Ah, yes. "It's the most wonderful time of the year" again, as that gawdawful Staples commercial tells us. That time of year when parents joyously send their miserable kids off to school.
Or not.
For those crazy enough to actually want to keep their kids at home and *gasp* spend more time with them, home schooling is another option.
Time to write another post for those who are thinking about it, but not quite sure they're ready for it. The first post was, Can you?
Let's now go to another question I often hear from parents.
How much does it cost?
Short answer?
As much as you're willing, or able, to spend.
It all depends on how you do it, and what's available where you live.
In one sense, home schooling can potentially be very expensive. There are so many home school curricula out there, so many neat educational tools and toys, and so many things out there to do. It would be so easy to blow great wads of cash on all this stuff.
Don't.
First off, check things out where you live and see what's available. In Canada, for the most part, you're on your own. Even for some provinces that technically are supposed to offer resources to home schooling families, like in BC, that doesn't mean the board you're registered with will. Or perhaps you live in a province like Manitoba, where all home schoolers are registered in one office, where you can also access grade level correspondence course (though they haven't called them that in many years), for varying costs. Or you might live in Alberta, which actually passes on school funding to registered home schoolers, either through purchase orders or by reimbursing receipts. Be wary of funding, though. Funding tends to come with strings attached and government bureaucrats wanting to tell you how you can or can't teach your own kids.
Some home school support groups have a number of things available, ranging from group field trips at reduced cost to lending libraries, and even some that have equipment and resources that can be borrowed, such as scientific equipment or courses on CD or DVD.
Public libraries can have all sorts of resources as well. My own kids have started up The Great Courses again. These are pretty awesome. Along with a plethora of books, audio/visual resources and software, many also have organized events and classes, book readings, lectures and so on.
If you're just starting out and not confident that you can teach to your legal requirements, packaged curricula can be useful. Especially if home schooling is going to be a temporary thing, due to health problems or other extenuating circumstances. They can be ridiculously expensive, though. I've heard from way too many home schoolers who started out with visions of their kids happily at the kitchen table, working on some fantastic curriculum they bought that they just knew their kids would love, only ... it just didn't work out. Sometimes, the curriculum didn't fit their children. Sometimes it didn't fit the entire family. They regretted spending all that money on curriculum, wishing instead that they'd spent the money on museum passes or whatever their kids turned out to be into. On the other hand, I have also heard of families who found a purchased curriculum that fit their families perfectly (FIAR is one a lot of families have spoken highly of).
When it comes to packaged curricula, I would advise waiting before buying. Especially if you're pulling your kids out of school. Give your family some time to figure things out, then decide if a packaged curriculum is worth spending the money on.
There's one expense I would hope you don't have to shirk on, though.
Books.
Yes, I know, electronic books are all the rage right now. They're cheaper and you can fit many hundreds into a single reader. That's probably quite useful. Even so, nothing is quite the same as books. I'd still recommend getting lots of real, printed books. Haunt the second hand stores for unique finds, or get to know a local book seller who can order the more esoteric stuff in for you. Yes, I know you can order books online, but aside from supporting your local book store (yay, capitalism!), a real person knowledgeable in the trade is a gold mine. A lot of local book stores also have interesting events available, too. Take advantage of them.
And for crying out loud, don't go using up their time to find a book, then go order it online. That's just tacky and rude. Very bad form.
Other things I would recommend spending money on if you can. Family passes at museums, nature centres, science centres, art galleries, recreation centres, etc. Some cities offer passes that include a number of facilities. These often give you discounts in any shops they might have. There are even national passes available. If you are low-income, you may qualify for some of these passes for free or at highly discounted prices.
Join a local support group. Any memberships fees tend to be nominal. Aside from networking opportunities, activities and social support, some group membership cards will also be honoured by some businesses for a teacher's discount.
Join trading or exchange groups. Many places have freecycle groups and it's amazing what you can get through them. Some groups have book exchanges, clothing exchanges, or other types of exchanges (our group has had yarn and fabric exchanges). For these, everyone brings stuff to contribute that are still good, but their own families have grown out of. These get set out for everyone else to look at. People pick what they will find useful. Anything left over either gets taken back by their owners or donated to charity. The big challenge with this is to not come back with more than you brought! *L*
Then there are lessons and classes. Music lessons (with the accompanying cost of buying or renting instruments), voice lessons, art classes, dance classes, cooking classes, language classes, craft lessons, and even tutoring for any areas your child might need some extra help on. Don't forget sports - team sports, solo sports, martial arts classes, and all the necessary equipment they need, too. It would be way too easy to spend huge amounts of money on such things.
Be very selective and creative. If money is tight, some teachers are willing to barter for lessons (be generous with what you are offering; the teachers of these classes would be giving up income for this, so make sure it's worth it for them). There may be programs available to cover the cost of them. Perhaps there are family members who have skills they can pass on (and it can be a great way to get doubting family members engaged).
With our days no longer controlled by the school schedule, it can be very tempting to fill that time with all those cool things we can sign our kids up for. Resist and be selective. It is not beneficial to burn out the entire family, trying to get to all these lessons and classes. You may want to try one thing per child one year, then give them the option to try something else the next.
For us, when we did take part in such things, we had one rule. If we were going to spend money on these things and take the time out of our day to get them to and from their lessons, the girls knew they had to finish it. Unless there was something drastically wrong, they couldn't just decide to stop in the middle of something that we've agreed to pay for for the entire year, or however long it might be. These were things they told us they wanted to try, and sure they might decide they didn't like it as much as they thought they would. They still had to finish. They knew from the start that they were making a commitment for X amount of time, and part of the deal was that they'd keep that commitment. We expected them to take full advantage of what was being offered, and not blow it off. Sadly, this has sometimes meant that our kids were the only ones actually engaged in the class they were taking, while others in the class wasted their time. Perhaps I can convince Eldest to add a blurb about just how "fun" the one art class she ever took turned out to be.
Aside from such things, however, the basic stuff required for home schooling can be very cheap. After all, you are no longer required to buy a years worth of pencils, pencil crayons, binders, notebooks, glue sticks and even facial tissue (I was shocked to see that on an old neighbour's school list; each of their kids had to bring 6 boxes of facial tissue for the classroom supply cupboard), and so on. There are no more extra fees sprung at you or fundraising events. Oh, and you can buy your kids new clothes when they're needed, rather than because it's the start of school and they just HAVE to have the same things all their friends are getting.
Most of what you'll need, you probably already have, and what you do need to get, you can get little by little as you need them and can afford them, rather than all at once.
As you can see, there is no simple answer to how much it costs to home school our kids. Some people manage to do it while spending almost no money at all. Others spend thousands of dollars.
Take a bit of time to figure it out. Get to know what's available, what your kids need, and what they want. See what fits for the entire family. What works for your own family is likely to be quite different from others. That's just fine. There are no hard and fast rules.
Instead of having a school system telling you and your family what you have to pay for, you get to take control and decide for yourselves.
Which can be pretty exciting!!
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