If you go online, you can find the curriculum for your state per grade level with a detailed list of all the skills your child is supposed to master that year. They are not aligned to any textbooks. With some work and planning, you can teach your child all those skills without going through any organization. There are laws specific to each state about how to do this. NY is the toughest.

Luckily and surprisingly, I’ve actually received a lot of positive feedback about homeschooling my kids. You’ll be able to discern the difference between “comments” and “criticisms” and respond accordingly. Many people “comment” because they don’t know much about homeschooling or have a few misapprehensions. You can decide if you want to use this as an opportunity to educate them. Some people hand out criticisms starting with “I think…” If you don’t feel like getting into a debate with them or you know they won’t listen to anything you say anyway, you can just respond with “This is what my husband and I agree is best for our children” and change the subject. I would suggest trying to focus on the positives of homeschooling rather than the negatives of school, even though they do have an inverse relationship. Some people will take your decision to homeschool as an indictment of their own parenting choices. You can’t help that; you can just try to respectfully walk away or change the subject.

Nora –

I have never spent that much money – nor do I plan to.

I start by going to the local bookstore. They have a decent variety of curriculums for under $30. You can then supplement that with specific requirements that you feel you need to meet.

You can look in your local yellow pages (www.realpages.com) for educational stores.

Some school districts open up their book depositories to homeschoolers for their used textbooks for reasonable prices.

You can also check amazon.com for used textbooks.

You can also look into online schooling through your district if you feel more comfortable with that.

As far as traveling while homeschooling – that is a more valuable life experience than a textbook would ever offer. Why not study the local language and ways? Study history first hand where you are.

If you are going to maintain the same home address then you should be fine with getting them evaluated when you return. However I would be sure to provide the district with your overseas contact information so that they can reach you by mail if need be.

Good luck!!

I would not recommend the K12 program if you want to home school. It is not different then sending your kids to school. You have to teach what public schools want you to teach using the materials they want you to use for the amount of time they deem necessary it takes. It is not home schooling. It is public schooling at home. It’s only sort of free. The price you pay is having big brother tell you what’s best for your kids.

If you are Catholic or willing to use a Catholic program www. chcweb.com has quite a few free lesson plans and very cheap books.

Or you could buy Usborne books for science and social studies and buy an actual math book like Saxon – which isn’t colorful or entertaining but the child is able to teach himself, or Horizon – which is very colorful and cute but requires more time from the parent. These 2 choices cost about $70 new from the company’s web sites or MUCH CHEAPER through ebay. I got entire sets including teachers answer keys and student workbooks for $30 brand new still in shrink wrap. I prefer Horizon for the younger kids and Saxon for the older.

Reading, just go to the library, check out books and if you want you can read them and type up your own questions for them. I really think math is the only one a home school book is necessary to own. The other subjects can be checked out.

I do not know what programs you have looked into, but we use A Beka and spend about $1000 a YEAR for two children (and that is including things that are not necessities, including other items to supplement the A Beka materials).

A Beka also has a DVD option where a teacher gives the lessons on DVD and they send all of the materials necessary. Even that is less than 2 or 3 thousand dollars a month…MUCH less.

I know many people who successfully homeschool their children without using a formal curriculum-they either unschool or create their own curriculum (with little to no cost involved).

Keep searching, you will find the right material for your children.

Look you don’t have to spend a ton of money on a curriculmn. There are plenty of sites out there that can help your children learn the needed skills to suceed in college one day.

Use the free resources around you. If you do some searches on google you are guaranteed to find some good stuff out there to use- you really have to take the time and put in the right keyword to find the stuff. Use the library. Go on fieldtrips. They will learn from everyday life. Use learning DVD’s.

I am making up my own daughter’s curiculumn from a list of skills she will need to know someday to go to college.

The basics are a love for reading, spelling and writing, math skills, and some history and science is important, but the three R’s are the most important.

There are tons of free homeschooling materials out there it just depends on what you are looking for. IF you are looking to be under an umbrella type school, someone else to keep, records, “certified” teacher help, and an “accredited” diploma then you will have to shell out the bucks – if you aren’t you can do all kinds of things!

http://www.amblesideonline.com is a free online curriculum based on Charlotte Mason’s works – you will have to do some work!

You can google Free unit studies, http://www.homeschooloasis.com has good highschool ideas, forms, etc

http://www.timberdoodle.com has good recommendations,etc.

You will have to spend some money most likely, although you can utilize your library, free unit studies,etc. But it doesn’t HAVE to be thousands of dollars.

We don’t use much in the way of formal curriculum (as in textbooks) for my 7th and 2nd graders. Most of our materials come from the library – history, science (including experiment books), literature, writing (copywork, dictation), grammar. About the only thing I ever buy is a math program.

If you simply must have a “program”, see if your state has a virtual academy. Technically, these are a branch of the public school, but it is free and you may have some options as to how you implement it in your home and what classes the kids take.

There are also several universities that offer “distance learning” programs for K-12 (I know Texas Tech offers one, and you don’t have to live in Texas, either). Through these programs, you pay per child, per course, per semester. It looks like the elem. program runs $95 per semester per course (x 4 courses) plus the text. High school courses are $125 per course per semester (x 6 courses) plus any required texts. Looks like this may cost just as much as some of those programs you’ve looked at (at least at the high school level). Of course, the great thing is that this program is accredited.

I’ve never heard of thousands.

PEople here talk of $200, $300, $400

It will TAKE an investment. If you can’t invest, stick with public schools!

Work books and text books are only like $20 or $25 dollars each at places like Barnes and Noble of Amzon.

You can find USED books at THRIFT STORES, LIBRARIES who sell off their old books.

If you want to beat the school system you have to invest

A small microscope

A $100 telescope

That will teach MORE astronomy first hand than ANY highschool course!

A $100 telescope is a $2,000 education investment in realative terms.

If YOU aren’t smart or you can’t invest, you shouldn’t be homeschooling. IT’s that simple

My mother paid $1,200 to send me to private electornics school and learn television

She bought me a $100 telescope

She bought me a $200 tape recorder

She bought me a $200 video camera

And I turned that stuff into a Career

In Los Angeles the SHOPS (plastics, metal, electronics, fibre glass) each have $2,000 bench drills, not some $50 Skill or Black and Decker drill

The Photo Labs have Bessler Color Enlargers, Elapse timers that cost $100, trays that cost $40 each.

If you can’t invest, you can’t teach.

Go back to Middle or High school which has the resources or get a second job and INVEST

Or let them FALL by the way side

We home school using used text books that we purchase at Goodwill stores. We use on line resources by doing a search for the subject we are studying. Example: “free algebra interactive”. You may need to weed through the links, but we find that we have trouble choosing which ones to use because there are so many.

We use library resources. We can search on line from home and reserve video, audio, CD Roms, and books on any subject that is our current interest.

This way takes more time and effort but it is our only choice.

We live in a state that does not dictate the curriculum for home schoolers. We concentrate on reading, writing and math. Science, History, Geography, current events, computer applications, and other areas of interests are what we consider as ‘student directed’ learning.

Home schooling, for us, is very cheap, dollar wise. It takes time but it is time well spent and enjoyable.