worn in appearance, making them fetch more than most used books. You will be surprised.
And that, my friends, is how we did it. 😀
