Are there any available homeschooling curricula without religious overtones available?

Question

I am planning on homeschool my son, when he gets to school going age (he is 19 months old). However, I do not want him to be indoctrinated with any form of religion, as I believe religion is a personal choice and it should not be foisted upon children, because they are easily influenced. Most of the sites I have visited, so far, have had definite religious overtones, without even having seen the actual cirriculum refered to on each individual site. Does anyone know of a cirriculum that contains material that is not religiously motivated? Please point me in the right direction.

Answer 1

There are dozens. Literally.

http://intothesunrise.blogspot.com/2006/...

This is the best website I've ever seen with curriculum suggestions. If you are really into kids making their own choices, you should look at unschooling now. It's a life style that respects all of kids choices, without arbitrary rules and without force or punishment. To me, that's just as offensive. http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

Answer 2

Calvert is a nonreligious curriculum.  

http://www.calvert.com

You can also purchase a religious curriculum and omit the Bible portions of it.  Or create your own curriculum as suggested previously.  You can find individual phonics, language arts and math programs, and buy history and science texts that don't have a religious component.  Sometimes I'm frustrated at the lack of good science materials that have a religious component.  You'll have no problem finding great materials when the time comes.

Answer 3

My son did very well at Great Books academy.

Answer 4

Indoctrinitation happens when you don't give all the options. Sure you may be able to elimnate the Christian overtones but if you want to give a true education then you must remember to keep theories just that and teach both sides of anything controversial. After all you want them to make up their own minds about what is right and what to believe.

There are programs out there. Try a search for Secular Home School or Non Christian Home School.

Answer 5

I've used K12 for five years.  It is a secular curriculum.  Look into it at:

http://www.k12.com

We use it as independent HS'ers (Consumer Direct), not as part of a virtual public school/academy.

Answer 6

The same textbooks used by public schools are available through amazon and other online bookstores.

You do not have to go with a religious curriculum.

Many folks pick and choose and sort of build their own that best fits their needs.

Answer 7

certainly! You might first check with your local school board and see if they have a program.

Here in Ohio there is a school board supported homeschool program that helps parents with the process and day to day realities of making sure the child has all they need.

You also might want to just Google "homeschool ---- " and put your state in the blank. All kinds of resources and programs came up when I did that with my state filling in the blank.

You have to remember people have all kinds of reasons for homeschooling. It isn't just a religious thing.

I am considering homeschooling one of my daughters because I feel she would thrive in a home environment as opposed to a school one. It has nothing to do with my views of the schools...in fact her sister thrives at public school and will remain there.

Answer 8

Hi, great to hear this.  You know, you can start home-schooling him already.  He's in the most exclusive kindergarten-preparatory program going!

Don't limit yourself to pre-packaged "home-schooling" "curricula."  As an educator, you're free to design the best program possible for the needs of your student.

http://www.livefreelearnfree.com

http://www.unschooling.com

http://www.naturalchild.org

http://www.holtgws.com/

The Homeschool Zone has three channels: secular, christian, unschooling:

http://www.homeschoolzone.com/

As you know, home schooling is still viewed by some people with great skepticism.  Their favorite unfair trick is to find something about the home-educating parent they can point to as "uneducated" and thus "unfit to educate."  In their world, public school teachers are allowed to make spelling mistakes; home educators are not.  As you're ramping up to home-schooling, you'll want to ensure you're later able to devote your energy to home-schooling rather than to defending.  For this purpose, it's important to take stock of areas where you can strengthen your foundation as an educator as well as polish your image to minimize vulnerability to criticism.

Answer 9

Many people have already given you very wonderful answers.

One resource I found (a very informational, but very over-whelming one) is Rainbow Resource Center.

They have a mix of both religious and non-religious curricula from pre-school through high school.  I personally used this just to familiarize myself with a few different ones, and also visited various education stores that specialize in education materials for teachers and home schoolers.  I also visited local libraries, and even thrift stores, to find more books to look through and "study" and see if they would be a fit for any of my children.

One of the biggest helps - find your local curriculum fair (spring and fall are usually when they are held) and you will find a wonderful mix of home school families reselling their home school curricula for others to use.  Many are still in new/gently used condition and are priced well below what you'd pay brand new.  These curriculum fairs are a great place to talk with other families and discuss types of curricula available - both secular and non-secular.  Let them know you are considering home schooling, ask their opinions, share yours.  

I visited one of these before I began home schooling ... and spoke with many of my friends who also home school their kids ... I want my kids to have open minds when learning.  We have a mix of religious material as well as non-religious material.  We have material that is more political than I care for, but we've also got material that isn't very political.  I want them to see the views of all sides.  As well as current books, also look into older school books ... we've found some that were in use over 100 years ago.  It's teaching the kids history by teaching them how and what kids learned in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  They are also learning the same basics that were taught then and (to an extent) still are now.

Aside from following books, we also use dvd's, and cd-roms, and any other form of learning that excites my kids.  We use a form of home schooling (following the school structure only in a home setting) and unschooling - child led learning.  I let my children pick subjects to learn about - dinosaurs, electricity, the Egyptians, etc. - and we find all we can to learn about that subject.  It keeps them excited in learning, and they are far more willing to do the "have to" subjects, like math and language arts, for example.

I truly wish you the best - home schooling is an amazing adventure.

Blessings.

Answer 10

Absolutely!  I homeschool, and I've discovered numerous great companies.  I usually first preview what the public schools are doing.  You can order from McDougall Littell (A great literature series) Scott Foresman (great math series) and Singapore Science, Prentice Hall, or Pearson Products (great Science series).  Reading Street is great for elementary kids.  I choose Jacob's for Algebra I and Geometry, and Scott Foresman for elementary.  Some companies you might look into are: Harcourt Brace, Prentice Hall, Pearson Products, and Holt Reinhart.  

Also, Oak Meadow is a non-religious curriculum, but frankly I found it lacking in content.  (I do like their civics section.)  There is a series that I found in a store that leans toward Christian based curriculum; it's called "The History of US" by Joy Hakim.  Really, they sky's the limit with curriculums.  In fact, it will be very overwhelming when you start to investigate; there's almost too much out there.  I've purchased several text-books from Amazon.  Good luck.

Answer 11

I really liked Saxon for Math and Phonics. I find the teaching methods were very effective.

Answer 12

You have received some great answers.  Another suggestion I have is creating your own curriculum.  There is a book entitled "Home Learning Year by Year:  How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool through High School."  The link to information on the book is below:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0609805...

Answer 13

I just had to give up my job because of teenager daughter awful bullying spate and she doing GCSE's !!!  I think you may be in US so not sure if this will help.  We subscribe to

educationcity.com    

£30 per year each child.  IT'S GREAT fun, lively and entertaining you get this for USA & UK market and is designed for all primary age children.  I have to prize my kids off the computer just to stop me losing an item on ebay !!!!  Now thats got to be good.

Answer 14

With homeschooling you can teach your son what ever you like.  The Education Department of your local council will say that you need to make sure you cover maths, english and science.  Apart from that you are left to your devices.

Answer 15

You may use the same text books as the public school.   They are, however, religious.  They teach humanism.

Note: Even teaching 'no religion' is teaching a religion.

We use many used public school books.  We feel that being educated in popular religions is of benefit to our family.

Answer 16

Certainly, there are lots of them.  You've been given some very good suggestions.  Honestly, the only subjects that you would be likely to run into religious instruction in would be science (I honestly suggest studying both creation/ID and evolution, and making an informed decision from there) and possibly history.  Other than that, curriculum is pretty much curriculum.  The main differences between the companies will be the approach that they take, not so much the content.

A math book is a math book, no matter which company it comes from; however, there are many different teaching philosophies, and you need to pick a book that centers on the one that is best for your child.  For literature, which is generally the center of language arts, books tend to be pointed more toward moral lessons (or the lack thereof) than religious instruction.

I would look through the actual curriculum before you decide on which you want; many sites do have a religious leaning one way or the other, but honestly, that isn't always apparent in their product.  We are Christian, but much of what we use is secular, simply because that's the curriculum that works best for my son.  Most of what we use, quite frankly, is from the public library.

I would really recommend for you to attend a curriculum fair/homeschool convention in your state.  Even if you don't purchase anything, you'll see the huge range of what's out there and be able to talk with knowledgeable people face to face.  This will help you make educated decisions about what to do for your son.

Hope that helps!

Answer 17

You don't say where you are, but in the UK you can teach whatever you like - it is only in schools that religious education has to be studied by law.

I agree with one of the above answerers who suggested that you  do confine yourself to a ready-made curriculum.  Just start off with the 3Rs (reading, writing, arithmetic) and get him involved in creative activities.  You will soon find out what your son is happiest doing.

Having said that, religion is not a bad thing to do.  My daughter (13) has chosen to learn about Hinduism - not because she wants to become a Hindu or anything, but because she likes to find out about other cultures.

Anyway, best of luck.  I wish I had had the chance to HE my daughter from scratch!

Sorry I had a "senior moment" at the beginning of my answer!  What I MEANT to say was that I agree with one e of the above answerers who suggested that you  do NOT  confine yourself to a ready-made curriculum.

Apologies!

Answer 18

If you want to be your own school, materials are available all over the place. I mixed and matched.

School supply stores have books of curriculum for K-6 at least.

Check out this source for secular homeschoolers: http://www.vegsource.com/homeschool/secu...

It's a fantastic community of homeschoolers not interested in religious curriculum.