Homeschooling is a unique approach that emphasizes a curriculum free from religious influence, focusing on the belief that learning is an essential aspect of education. This approach does not teach atheism, neglect religious studies, or differ from anyone else. Secular homeschooling is a tailored approach that does not promote any religion, and it is a growing trend in the world of homeschooling resources.
Secular homeschoolers are passionate about innovative, alternative, and academically-rich learning. They have a large, active, and diverse secular homeschool community with 100,000 families. Families who declare themselves secular homeschoolers usually indicate that they do not mix their religious beliefs with their child’s. However, this does not mean that no religion is taught.
There are more neutral inclusive groups developing in the homeschool culture, such as SEA Homeschoolers, which has a Facebook group and website to help connect with other homeschoolers. These groups are not based on religion and allow anyone to join, regardless of their beliefs or beliefs.
Inclusive means that you are allowed to share your own beliefs and ideas, as long as they are respectfully shared. Homeschool support groups can be either secular or faith-based, but in today’s changing homeschool culture, more neutral inclusive groups are emerging.
In summary, homeschooling is a flexible and inclusive approach that allows for a diverse range of beliefs and experiences. Joining a local or online support group can provide valuable insights and support for those considering homeschooling.
📹 Favorite Homeschooling Curriculum | Secular Homeschoolers Collaboration
Please check out Shanna’s channel @MakingEverydayMagic for a complete list of videos.
📹 5 Things Online Public School Taught Me About Homeschooling – Secular Homeschoolers in NYC
I’m so grateful for the months my girls spent doing online public school this year, because I learned so many things about them …
Oh this was a fantastic article!!! And a big smile and nod on your feelings about Story of the World!! I was the same as you, couldn’t figure out if it was secular, it’s kinda advertised as neutral, and it is SO HARD to find quality history, this one was so popular, I thought it must be good. I read the first chapter of the first book to my kids, everything was going great! Then I was preparing the next weeks lesson and read the next chapter to prepare and was like, wait…that’s sorta odd…maybe it’s just me. Read several more chapters, and couldn’t resell it fast enough! You’re right! It’s underhanded and hidden like some sort of curse in the pages. I was SO ANNOYED!!! Wasted money! Wasted time! And you see, this curriculum just has a knee jerk rant reflex for us all!! LOLOLOL!!! Thank goodness for your wonderful articles which have helped me so so so much find quality curriculum! You are just fantastic and I appreciate all the time you put into your articles! Thank you!!!
We also use History of US and it has made history our favorite subject for the second year in a row. (Two boys, 5th and 2nd grade). We have a large map of the US and one of the world in our living room and when we are curled up on the couch reading we go find the places on the map 👍. Great way to get geography in! Love the short chapters, level of detail, and story approach… Very digestible and educational for all of us! Learning a lot together
My family is Roman Catholic, and I’m so grateful for the secular curricula. We are very fussy about religious instruction and don’t appreciate generically religious insertions into all the subjects. I just want math that does math, literature that does literature, and science that does science. History is tricky because you can’t NOT take a stance. I appreciate the reviews! I intend to take a look at Lightning Literature.
I’m currently using the story of the world as a secular homeschooler, and at first I was iffy about the religion that is in it but having almost finished the first book. The way I see it is that they don’t just share Christianity they also share Hinduism as fact so they just give the facts of the religion and the parts that are up for interpretation they leave out like they will say Jesus was a real person but instead of saying he rose from the dead, they said his followers said he rose from the dead.
commenting on this older article because i feel the same way about SotW. my daughter is now 20 but we used vol. 1 and i also purchased 2 and 3 because as you said, there werent many secular programs for history back then. i remember that at the time nearly everyone considered SotW to be a secular series. Even on the Well-Trained Mind forums that was the recommended secular choice. I dont really recall when it hit me but one day we are working through a chapter and shes coloring her ugly coloring page from that beastly activity book and I’m like uh this isnt a secular statement. Then the realization that theres always been a religious slant to it set in. I felt like it was disappointing to have that realization as far in as we were because my guard was down. I’m now on the path to homeschool my ‘second set’ of kids and theyre 6 and 4 and boy are the secular options so amazing! I’m so thoroughly excited to see the shift as homeschooling has become more mainstream.
I looooove LL (minus the composition portion), but unfortunately it has not worked well for my 4th grader this year. I am really hoping that after some tweaking and maturing we can return to it for him next year. My 2nd grader will be using level 2 soon, and seems pretty excited to dig in. I cannot wait!🥰
I agree with wishing that religious curriculum was clearly labeled! I recently bought a workbook to go with the beautiful Ocean Anatomy book, and the description said nothing about religion, but after I downloaded the file, the introduction said “since we are a Christian company, we have elected to skip the sections of the book talking about evolution, climate change, and reproduction.” 🤦🏻♀️ I was so frustrated, because I wouldn’t have purchased had I known.
I have not used SOTW, but I know Emily at BYL had said that the first couple levels of it were not secular, and I think she was specifically talking about the very early history part where christian biblical history is presented as fact. I mean that flat out means that it isn’t secular which is pretty different IMO from just a biased or a whitewashed account of events. I think where it gets complicated is that the later levels of SOTW can be considered secular.
I’ll weigh in as a teacher since you were confused about the plural (yes, it grated on me in the beginning of the article :). The plural of curriculum is curricula BUT we are allowed to bring the “common use” clause into effect here so ‘curriculums’ is also perfectly fine unless, say, you’re using it in an academic setting or at university. So, no more curriculum use in plural but curricula or curriculums instead.
I almost checked out SOTW a couple of years ago. I agree. That is the worst form of non-secular material… dishonest in its objective, by design. Are you kidding me, y’all. But it’s unsurprising that this happens. Megan on the Bold School website had such a fabulous article lately, breaking down why SOTW is problematic!
I just started homeschooling this year and am secular. I am having the hardest time with history. The problem you mentioned with SOTW is the exact problem I am having with secular history curriculum. Western perspective of history is heavily influenced by religion whether you like it not. I was using TGTB for history and it was way too religious focused borderlining Bible study. After researching many things, I landed on Beautiful feet early American history. Do you have any other non crt influenced secular history choices? I feel like some people have over corrected if that makes sense.
I carefully researched LL before purchasing for my daughter. I think it’s a wonderful program, but she hates the grammar and the composition parts. I agree that there isn’t much help in the writing part. We are loosely following now by reading the books and answering the comprehension questions. I’m sad it didn’t work for us.
I’ve been holding off on “The Story of Us” because I have a kindergartner and a 3 year old and figured I should wait a while, but decided to go ahead and purchase them based on this review. I was able to get 10 of the books on thriftbooks for $50, compared to buying the set from Amazon for $92. I wanted to ask your thoughts on the 11th book – it says “source book” and I wasn’t sure what that meant (that volume is not included in the Amazon set, nor did I see it on thriftbooks). Is that something I should seek out in your opinion? *I was pleasantly surprised to find that my library system does have them available for checkout, as well as the Joy Hakim Science books. I decided to purchase the History ones because it’s my favorite and I know I’ll want those, but it’s a good option for someone who might not necessarily want to own them. I will be checking out the Science books for a flip through before I decide on those. Thanks for the info!!
New Mama here!!! My daughter is just 16 weeks today… ahhh time is going too fast!!! With that said, We want to familiarize ourselves with Homeschool stuff now to feel more prepared when the time comes. … May be a silly question but does Secular just mean NON-Religious? If so, that is exactly what I’m looking for. Now that I’ve listened to the whole article I think my question was answered. I recently saw The Crafty Classroom and their adds pulled me in, very colorful which Im all about. I emailed them and they said they have a Bible section but is separate from all other curriculum. They said that there may be a cross in a Christmas work sheet and such but is not all throughout. I don’t’ even like that much to be honest. It seems as though what your saying is if I want 100% non religious that I should not go with anything like that because it might be weaved throughout even though they say its not?!! Also curious about curriculum in Download Versions and Ones in Print. I heard the Downloadable is much less money which is always good but not a deal breaker. It looks as though the ones you mentioned is already printed. Pros and Cons? ?
I’m completely with you on curriculum deceitfuly presenting itself as Secular when it is not – rant away. Have you used any of Joy Hakim’s science/ or history of science books? Our core theme of the year is History – we will be using Pandia Press’s History Quest Early Times, and their Life for science, and among the pile of books I’ve grabbed to go along with them is her book Aristotle leads the way. We haven’t used it yet, at first glance I had a steam coming from the ears moment because it’s first paragraph was a bible quote.. But it’s followed by a Mayan quote, then a Hindu quote and seems to be covering all bases with various belief systems and their relevance to history and science at each stage through the history of science.
I know exactly what you mean about SOTW, this is our first year of homeschooling. we bought TGATB history and there are parts that deffintly manipulative. but like for the sake of the story line you have to keep reading. Normally we stop a bunch of times to talk about the diffrent parts that are not from a secular view
I almost chose SOTW for our least favorite! Your thoughts on it are EXACTLY how I feel. I use it here and there for early modern world history topics, but with a LOT of sidebars. It’s just so whitewashed and Christian-washed, there is no “filtering” that out. P.S. I am so sad LL isn’t working out well for us. I’m doing a article on that soon, but I wanted so much to like it!
My daughters LOVED The Story of the World (me too) when we used it in their early elementary years. History was a favorite in our home thanks to all four of those volumes, they would always ask to read more or listen to more. They’re in high school now and have a great world history foundation. I’m often surprised by how much of it they retained. We used History of US in later years and they just couldn’t get into it and started dreading doing history, they said they don’t like when books are laid out like that. I’m excited for another chance at using Story of the World again now with my first grader and my high schoolers are getting excited to hear it in the background, lol. Thanks for your review!
I have a few questions. Have you tried Learning Language Arts Through Literature? If so, can you compare the two and why you preferred Lightning Literature over LLATL? Does Lightning Literature cover grammar or is it strictly literature and writing? Does it scaffold the writing? That’s my biggest issue with our current LA program. It will say, “Rewrite these facts into your own words,” yet not explain HOW. Finally, other than History of US, what other history/social studies have you enjoyed? Thanks so much!
Thank you for this article! I wanted to hear from someone what the online learning experience was like in more detail! That’s interesting about khan academy! We use it and my daughter is fine with using it. We also like to use prodigy which is more of a roll playing article game where you answer math questions to battle others.