Reading Eggs

Budget Friendly Tips from Real Fun-Schooling Moms!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Recently in our main Fun-Schooling Mom Support Group we asked these questions:

How does your family Fun-School on a budget?

What are your favorite free and cheap resources to use with Fun-Schooling Journals?

Here are some great responses from our some of our Fun-Schooling Moms!

I have a few ideas on how to Fun-School on a budget.

Resources at the library free.

YouTube videos are free.

Streaming on most devices are free and you can get a lot of documentaries.

Having each child just pick out a core journal and using the free resources above would be very affordable.

A.M.B.

Library books, YouTube and streaming services for videos, “buy nothing” Facebook pages, public access parks/nature centers, Teachers Pay Teachers.

J.C.

Definitely the library is resource number one. Then “buy nothing” groups, yard sales, thrift stores, and eBay.

A.S.M.

Crash Courses on YouTube.

S.B.

We have 5 kiddos, and we love to visit our local library for free resources in the community! We love checking out documentaries, living books, handicraft themed magazines! We also love the Life Skills Fun-Schooling books to learn with what we have at home.

L.S.

Library and online resources: Britannica, BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr, Trueflix

J.B.

We go to the civil war reinactments for history and also the cemetery, and for math we count train cars as they go by our house, and of course the library. Another great way learn is reading signs like historical landmark signs. We love our Fun-Schooling books. It’s not every day you get a kid who asks “Can we learn about something?” on a weekend, but we always try to say yes.

L.R.

Public library for switching out books as interests change. Thrift books for books they love or if you don’t have a library close. Jesse Robertson Keep it Colorful painting tutorials for the artists (2 free a week on her site). Pizazz Art tutorials with watercolors on You tube and other videos and documentaries on the topic of choice. Free printables from Teachers Pay Teachers or any google search of “free printables” including the topic in the search bar, buying when there is a sale to prepare for future studies. Also, The Good and the Beautiful has free Language Arts and Math curriculum for download on their website. Oklahoma School for the Deaf offers 2 free sign language courses(prerecorded at your own leisure). Sorry for the jumbled and unorganized thoughts, just typing as it comes to me. Hope this helps someone!!

K.A.

Epic book app for books on the go, this way I don’t have to run to the library to check out when we change it up last minute.

Pinterest for craft ideas. We tend to craft and art with every thing. So I keep cardboard tubes, egg cartons, pipe cleaners and so much more in bins and then when we do a new topic like different fish or animals we look up crafts for them and make them.

A.U.

Click here to read more great tips!

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Sarah’s Mom Tips: Literacy Questions

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

Question: “How do you handle a very active 7-year-old who can’t sit still and always complains about writing. Could it be that he’s just not ready? How can I encourage my 10-year-old to do independent work, even though he can’t read? Is that even possible?”

A lot of times the younger children who can’t sit still and write should just play. Just let them play. They’re never going to get those carefree days of childhood back. If you have a child who is obviously not ready for writing, just give them time. In a year or two they’ll be ready. I’d definitely say for the active 7-year-old you are going to want to just give them tools to learn about their interests. Give them Fun-Schooling Level A books that don’t have a lot of writing in them, but they have a lot of activities that can be done by kids who are not strong readers yet. Same thing for the 10-year-old who isn’t reading much yet. It’s okay for these kids to use the Level A books because they are for kids who are still struggling with reading. There is a really wide age range that can use those. Don’t be too stressed. If you are worried about their ability, definitely do Dyslexia Games because it really helps them to develop the skills they need for literacy without the stress and too much effort on your part.

Question: How did you teach your kids with Dyslexia how to read?

I did not teach them to read. I tried and tried and just could not teach them to read. I tried all the books, all the methods, all the videos and all the tutoring. It had to get to the point where they wanted to read, and they taught themselves.

What we did was create the Dyslexia Games, and they are awesome for prepping their brains for reading. By the time my kids got through Dyslexia Games Series A and Series B, they were reading. The same thing has happened for thousands of other kids as well. They understand phonics, they have gotten down a lot of sight words and they move on to the Fun-Schooling spelling journals.

For my kids who don’t have Dyslexia, I used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and Reading Eggs and Time4Learning, and after four or five months with those things, they’d started reading. With the Dyslexic kids, you can try all those methods for four years, and as long as you’re pushing phonics, these kids are going to struggle. You have to deal with what’s going on in the brain, and that’s why Dyslexia Games works well.