Most parents in the U.S. are now choosing to homeschool instead of sending their children to public or private schools. However, finding affordable accredited homeschool programs can be tasking.
Homeschooling isn’t new, especially for parents in the United States. Parents have been homeschooling their children for years for several reasons. But whatever their reasons, one fact remains constant—homeschooled students rank better than students studying in a traditional learning environment.
So, in this article, we discuss homeschooling and our reviews about the most affordable accredited homeschool programs for you.
Table of contents
What Is Home Schooling?
Homeschooling is a progressive movement worldwide in which parents educate their children at home instead of sending them to a traditional public or private school.
According to Wikipedia, Homeschooling is children’s education at home or in various places other than school. Home education is usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or online teacher.
Families choose to home-school for various reasons, including dissatisfaction with the educational options available, different religious or academic philosophies, and the belief that children are not progressing within the traditional school structure.
Why Homeschooling?
Parents commonly explain two primary motivations for homeschooling their children: dissatisfaction with the local schools and the interest in increased involvement with their children’s learning and development.
Parental dissatisfaction with schools typically includes concerns about the school environment, the quality of academic instruction, the curriculum, bullying, racism, and a lack of faith in the school’s ability to cater to their children’s unique needs.
So, below are some of the benefits you might want to ponder about when considering a homeschooling lifestyle for your children. This is only a partial list of the advantages of homeschooling.
Hence, any homeschooling family could come up with additional items for the list. We hope this list of affordable accredited homeschool programs sparks your thought processes and assists you with your decision.
Advantages of Homeschooling
Parents
- Parents will always be with their children all day.
- Every Parent knows and understands their children and is influential in their lives, even as they enter their teen years.
- Homeschooling stops early parent-child separation, avoiding improper pressure on children.
- Parents and other adults are the primary role models for homeschooled children.
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Children
- Children are permitted to mature at their own pace, with no “hurried child” syndrome.
- Homeschooling gives positive and proper socialization with peers and adults.
- Homeschooled children are mostly free from peer pressure.
- Each child’s education can be tailored to his or her interests, speed, and learning method.
- Homeschooled children see adults as a united part of their world and as natural partners in learning.
- A child’s innate thirst for learning is trained, not suppressed, and learning becomes a lifetime joy.
- Homeschooled children comfortably communicate with people of all ages.
- Homeschooling children have time to seek their unique interests and talents.
- Homeschooled children become free thinkers who are confident in their convictions.
Family
- Family values and ideas are central to social, emotional, and academic growth.
- Homeschooling creates/maintains positive sibling relationships in the family.
- Family life rotates around its own needs and preferences rather than the school’s requirements.
- Homeschooling encourages good communication and emotional closeness within a family.
- Research shows that the two most influential factors in reading and overall educational successes are positive home influence and parental involvement; homeschooling gives both.
- Homeschoolers enjoy extensive educational resources; the world is our classroom, and resources overflow in the community.
- Homeschooling gives a high adult/child ratio for the student.
Benefits of Home Schooling?
Here are a few benefits of homeschooling:
1. Customized curriculum
Homeschooling allows for a personalized education tailored to a child’s needs, interests, and learning style.
2. Flexibility
Homeschooling allows for a flexible schedule that can be adjusted as needed, such as accommodating illnesses, special projects, or family events.
3. Strong family bonds
Homeschooling can increase family bonding and communication as parents and children spend more time together.
4. Safe and supportive learning environment
Homeschooling can provide a safe and supportive environment that is free from bullying and negative social pressure.
5. Religious and cultural values
Homeschooling allows for integrating religious and cultural values into the curriculum.
6. Higher academic achievement
Studies have shown that homeschooled students often outperform their peers in traditional schools on standardized tests.
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About Affordable Accredited Homeschool Programs
If you’re anxious about the cost of purchasing a curriculum, many affordable homeschooling programs are available.
Homeschooling doesn’t have to cut your budget. Parents who teach their children at home can create their homeschooling programs and use parts of other programs ready for purchase.
Planning a Curriculum
Preparing a curriculum may seem overwhelming for those just starting to homeschool. It is simple for several parents to buy a pre-made curriculum and administer it with trying to understand what to teach that first year.
Nevertheless, the price of these curriculums can be restrictive, mainly if there is more than one child. For this reason, most parents opt to buy parts of a curriculum or to buy them used from other homeschooling families.
This will assist save on your homeschooling budget and enable more flexibility when planning the annual curriculum. You can also check out Online colleges that pay you to attend
How Can I Choose The Best Accredited Homeschooling Program?
Selecting a curriculum for your children should be done with three thoughts in mind:
- Does it teach the children what I require it to?
- Does it meet guidelines set out by the state where I live?
- Will the cost assist me in staying within my budget?
If it meets your expectations regarding styles and moral values and will assist you in meeting any state demands, then you’re well on your way to finding the perfect curriculum. However, budgetary concerns are also necessary.
Low-Cost Homeschooling Programs
Everyone has a separate budget for homeschooling. While purchasing all-inclusive curriculum materials may be easier, it may not be cheap. If you don’t mind buying a used curriculum, the following are places to find inexpensive used materials:
- Homeschooling groups in your area
- Church bulletin boards
- Regional or state homeschool events
- Local newspapers
- eBay
For those searching for affordable homeschooling programs that are current, the Internet has several offerings. The following are some of the numerous programs offered and their estimated costs:
List of Affordable Accredited Homeschool Programs
Here is a list of affordable accredited homeschool programs that best suit your budget.
- Alpha Omega Publications
- Time 4 Learning
- Bob Jones
- IXL Learning
- Saxon
- Abeka
- BJU Homeschooling
- Sonlight
- Monarch Online
- Easy Peasy
- Breaking the Barrier
- Brave Writer
- American School
#1 Alpha Omega Publications
Alpha Omega Publications offers a lot of Christian-based homeschool curriculum in both online and print formats. These include their Monarch subscription plans, Switched-On-Schoolhouse, LIFEPAC, and Horizons. AOP also gives Alpha Omega Academy, an online Christian school for grades K-12.
Monarch Curriculum – This media-rich online Christian homeschool curriculum offers automatic grading and record-keeping.
Switched on Schoolhouse – You can customize your student’s study with this computer-based homeschool curriculum for grades 3-12. (Does not require the internet)
LifePac – Students master concepts before advancing in this self-directed worktext homeschool curriculum.
Horizons – Brightly illustrated workbooks concentrate on the spiral learning process of introduction, review, and reinforcement. Teacher-led.
AOP offers four budget-friendly plans. Here are the options, You can pay as you go ($39.95 per month) or buy an annual plan ($399.95 per year for one student). Both options are accessible for an individual student or as a family subscription (up to three students – $69.95 per month or $699.95 per year).
This program is one of the affordable accredited homeschool programs for kids to enroll in.
#2 Time 4 Learning
Time 4 Learning is an online curriculum provider that serves every grade, from preschool through high school. Acknowledged by Homeschool.com in its Best 100 Educational Websites since 2009, it takes a very personalized strategy to education, simply accommodating not only the average student but also those with learning weaknesses or unique talents.
Its unique program is fitting for use on its own and for supplemental use, whether for homeschooling or for remedial or high-level after-school work.
Contracts are not part of the Time 4 Learning system. Instead, registration and payment are every months. However, in the lower grades, from Pre-K through 8th grade, the fee is $19.95 a month for the first student and $14.95 a month for all students after that. Registering for high school courses costs $30 per month for a student and covers four courses.
This program gives parents charge over their children’s curricula and enables them easy access to overviews of improvement, grade reports, and transcripts. In addition to these benefits, Time 4 Learning gives comprehensive lesson plans involving the use of a diversity of media, including both online, offline, and printable work. For the online work, grading is automatic.
#3 Bob Jones
Parents like the in-depth Biblical orientation and complete structure rendered by Bob Jones Curriculum. Some use the classic Bob Jones textbook series, and others prefer the BJ Homesat distance education program.
The purpose of both programs is to present biblically sound and academically competent instruction for students in grades K-12. The textbook curriculum is created to be more traditional, with approved worksheet-based lessons and instruction from the parents. At the same time, the BJHomesat program integrates visual lessons through live satellite feed from teachers at the Bob Jones School campus.
Bob Jones’s curriculum is workbook-oriented. The curriculum is well-planned, systematic, and sequential, ensuring material coverage. Several children benefit from combining the Bob Jones curriculum with another additional curriculum of contradictory style, particularly one that blends fun with learning.
The mega kits for this familiar curriculum cost about $100 for each grade level. Individual subject kits range in price from $30 to $150.
#4 IXL Learning
The education administered by IXL Learning centers around technology. With a curriculum created to accommodate kindergarten through 12th-grade students, it concentrates on facilitating learning by using increasingly better and superior technology. IXL uses this technology to give its students a fully immersive education.
IXL gives the spectrum of core subjects: math, language arts, science, social studies, and Spanish. These are prepared individually, in combination packages, or as a complete curriculum; and families pay monthly to get access to their content. Rates are welcomely low, ranging from $9.95 a month to $19.95 a month, depending on the course load selected.
This program is very flexible, adapting to each student’s learning level. It is created to assess progress regularly and adjust a student’s learning path. IXL also provides analysis to allow parents to be aware of their children’s strengths and weaknesses, thereby promoting a sharply focused, highly personalized education.
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#5 Saxon
Saxon Math has consistently been one of the homeschoolers’ best options when it comes to the math curriculum. Saxon’s incremental spiral method teaches homeschooled students information in small amounts and regularly repeats concepts to keep newly gained skills fresh and active.
This homeschool program offers many single-subject kits for parents to pick from. Prices range from $50 to $150, depending on the subject matter. Parents can choose from various subjects including Algebra, Calculus, Physics, and Phonics.
#6 Abeka
Starting with a private Christian school in 1954, Abeka evolved from the demand for proper, faith-based textbooks. The founders of the school wrote and published their materials, and from this start, their road led to the creation of a publishing company and lastly to the creation of a homeschooling program.
Today, Abeka still maintains the Christian values and traditional academic method of its founders, declaring as its mission the development of each student not only intellectually but also morally and spiritually.
Abeka offers two routes to its students: the accredited program and independent study. Both choices provide books, video lessons, and testing materials. Still, the accredited program provides extra advantages, such as the grading of high school tests, the tracking of academic progress, free standardized testing, an educational program oriented toward college, and above all, a diploma. However, should parents wish to use only parts of the homeschool program, they have the choice to choose and pursue single courses or groups of courses.
ABeka’s video curriculum pricing may be more expensive than a parent-directed curriculum, but the company offers payment choices that can fit within various families’ budgets. For instance, a child registered in grades 1-6 would pay $1,025 for a full year of tuition.
However, the monthly payment would be $111 and a down payment at the start of the school year of $425. Several discounts are also offered, including those for first-time registrations, early enrollment, and multi-child households.
Abeka is an accredited institution, meaning that children who graduate from their Accredited Program will get a diploma readily accepted at colleges and universities.
#7 BJU Homeschooling
Originating with a publishing company founded by the faculty of Bob Jones University, BJU Homeschooling provides a thoughtful, well-organized education to its students. With a Bible-based perspective, it tries to remove drudgery and complexity from homeschooling while still giving quality Christian education.
BJU Homeschooling prides itself on its organizational features. Parents have access to a comprehensive online dashboard that enables them to track and control their children’s grades and assignments.
Tests and quizzes get automatic grades, and for the rest of a child’s work, parents can use the answer keys found in the exact online location as the appropriate assignments. The program sets out these assignments in clear daily lesson plans, making independent work simple for students.
The program is adjustable, permitting movement among three grades for remedial or high-level work. It also utilizes online video classes and physical textbooks, but registration includes eBook editions of these texts for those who fancy a non-physical medium.
What is more, families can buy kits to teach a whole grade or a single subject, making BJU Homeschooling a good choice even for those who are looking only to supplement their current curricula.
#8 Sonlight
Sonlight describes itself as a “literature-based” curriculum. Instead of textbooks, it uses what it calls “readers” and “read-aloud” to teach students the love of learning rather than seek a mere fact-based system of education. It declares as part of its mission the purpose of cultivating the art of real scholarship in its students, seeing this art not only as an honest inquiry but also as an empathetic understanding of a variety of views for the sake of seeing and proclaiming the truth.
Sonlight is an evangelical Christian program with a curriculum informed by Biblical study and a Christian worldview. It seeks to cultivate students who grow to be sound adults living the Christian life and declaring the Christian message through whatever vocation or career they seek. At the same time, the program tries to assure that every student is familiar with and understands a wide range of cultures and viewpoints.
An advantage of Sonlight’s literature-based curriculum is that it particularly fits for families with many children. Children can conjointly study some subjects, such as literature and history, while individually studying others, such as math and language arts.
Parental involvement is essential in Sonlight’s program, although a complete guide to all the daily work and discussions simplifies the labor. Some courses do, however, include access to online or DVD instruction.
#9. Monarch Online
Another Christian homeschooling program is Monarch Online. It offers 50 courses for students in the 3rd into 12th grades, with the standard subjects being Bible, history, geography, math, science, and language arts. In addition to these subjects, however, there are several electives accessible to foster specialization and enrichment.
One of the unique characteristics of Monarch Online is its total adaptability. Parents can access their children’s assignments and plans and tailor both to personal needs. Even placement itself is adjustable, as parents can customize each course’s grade level.
The program involves no textbooks. Instead, it uses only online material, which keeps current by routinely updating as necessary. Extra benefits of this online work are automatic grading and organized record-keeping, allowing for the creation of grade reports and transcripts. It is a practical, well-structured system that makes homeschooling easy for anyone.
#10 Easy Peasy
Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool aims to make homeschooling available to every family. Catering to Pre-K through high school gives parents complete freedom to guide their children’s use of the program.
Easy Peasy organizes its curriculum into levels that match grades, but from subject to subject, parents can vary each child’s particular level. No planning is essential, and to help to grade, most answers are available. The program also provides daily lesson plans and direction, allowing independent work.
The Christian-based Easy Peasy program is split into two sites, one for Pre-K through 8th grade and one for high school. It offers a complete spectrum of subjects for elementary and middle school and a broad variety of college-oriented high school courses.
Besides a computer, a student needs no supplies but the standard pencil and paper, all resources and materials being accessible through the site. However, it is possible to buy printables of the material to change the program to offline use.
Offered as a free program, Easy Peasy seeks to welcome all families who wish to homeschool. With no fees, the risk of trying it is non-existent, making it an available choice for those who wish to make the first trial at homeschooling or who want to test whether the curriculum suits them. The site also links external courses available for buying or free from other providers.
#11 Breaking the Barrier
It is a leading company in the field of digital printing and language learning. Breaking the Barrier is taught in Spanish, French, and English and provides students with an in-depth understanding of basic language concepts and cultural ideas from around the world. This online homeschool programs offer students the fastest way to master the language.
This accredited homeschool program offers you a complete curriculum with three levels – Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced. Each level is the equivalent of one year’s worth of Spanish and French. This is also one of the best-accredited homeschool curricula. For more information or to enroll, visit the site page below.
#12 Brave Writer
This program brings a new perspective to the writing process. Instead of focusing on writing as a key to success, Brave Writer and Trainers facilitate the emergence of an authentic voice of writing in their children. Once children have access to language, ideas, and ideas at home, they quickly learn various types of writing, including rigorous academic forms for high schools and colleges.
Brave Writer also offers home study courses for original writing, literature-based language arts programs, and online classes best-accredited homeschool curriculum. For more information or to enroll, visit the site page below.
#13 American School
This homeschool program offers accredited middle school and high school online and traditional paper-based courses. Students in grades 6-12 can take the accredited courses they need in the quantity and format best suits their learning styles.
Some choose full-year or diploma programs, while others select individual courses to enrich an already existing homeschool program.
The American School also offers Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12), Credit and Dropout Recovery, Individual Courses, Traditional Paper-Based Courses, Online Courses, AP and Honors Courses, World Language Courses Powered by Rosetta Stone®, Full Grade Levels, Accredited Diploma Programs and Adult Diploma Programs.
This is also one of the best homeschool curricula. For more information or to enroll, visit the site page below.
FAQs Affordable Accredited Homeschooling Programs
Depending on the programs you pick, a year of the curriculum can cost from a few hundred dollars to over $1000 each year per child.
Sure! Families homeschooled for generations without computers or the internet up until about 10 years ago! You can home-educate with what you have or borrow from friends and relatives. You can even use the public library.
Some K12 Academies offer a specified dollar amount for an Internet Service Provider reimbursement. To inquire about an Internet Service Reimbursement or if you have questions about your student’s reimbursement, please contact your school administration as they are best able to assist you.
It can take up to 24 hours to reflect your student’s Approval status. If you were informed that your student was approved via contact with the Enrollment team and your Parent Portal account does not reflect this information and it has been more than 24 hours, please contact the Enrollment team.
Yes, Khan Academy is free for learners and teachers.
Time4Learning is a completely online curriculum. It appears to be a good option for individuals who like to homeschool on the go, don’t have a lot of space for extra school supplies, or need a program that’s easily accessible with a login rather than a downloaded program specific to an individual computer.
Conclusion
If you’re bothered about the cost of purchasing a curriculum, numerous affordable accredited homeschooling programs are available. Homeschooling doesn’t have to break your budget.
Parents who teach their children at home can choose to create their homeschooling programs and use parts of other programs available for purchase.
Although choosing accredited homeschool programs does not ensure that your child will be accepted into a college or that the program may not be fully individualized for your child, an accredited program may assist you in feeling certain that your child is taking the right courses and learning material that has been certified by a third party.
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