Welcome to The Educating Parent Beverley Paine's archive of articles about homeschooling and unschooling written over a period of 30 plus years

Free download a quick guide to getting started with homeschooling and unschooling by Beverley Paine The Educating Parent in this excellent Resource Directory
Introduction to
Home Education

 

Free directory of Australian homeschooling and unschooling support groups organised by national, state and territories National and State
Support Groups

 

Plan, record and report all in the one document! Always Learning Books planners available in each year level to suit your homeschooling needs, includes curriculum checklists
Yearly Planner, Diary & Report

Let Beverley and friends help you design and write your own curriculum to suit your child's individual learning needs, learn how to prepare lessons, unit studies and more, record and evaluate your children's learning in this series of 3 parent workbooks developed on Beverley's popular homeschool manual Getting Started with Home School Practical Considerations

Homeschool Course for Parents

this Always Learning Year 7 Plan is everything you need to get started a comprehensive collection of curriculum aligned resources and links to activities, lesson plans and unit studies for your year 7 homeschooling student
Homeschool Learning Plans
go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

How Much Does Homeschooling Cost?

by Beverley Paine

FAQ May 07, Jenny asked: "I'm wanting to homeschool my boys aged 8, 7 and 6 but the cost of materials seems expensive."

I found during the years that we home educated our now young adult children that homeschooling cost whatever we wanted it to. Some years we spent thousands of dollars: excursions, educational holidays, art and craft material, equipment such as telescope, chemistry and electronic sets, etc. Other years we spent very little, either living off the consumerables, books and equipment we'd purchased earlier or simply being inventive and ingenious, creating learning materials from whatever we had on hand, especially using recycled materials, and making good use of free resources readily available in the community. Most of the time how much we spent was directly related to how much money we had spare each week...

I know how much I saved each year by not sending my children to school. Savings were made on school fees and uniforms - for our family this amounted to nearly $1000 each year. That's a lot of money to spend on educational books, games, excursions, etc. Back then I didn't think about it this way though - most people don't consider the money saved by not doing something like going to school. We usually only worry about how much things are going to cost us...

In the same way most families don't consider the money they spend on their children - books, educational games and toys, hobbies, excursions and camps - as educational expenses. I guess if we did most of us would be shocked! I know we were when we kept a family budget for two years. But that's how it is in our family - education is really important and was a high priority so we were happy to dedicate a fair amount of income to that purpose.

Chosing to spend the money wisely where we got the best return was also important. This meant being very selective about activities and toys, books and so on. I prefered to buy things that had continuity of use built in - such as construction toys that could be used for a variety of games, or sequential books (eg maths, spelling, etc). Handing toys, books and games down to the next child ready to use them was important, as was buying quality materials that would last multiple uses.

In the first year of homeschooling I think we spent about $300 - half of it on teaching manuals that were rarely used, but they at least gave me an insight on why approaching homeschool as though I was a school teacher wouldn't work! They also gave me the confidence to realise that most of what occurs in the early years of schooling is busywork, at best teaching children how to operate efficiently within a classroom environment (learning how to play the 'school game'); at worst duplicating in clumsy ways skills and knowledge attained naturally by simply living in the home environment (dental hygiene, recognising colours, learning about what people do, simple safety rules, etc).

For April (age 6) we purchased workbooks at year 1 and year 2 level for spelling, grammar and maths. These cost $6 each. They were fill-in-the-blank books and had they been more expensive I would have encouraged her to write her answers in an exercise book, the way I had when at school 30 years earlier.

For the other subjects April did 'projects'. Lap books and scrap booking are the modern version of doing projects - a quick google search will bring up dozens of excellent informative sites telling you how to use either method with your children. I prepared activities, worksheets and lessons on themes or topics related to what I wanted April to know. We did art most days - that's very simple - just supply a few art materials and a space to be creative! For craft I organised enough materials (including a junk box of recycled materials) for April to build dolls' furniture, houses, cars, props for her pretend games, play with clay (including real clay, play doh, etc), wool, sewing materials - anything and everything that would encourage her to use her hands and her mind to create and produce.

I encouraged her to help me with the chores - cooking, cleaning, gardening and looking after her baby brother. We spent time each day reading together, she read to her brothers, and spent time reading to herself. We had a small collection of largely secondhand books and also went to the library and toy library every week.

If April had been at school this year we would have spent all but the money for the teacher manuals (not needed) and the workbooks (well used) anyway. So, in reality, I think I could say that homeschooling really only cost us about $40 for that year...

There is no need to spend a fortune on school books and materials. Have a look through The Educating Parent Resource Directory for a comprehensive list of providers of educational resources.

Buy frugally at first - start with one or two books in one or two subject areas and see if you child is inclined to do 'bookwork' at home. Think carefully about different ways to approach topics rather than working from and in books. For example, it's easier to learn about pets by looking after them rather than doing a 'school project' on them... It's easier to learn about cleaning teeth by having someone show you night after night the best way to do it and help you master the technique of flossing and visiting the dentist for a chat and show around the dental surgery (before you actually need to visit the dentist for real!) than filling in blanks or colouring some page in a health work book!

Some children love workbooks, others hate them. Get to know your child's learning style before you spend a lot of money on curriculum supplies.

"I know that there is plenty of printables off the net but then that brings into the cost of paper and printing. Is that usually the most budget conscious way to help with the learning?"

When we began homeschooling (pre-personal computer and internet days!) I designed my own pages in an exercise book for each child. I mostly made it up as I went along for a month or two and then a friend gave me some student workbooks. So I copied out pages or parts of pages into my daughter's exercise books. This would take me a fair amount of time and eventually I succumbed to buying student work books in spelling, grammar and maths (for about $6 each - they don't cost a lot mroe than that now, probably around the $10 mark). Each book was designed to last a year level but my daughter raced through them, at the rate of three a year. We switched to unschooling (learning naturally) at about the fourth year of homeschooling. We also did a lot of unit studies (which I called 'projects' back then).

Have you looked at the any of the Aussie homeschool buy/sell/swap groups Aussie secondhand resources? There are a few listed in The Educating Parent Support Groups Resource Directory.

"The student workbooks last a year? How is that possible, when there are only a few pages to each level? Does this mean you only spend about 10mins on it?"

That's about right... only the children would sometimes work a lot slower, and how long also depends on how much there in on each page. For the first couple of grades that's not a lot, but handwriting skills are imperfect and it takes a fair bit of time for the child to get a whole word written! By grade six the pages were packed full, the writing a lot smaller and it took a bit longer. A lot more to read too!

We used workbooks as a kind of 'skeleton' learning program and fleshed out learning in those areas with lots of activities that reinforced or added to the skills and content covered in the books. You'll find a description of the kinds of things we did for reading and writing in my two practical homeschooling series booklets, and I cover spelling, writing, reading and maths for that period of homeschooling in my Learning in the Absence of Education book (http://alwayslearningbooks.com.au)

Most of the children's writing and handwriting arose from activities generated by other subjects, such as social studies and science. Whenever the children wrote anything I'd be looking to see how their skills were developing and improving. This would give me clues on what sort of reinforcement they needed. Sometimes it might mean I'd ask them to do a particular page in their workbooks, if I thought they needed to learn that skill or content now. For instance, Thomas was keen on apostrophes before he knew about fullstops and commas, so I taught him about apostrophes.

Browse our comprehensive library of articles!

keep up to date with new posts to this website daily by clicking here to subscribe

Support Groups: National SA VICWANSW QLD TAS ACT NT
Registration Guides: VIC NSW QLD SA WA TAS ACT NT

Looking for support, reassurance and information? Join Beverley's
The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of ours!

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of our Always Learning Books homeschool year level learning plans, packed with links to FREE lesson plans, unit studies and activities for each curriculum subject area, hundreds of suggestions, use what you want, only $18

Want to learn how to write your own education plans to suit your unique children's individual learning needs?

itap into Beverley's four decades of home educating experience and learn how to write your own homeschool curriculum and learning plans to suit your child's and your family's individual needs, a complete how to homeschool course for parents in 3 self paced workbooks each focusing on a different aspect of home educating, planning, recording, evaluating and creating lesson plans image shows 3 workbooks, plus samples of pages, and 3 children walking in bushland

The Educating Parent acknowledges Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present.

click here to become a Fearless Homeschool member giving you access to all past summit workshops as well as exciting new content and webinars, online discussion platform, and more

Twinkl downloadable Home education resources helping you teach confidently at home

say goodbye to home education registration stress with this ultimate rego bundle from Fearless Homeschool

make homeschooling a lot easier, zero to homeschool's excellent course is here to help

go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.

The opinions and articles included on this website are not necessarily those of Beverley Paine, The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books, nor do they endorse or recommend products listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements on pages within this website.

Without revenue from advertising by educational suppliers and Google Ads we could not continue to provide information to home educators. Please support us by letting our advertisers know that you found them on The Educating Parent. Thanks!

Affiliate links are used on this site that take you to products or services outside of this site. Beverley Paine The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books assume no responsibility for those purchases or returns of products or services as a result of using these affiliate links. Please review products and services completely prior to purchasing through these links. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question before purchasing or signing up.

Text and images on this site © All Rights Reserved 1999-2025