Free and Inexpensive Resources for Homeschooling: A Comprehensive Guide for Stressed Out Parents

Homeschooling gives you the freedom to personalize the education of your child. Looking at all the benefits of homeschooling, you might have taken the decision or thinking about it, to educate your child at home. It could be a wise but an expensive decision to take. The resources that you will need for homeschooling can cost you way more than formal schooling if you don’t know how and where to avail of all the free and cheap resources out there.

Shopping for homeschool resources and curriculum can be stressful, challenging, and costly. You need to know the free and cheap resources available online and in stores to avoid this stress. We are going to help you shop with ease and confidence. To do that, we are sharing some of the best resources for homeschooling that are either completely free or cheaper than you might expect. They include different gadgets, curriculum, study materials, and websites. Let’s get into it.

Don’t pay more than $100 for your workstation

If you are going to buy a workstation for your student, check out all the great deals on chairs and desks that Amazon, Staples, Target, and Walmart offer. You can easily buy a workstation for under 100$ on these stores. Here are a few deals in this price range.

• Amazon: Furinno Simplistic Computer Disk with Keyboard Tray for $39, sale price.
• Walmart: Mainstays Student Desk and Chair for just $81, sale price.
• Target: Student Desk in Expresso and Mesh Office Chair in Black for $49.99, regular price.
• Staples: Easy2Go Student Desk 40’’ for $68, regular price.

Aim to pay $50 or even less on a tablet

When we hear the name tablet, we think of its price in hundreds of dollars but some models are very economical. For instance, Target recently offered a one-day sale on Amazon Fire 7 tablets. Its original price is $49.99 and they reduced it to $33.24 in late July 2020.

Buy a Chromebook for under $200

Walmart, Target, and Best Buy offer Chromebooks for prices less than $200. So, don’t pay more and be vigilant on discount offers. They can go down up to $160. You should consider buying a refurbished Chromebook as they are a great way to save. Take a look at some of the amazing deals below.

• Walmart: Acer Chromebook 15.6’’ for $195, regular price.
• Best Buy: ASUS Chromebook 11.6’’ for just $189, regular price.
• Target: HP Chromebook 11.6’’ for $199, regular price.

Buy a printer for almost half of its price at Target

While a printer can be a bit expensive, you can still find a cheaper one by buying an inkjet at Target. You can buy get Canon Pixma Wireless Inkjet All-In-One Printer for just $44.99. Though they use a lot of ink, but you can easily save up to 60% on ink by refilling your ink cartridges at Costco and Walgreen. They charge $6.99 and 12.99 respectively. Plus, reusing your cartridges is an environmental-friendly method.

Get your dry erase calendar boards at cheap prices

Using a dry erase calendar board is a great way to juggle with multiple school schedules. You can grab it so cheap that you could buy one per kid.

• Walmart: U Brands Magnetic Dry Erase Calendar Board 16’’ x 20’’ for $9.96, regular price.
• Kohl’s: Dry Erase Calendar Peel and Stick Wall Stickers for $15.99, regular price.
• Target: U Brands 16’’ x 20’’ MOD Frame 3-in-1 Dry Erase Calendar Board for $9.96, regular price.

Buy earbuds and calculators at Dollar Tree for almost nothing

Dollar Tree offers earbuds and calculators at incredibly cheaper prices as compared to Walmart. You can get earbuds typically for $8.5 at Walmart, whereas at Dollar Tree, you can buy them for only one dollar. The same goes for calculators.

Now, let’s explore some of the great educational websites that provide free curriculum and a lot of resources for homeschooling. These websites mostly offer online resources.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy’s mission is pretty simple: “to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere”. It’s basically a non-profit organization and offers quality educational resources for free. You can use its website either as a stand-alone curriculum or just go there and when you need some help regarding your homeschooling.

This amazing place of knowledge offers nearly 40 different subjects and around 13,000 instructional videos. The videos are easy to understand, to the point, and short. The average video is just 12 minutes and packed with everything you need to know and that too for free. In a nutshell, Khan academy is one of the best online learning platforms out there and perhaps a go-to place for free homeschool resources.

ABCmouse

ABCmouse is another amazing website for homeschool resources. The best thing about this website is that learning is gamified for kids to provide teach them in a fun, yet effective method. They have tickets and rewards system your students can see their progress as they move through the lessons.

Students earn these tickets as they complete units and then they buy items in a virtual store. These sorts of activities provide exposure to kids and help them learn subjects through games. Parents can keep track of their children’s progress through a dashboard. ABCmouse is free for the first month and then it charges $9.95 per month, which is pretty economical.

The Relaxed Homeschool

The Relaxed Homeschool offers a host of resources for homeschooling. Along with full Preschool and kindergarten curricula, it provides you free homeschool printables, a list of educational YouTube channels, and curated websites that offer courses about Minecraft. Its Preschool curriculum is free while it charges $50 for the Kindergarten curriculum.

Bamboo Learning

Bamboo Learning is a free website which only needs Alexa or Google Home device to operate it. Kids can use it to hear stories from a voice-enabled device, do math questions, learn music, and more. The lessons get more challenging as the kids learn each level. Moreover, parents can access a web-based dashboard called Bamboo Grove, to track the progress of their children.

Education.com

This website offers thousands of teacher-crafted learning activities, digital and printable learning resources from worksheets to online games and lesson plans. Education.com is used by both teachers and homeschool parents for educational materials. It costs $8 per month but if you go for an annual subscription, it will cost you just $5 per month.

ABCya

ABCya offers over 400 different educational games to supplement your child’s learning. These games cover language arts, math, and science. As far as the price of this website is concerned, it offers both free and paid versions.

With a free version, you will have some restrictions while using the resources. You will get access to only one mobile device and six games per week. Whereas the paid version offers access to up to five devices and unlimited games. The paid version starts at $6 per month.

Teachers Pay Teachers

Teachers Pay Teachers is a versatile website for homeschool resources. It has over 3 million free and paid lesson plans covering almost all the subjects including different languages and music. It works on a model that different teachers write and then upload lessons. Homeschool parents and other teachers then buy and use these lessons for their educational purposes.

To use this website, you will need to sign up and register yourself in order to get access to its resources. Its registration is free while the cost of resources varies depending on what plans you want.

Discovery K12

It’s a free website for homeschool resources and covers almost all the subjects. Discovery K12 offers an open-source homeschool curriculum for all ages through 12^th grade. It also offers an automatic grading system where students can take tests and get their daily assignments.

Adventure Academy

This website is from the creators of ABCmouse and is almost similar to it. Adventure Academy offers a virtual universe where the learning experienced is gamified for kids. It allows kids to learn while playing.

Adventure Academy offers different fun activities intended to teach the kids. For instance, students can customize their characters, play with their friends, and earn tickets to buy items from a virtual shop. It is free for the first month and then you have to pay $5 per month. So, it’s not that expensive.

Thinkskter Math

Thinkster Math is mainly focused on improving the math skills of students. It teaches and gives feedback to students regarding math. It’s free for the first seven days and then it charges $53 per month for 5^th grade and $70 per month for 6^th to 8^th grade. Though it’s a bit expensive as compared to the other websites mentioned here, but its services are worth paying the money. Kids get access to math learning program according to their level of learning as well as actual math tutors to make them proficient at math.

Code.org

Code.org is a free website mainly for resources related to computer science, particularly coding and programming. Your Kid can start coding on Code.org even without making his account but if they set up an account, they can save their work and check the progress while learning.

At the start, kids are assigned easy coding projects but as they learn, they get more difficult ones. Codes.org also offers educational videos and other resources for homeschooling to teach coding to your kids.

Note: I wrote this article for a client on Fiverr.