Homeschooling, I am finding, can involve a lot of spending. We pay for curriculum and everything that goes along with it. Every school supply, every manipulative, every poster and science project and field trip and printed handout and book… you get the point. To keep expenses reasonably within our budget, I have become pretty darn creative. Most of what we use for manipulatives, science experiments and the such are items gathered from various locations in our home. (Oh, the things you can do with your dishes, or canned goods, or collection of DVD’s – which are great for reading exercises, creative storytelling and alphabetizing.) We keep shoe boxes, milk jugs and assorted plastic containers for random projects and various uses. Blocks and legos make great alternatives to buying another $20 dollar pack of linking cubes and having the kids help to create their own flash cards (for all that we use flash cards for) is not only a lesson in itself, but can be a lot of fun. Using their toys as visual props or to act out scenes and scenarios is amusing and helps my kidos to better remember what it is that I’m saying. Hands on learning and real life experiences don’t always have to mean an expensive trip to the museum or science center. All we have to do is travel to the kitchen and bake some cookies (I prefer oatmeal) to learn about the metric system, solids, liquids and gases or following directions. And the laundry room… it holds great lessons on color sorting, counting and size comparison (and what could be better than learning and laundry)! An exploration of the back yard is full of hands on science (be sure to schedule in enough time to finish these lessons with a bath) and the internet provides unlimited access to anywhere in the world. Using the computer, hats, scarfs and other items for dress up along with our imaginations, we can go where ever we want and learn all sorts of interesting things when we get there. Not only is making use of the supplies and resources in our home cost efficient, but it’s a ton of fun for the kids and often times they don’t even realize they’re “doing school”.

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