Friday, July 22, 2011

Homeschool Elementary Grammar With a Big Family ... Cheap

So when my oldest was in 2nd grade, I bought "Language of God for Little Folks Level A" by Nancy Nicholson, which is through Catholic Heritage Curricula and was a great basic grammar resource. I realize it's not for everyone, as some of the sentences to correct are religious (specifically, Catholic). The thing is Joel went through it really fast, and it was going to be $13 plus shipping for me to buy one every other year for each of my homeschooling kids, not to mention the price goes up for each year you need it for.

While I do love this resource and recommend it, I just can't afford a standard curriculum and so I use resources like "What Your X Grader Needs To Know", Evan-Moor workbooks, Basic Skills workbooks, etc. I also RE-USE stuff.

So I came across "Language of God" in the basement ... trying to clear out old homeschool stuff because I save every piece of paper my kids touch! I realized I could re-use it ... not as a workbook but as a basic resource. It takes a little bit of time to type of my own sentences, etc., but I save them on the computer and they are ready for the next kid.

Also, I use the used workbook as a guide. Like instead of having my kid spend time working on something they have probably already learned through basic common sense, I verbally quiz them based on the workbook questions. Like I'll say, "Where would we use a capital letter?" instead of having them do countless workbook pages. If they can answer, I leave them alone. If not, we do some pages and revisit with a verbal quiz later.

How do you save money homeschooling a tribe?