It would be wonderful if homeschooling can be done completely free of charge. More than often one of the parents in a homeschooling family needs to give up his or her job which will cause financial strain for the family. Adding high homeschooling fees to that might not be feasible for these families.
There are ways the Christian family can do homeschooling at lower costs but it is seldom entirely free.
Sharing and Exchanging
The first option for the Christian homeschooling family will be to reach out to other parents in the same situation. Sharing and exchanging curriculums, worksheets, lesson plans and text books with other families will be ideal. It will mean that you will have to purchase some materials or create your own to share, but it will be much more cost effective than having to buy an entire curriculum.
Free Online Material
Many sites advertise free curriculums, worksheets and programs. What they offer is, however, very seldom completely free. You might be able to get some sort of free curriculum from these sites. It is important to check the quality of these curriculums because most of the time the aim of offering this is actually just a way to get you to buy something else from their site. You might realize once you start using it that you need more and that will than be available on the site at a fee.
The site k-12freehomeschool.org claims to have a curriculum that is Christian based and free. They do charge a small free for shipping. There are certain criteria that have to be met before you will be able to use this curriculum. They expect parents to participate in surveys and all material such as CD’s and books must be returned to them when the child has completed the course. They enroll only 1 700 students a year and you will have to wait to see if your application was successful. All additional elective courses come at a fee.
Libraries and the News
Current news events from financial to nature or political situations can create good topics for a variety of subjects. Libraries are excellent places for resource material. Even smaller libraries that might not have specific subject related material can still be used for reading material. Parents should never underestimate the educational value of reading.
Churches
Most churches have bible study courses that parents can download for free or obtain from the church itself, either in book form or on CD. Even if a small fee is payable for books or CD’s it will only be to cover costs.
