written by Melissa Sekafetz

You just have to know, that you can do it. 

You can homeschool on a tiny to non-existent budget. 

Yes, at times there are specific situations when it would be wonderful to have access to an expensive curriculum and times you would like an outside tutor or class, but if you don’t have the money, you can still do it well. 

You can create your own materials and learning tools. You can access free resources.

Our story started when my son started learning at birth. Every day was filled with buckets of books and hours of play and music. The best investment we ever made was the time we spent reading to and with our kid. Before the time came to place him in kindergarten we realized that he was years ahead of what was being taught in school. He was already reading and we really were having a great time learning at our own pace. We loved being able to learn when we wanted and dive deeper into what he was interested in. So, we decided to go for it and homeschool him. It has been one of the best decisions we have made and it turned out pretty darn amazing.

How did we do it with little to zero budget? With a lot of library books and finding moments in everyday life to learn with what we had. As a preschooler it was just going for walks and observing, connecting colors, shapes, letters and numbers in our environment, reading books and books and books. Making up stories and songs for fun but then later using stories and songs to learn and remember things, like address and phone number for emergencies. We were blessed with a neighbor who would bring us used thrift store books and toys, but you can find some of the greatest learning tools at the library or on your own at garage sales or thrift stores. The best part is you can make them yourself. You just have to make everything into a game or make it fun. In the beginning we weren’t specific on what was important to learn. We just learned everything that was interesting to us at the time. Anytime we were curious about grade level expectations we just looked at what was expected for the grade level and then covered it (or not) along with what we were interested in. The number one rule is to be creative and open. You just never know where or how the learning opportunities will present themselves.

All this said, I’m going to be honest and tell you that we did use Hooked on Phonics and a lot of other great curriculum, but the thing to know is that we used what we were given or came across at the library or wherever we found it. We didn’t seek out specific resources, we used what we had available. It was totally awesome because we would try it and if it didn’t work, we could move on to something else and we learned at our own pace so my son might be at different grade levels on different subjects but that was fine.

I kept a journal of what we learned and did everyday (this will be important when you need to make a transcript for high school years). Since we were always learning it wasn’t a chore to get done but a bunch of fun activities to explore the world and how stuff worked.

• Most days were about passion projects, building the greatest train layout or filming or writing a story with stuff animal friends. 
• Somedays were spent reading many books. 
• Somedays were making music. In the beginning I would help write the stories down and gradually he started to do it himself, same with other things where he needed help at first.
  Somedays were educational board games. 
• Somedays were science in the kitchen. 
• Somedays he went to Magic Club or programs at the local TV station. 
• Somedays we hosted a filming group where the kids wrote and created stories to act and film in. 
• Somedays he would volunteer or help out with various groups like a historical home or perform magic shows and take pictures at events.
• Somedays we would go hiking or ride bikes.

I followed his lead and helped make things happen.

As far as field trips, you can also find a lot of cheap things to do. Park days, things to do through the library and other organizations. Be on the lookout for free days at museums and other places. Yes some things will have nominal fees but do what you can when you can, and if you can’t create your own version of it, sometimes you can find co-ops where you share and trade time and knowledge.

Here are some of the things we did:

• We used M&Ms for math, but you can do this with rocks or jellybeans and other things, sort, add, subtract, multiply and even divide. Of course you can use a story to tell what you are doing with the items and let them be part of the creation.
• Making books with stories using math formulas to solve problems and mysteries…. He made Chevron cars, Goldfish, Disney Cars and Odd Squad math pages. This is great because it incorporates writing, storytelling and math with creativity. Also great for art and cutting and pasting skills.
• We made so many exploding volcanoes I can’t count, each with various purposes, some for science, some for filming and storytelling, or just for fun.
• We would lay two rows of flash cards down the hall and have  two cars race by seeing which car answered the questions the fastest.
• We would have a spelling car jump. We would set up a ramp and the cars would have to spell the word before they could take off, and then spell it again at the bottom.
• We would incorporate all his stuffed animal friends into the learning and they would learn with us. Letting him teach them was a great way to reinforce things.
• Find or create songs that teach anything and everything.
• We found lots of used educational software at thrift stores for super cheap. Not sure what options are out there now, but so much fun to learn this way. Shout out to ClueFinders, Reader Rabbit and so many other great titles.
• Find a book on science experiments and gather the materials you need in your environment or from the dollar store. Things like: will it float, electric potatoes, magnets… the library will have books for this and librarians love to help parents find the resources.
• Games using coordinates to tell a story, and then figuring them out. We called ours Ranger Rick and the Potato Bombs, very time consuming but fun. Make your own puzzles with materials you want to learn and remember.
• Find books about anything you are interested in knowing about history and make timelines on your walls with pictures and your favorite quotes or historians.
• Research learning games and see if you can find them cheap or recreate your own version.
• Everyone needs to make a paper mâché solar system at some point.
• We made a hot air balloon with easy to find items and learned so much about the scientific method, by writing our results as we went.
• I haven’t looked on YouTube lately but I would venture to guess that you can find tons of fun ideas for learning. We found “Flipping Physics” and “Crash Course” videos.
• We used Duolingo along with other materials from various places to learn languages.

The point is you can do this, you can create your own homeschool and have a really fun time learning anything you want. My son was homeschooled from kindergarten through 12th grade and transitioned to college with no problem. He will be graduating college next semester and has made Dean’s List every semester for the last four years.

You can do this, go start a list of all the fun things you can think of and make it happen!