Our Top 10 Homeschooling Purchases From the Last School Year
Hello! Your favorite homeschool mom here with a list of my favorite things I purchased for homeschooling last year in case you need some ideas as you get ready to start shopping for the fall!
Now I’m going to be fully transparent that we are part of a public homeschool charter that provides families with discretionary education funds so if you start feeling like “oh shit this homeschooling thing looks expensive” just know that 1. I have (a lot) of support in this area and 2. You absolutely do not need all of these things (or any of them really) to homeschool successfully.
Also, for context, my kids are 9 and 6, just finished 3rd grade and Kindergarten, respectively so, this list is going to be entirely geared toward younger kids, sorry if you were looking for ideas for older kids I’m not there yet.
Now that all of that is out of the way, the list:
Ok this is a spendy one BUT we have the OSMO base and... I think all of the games for the kids’ ipads. They are amazing. First of all because they use the ipad’s cameral to “see” physical game pieces and give a more tactile experience than just regular screen time, but more importantly because the games are so cute. SO STINKING CUTE. Like, the kids really don’t even care that they’re learning cute. Actually they just came out with two new Math Wizards games and honestly I can not say enough good things about a company who invented a product that HAS MY KIDS ASKING FOR MATH.
We have done probably more than our fair share of subscription boxes in our homeschooling journey, and I really don’t have an issue with that because I think they’re a really solid way of doing a “unit study” on a topic that maybe you wouldn’t have explored otherwise. And this particular subscription box has REALLY impressed me! Each box revolves around an historically significant woman (so far we’ve gotten boxes about Julia Child, Maya Angelou, and Florence Nightingale), and includes not just a history lesson, but science and art projects in the kit AND additional ideas for further exploration.
Over the course of this school year we’ve figured out that my Kindergartener is a very tactile learner, and having three-dimensional letter shapes to manipulate as we work on sounds helps him a lot more than say, seeing them in a book or writing them on a white board. The thing is the magnetic letters we previously had just had one of each capital and lowercase letter and were all stored in one box together so it was 1. hard to find the letters we needed and 2. very limiting as to what words we could spell with them. This set comes with MULTIPLES of each letter AND a magnetic board, AND a labeled organizer box so even when my son gets the letters out to make pictures with he’s also practicing letter recognition and matching as he puts them away.
LITTLE PASSPORTS EARLY EXPLORERS
Yes, another subscription box but this one is about geography and has been a really big hit with my youngest because all of the activities it includes are totally accessible to him as a non-reader! The activity booklet has stickers and simple matching and tracing activities, and the game or toy in each shipment is something he can totally set up/play all by himself and it’s been really empowering for him to have a box that he can do so independently.
I think I’ve mentioned this in a previous post but my oldest is VERY into slime and slime kits and as much as I as a parent do not like things that are sticky this is a very safe and simple way for her to independently explore chemistry and this particular kit (which is, admittedly, probably our 5th or 6th slime kit in our homeschool career) has THE MOST KINDS OF SLIME and has provided hours and hours of... stickiness.
Ok so, ye olde panini has made it a leeeeetle bit difficult to do like, enrichment classes in the way that we were used to. And by that I mean, in person. BUT Outschool is an online platform that hosts hundreds (thousands?) of online classes for all ages and interests. My oldest did a 12 week Harry Potter book club (among other classes) and my youngest did a one-off Minecraft sign language class and they both had a great time, learned new skills, met new kids, and most importantly WE DIDN’T HAVE TO LEAVE OUR HOUSE. Oh and you can get $20 off your first Outschool class (making... a lot of them free) by using this link.
I feel a little bit, I don’t know like a failure as a homeschool parent or something because I didn’t get one of these until halfway through my fourth year of homeschooling but as my son and I were working through the typical Kindergarten routine of days of the week, months of the year, etc. I just knew we had to have one of these. And I have no regrets besides not having already had one. Setting it up each month is a really fun way to talk about days, months, seasons, holidays, and even family events and both kids enjoy being able to go over and see what’s coming up next.
Again, a very simple, VERY CUTE way to practice some math AND fine motor skills with my Kindergartner who needs a lot of help with both and isn’t anywhere close to writing on his own. In a format that is very self contained and easy to clean up for his mom’s sake.
I’m going to admit that I mainly bought this for my oldest because she keeps getting into my jewelry making supplies and I wanted her to have her “own” jewelry materials. What ended up happening is she also took some Outschool classes about making polymer clay figurines and it turns out both of my kids love making adorable tiny things out of polymer clay and they’re all over the house and it’s wonderful. Zero regrets.
-Victoria aka Homegrown Homeschooler
P.S. if you’re curious about what life is like for a single, self-employed, homeschooling mom of high-maintenance kids feel free to give me a follow on IG (but yes, it is 100% as exhausting as it sounds).
