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How To Vet Free Homeschool Curriculum And Download With Caution
We have all seen it or heard it. Some of us even do it. Homeschool parents seeking free homeschool curriculum online or asking in our social circles. But there are some reasons that you should beware of all that is marketed as free.
I should begin by saying that we offer free homeschool resources here at Homeschool Mastery Academy, and not all free homeschool resources are bad. However, when the goal to homeschool free becomes more important than finding quality resources and teaching to the way your children learn best – we can easily find ourselves shortchanging our children’s education.
Many of us have witnessed another homeschool mom seeking strictly free curriculum, and many homeschool families are indeed on tight budgets. There is nothing wrong with that. But we need to be careful and keep our children’s education on a high priority level.
Not all free homeschool curriculum is created equally. Learn to vet your homeschool freebies and exercise caution before downloading them.
Can You Homeschool For Free?
Of course, you can. Many families do. But when you are more focused on finding free curriculum than anything else about your children’s education, you might be missing the point. By choosing to educate at home, we have also decided to give our children a quality education. As long as you are seeking resources that align with a quality education tailored to how your children learn best, you have nothing to worry about.
What’s More Important To You? Free Or Quality?
Hopefully, you will answer quality. Your child only has one childhood, and we should be doing our best as homeschool parents to give them the best resources we can find to educate them at home. Whether that be free or not.
If you are thinking to yourself right now, “I can’t afford homeschool curriculum,” then it may be time to consider looking over your budget. Cut out anything unnecessary. Or look into something you can do to help generate an extra bit of money that can help you buy curriculum. Often, there are things in our budget that we can easily cut out and make room for what we need. I know this isn’t going to be a popular opinion to some. But, are we committed to making sure our kids get the best education possible? Many of us made that commitment when we decided to homeschool. With that said, we should do whatever we need to do to ensure that our children have the best homeschool resources that we can provide for them. It’s our job as their parents and teachers.
If you are going through financial hardship and can not afford curriculum, many education companies offer homeschool discounts, excellent free homeschool curriculum, and even scholarships for homeschool families that may be experiencing difficulties.
If free is still your goal, you can tailor a curriculum to your children – it just takes a bit more time and strategic planning to make it all come together. But it can definitely be done.
Are All Homeschool Freebies Bad?
No, of course not. We have a fantastic selection of homeschool freebies for children and parents here on our site. But, unfortunately, some websites and bloggers are making sub-par resources and marketing them as free for families like you. Luckily, most education companies and bloggers genuinely want to serve you and create free resources that will benefit your family. You just need to practice due diligence before you download.
How To Vet Free Homeschool Curriculum?
Here are a few questions you should consider before jumping on anything just because it’s free.
- Â Who is offering the freebie? Do you trust this source? Think about whether or not the provider of the homeschool freebie or free curriculum is solid. What I mean by that – how long have they been homeschooling? Are they just as new as you are? When it comes to quality resources, you want to make sure that you trust where it comes from. Maybe the source is a brand new homeschooler, yet they have a background in education. We should be researching where these free items come from before we are so willing to use them. Make sure your freebie provider is either a reputable company or blogger that has your best interest in mind. For example, here at Homeschool Mastery Academy, we have a list of our content creators and their bios, so that you can see who helps to contribute when it comes to creating our resources.
- Decide if it’s worth it to sign up for their email list. Once you download a free item on the internet, you are usually subscribed to an email list. Decide if this is something you think you can benefit from the long term. You certainly don’t want to fill up your email account with tons of emails you aren’t interested in. Or worse, hopping on email lists just to take something free. Think twice before you get on someone’s email list and don’t plan to engage with the information they provide into your inbox each week. Choose websites and blogs that you can use for more than just one freebie. Homeschool bloggers and businesses pay to have you on their email list. Yep! In most cases, we pay for our email service and to have you on our lists. That’s definitely something to think about before you snag your next freebie.
- Will this freebie benefit my students? Are you snagging up the freebie just because it’s free, or will this free resource work for the type of learner your child is? Make sure that the resource will benefit your family and students before grabbing it because you can. You don’t want to become a freebie hoarder, make sure you have a legitimate use for it.
- Consider you might get what you pay for if you don’t exercise due diligence. The old “You get what you pay for” can be completely accurate when grabbing homeschool freebies online. Again, this is not always the case. There are so many fantastic bloggers, education companies, and businesses that want to provide high-quality resources to you even if they are free. They want to serve you well. But unfortunately, that is not always the case. Take a good look at what you are about to download, determine if this free printable or download seems like it is good quality and will benefit your homeschool.
Bottom Line About Free Homeschool Curriculum and Freebies
The bottom line when it comes to snagging up free homeschool curriculum and resources is to make sure –
The resource will benefit your homeschool
It will work well with the learning style of your student(s)
That it is created for the purpose of serving the homeschool community
The resource is quality and provides value
Use caution and exercise due diligence when it comes to downloading free resources
We hope this helps you to sift through homeschool freebies more easily. We want to equip you to choose the ones that can be of great value to your families and skipping some that may not deliver the best quality. It might only take an extra couple of minutes to make sure that what you are about to get is worth it.
