We have been home educating on and off for a while. Many years ago I home schooled 4 of them at once and we were deeply involved in quite a few different activities and groups. But once I separated with my husband he ordered them to go to school and I agreed after fighting for so long because of the stress on the kids. This is definitely something I will write about a bit later, it is quite the novel but its also quite a story! My oldest daughter suffered an assault last year 2024 walking home from school and was given a concussion which has lingered on even now a year later so it eventually led to us pulling her out completely. Her concussion crossed with her dyslexia has really made the school experience an awful one for her sadly. But she is amazing in all she does and I am so proud of the young woman she is becoming.
Home educating has been the most amazing experience in my life. The amount of fun and bonding you can have with your kids is indescribable, and the bond they hold with each other is incredible. I have so many fond memories filled with laughter and love.
So without further ado, this is just a few of our ideas to help do home schooling well when you are on a single or small income.
✏️ Take food, water and a thermos! Always take food! I can’t stress this enough, this will save you squillions! Especially if you are like us and plan to go somewhere for half an hour and then are gone for 6 hours of spontaneous activities! Home made muffins or slices, crackers, yoghurt, bread,etc home made everything if you can. Because you can incorporate all that baking and cooking into maths, English, science, art lessons as well as saving money when you’re out and about.
✏️ Find out what local things are in your area. We are lucky in Rotorua, we have free natural hot pools, free lakes, free forest walks, and an endless supply of local cultural experiences.
✏️ Geocaching! Super fun real life treasure hunting game that’s free. You download the free app and use GPS to hunt down hidden caches in your area. It’s geography, navigation skills and family bonding in one.
✏️ Getting lost game. Best $25 we have spent in ages. Use it as many times as you like and have a ton of family fun. Pick a card and follow instructions. “Take the next left”, “find a road you’ve never been down” , “form a conga line and don’t stop until you get a toot”. We’ve ended up at the lake, eating hot chips and giggling about how we got there. One of the best spontaneous field trips we’ve ever been on!
✏️ Make art from anything! From drawing with a stick in the sand, to creating playdough creatures, to murals on the driveway with chalk, to shadow drawings, to collages with leaves and sticks. I also highly recommend Art Hub for Kids which is AMAZING for how-to-draw tutorials, and keeps the kids entertained for hours!
Another creative thing we have done (and made our life cheaper) is create our own McDonald’s boxes and uniforms. Then they came up to the counter and used their monopoly money to pay for their food. They worked out their own change and what they could afford to buy. Before we started this I gave them tasks to earn the monopoly money to spend, so they got the concept of working for their money. It was great fun! The kids quite often bring it up.
✏️ Lapbooks! These are definitely a favourite of ours, they are cheap and super fun to make! You can be as basic or as complicated as you’d like! Here is an example of one we made about the ocean. We are a little bit extra and even drove 3 hours away to visit Kelly Taltons in Auckland! Then had a great excuse to go to Raglan and hang out at the beach with friends. We made word finds, facts, drawings, made a felt crab, and so much more. You can pick and choose any subject you like. It’s one of our favourite things to show people, and it really helped the information they learned stick because it was so hands on!
✏️ Recources. Don’t worry about having to spend loads on fancy curriculum (unless that’s your jam). Printing out letters, blends, and sight words onto card and laminating is GOLD! It’s super cheap and you can be as creative as you like! We also use a lot of board games, bananagrams, scrabble, monopoly, Yahtzee, which are great for maths and English. Many times, the kids would get so into it they would make up their own games! Another great idea is getting the kids to make letters out of their bodies! This promotes teamwork and following instructions and an added bonus, it’s hilarious!
✏️ Science Experiments There are so many great opportunities to make science experiments from stuff lying around the house! We have done soap boats, volcanoes, blowing up balloons from baking soda and vinegar, slime, ones involving milk and dish soap, skewers in balloons, rainbow colours in cups joined with paper towels which showed up primary and secondary colours, leading on to a lesson about mixing colours to make other colours, and soooo many more awesome experiments. Here is a great link with free science experiments for kids which I found really helpful.
So to sum things up, Home schooling doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive to be amazing. With the right mindset and enthusiasm you can create a rich, exciting, laughter-filled education for your kids – without breaking the bank. Whether you’re deep in a forest, up to your elbows in baking soda, or chasing geocaches through town, just remember, you are doing a great job! One day, your kids will look back and tell you excitedly about all the fun things they remember growing up and it will definitely fill your cup up. And if you’re like me and had 2 surprise children later on, you get to do this all again! Yay!
The Great Eight 