What are good, non-religious homeschool books?

K12 and Calvert are both secular.

http://www.k12.com

http://www.calvertschool.org/home-school/

We’ve used K12 for over four years and LOVE it!!! While it is secular, there are a lot of good, moral lessons and virtues. William Bennett was one of the founders of the curriculum, so think _The Book of Virtues_ etc., and you’ll know of some of the stories. The origins of the ancient, and current religions are discussed in world history and in art.

K12 doesn’t start with preschool, but you could start their phonics at that age. I actually started my son in K12 while he was still in public preschool. He started with a Kdg/1st/2nd grade mix. Calvert does have a Pre-K program.

Calvert starts in K also, except with their curriculum, you can’t mix and match grade levels like you can with K12. My son has five different grade levels of courses right now w/ K12. Their planning and progress tools are also dynamic, since they’re online, unlike Calvert’s.

Calvert is a “textbook/workbook” program, whereas K12 has the main delivery of lessons online, but with a good bit of projects and worksheets and offline reading/work added in. It appeals to all types of learning styles, which is a great fit for my son since he’s a global learner.

Speaking of that, the first thing you want to do is figure out your child’s learning style, then select curriculum that fits it. A great program for one child may be a totally different issue with the next child. This is even true about schooling options and is why I HS one child and have the other in public school.

Non Religious Homeschooling

Tim, what question are you answering? Just wondering…As for curricula, I would suggest looking through Rainbow Resource Center’s catalog – it’s about the size of a phone book, and offers both Christian and secular curricula for every subject. For math, I highly suggest Math U See. It starts at Primer (Pre-K to K skills and goes on up through Pre-Calc or something like that), it’s taught on DVD by the author, who has taught K-College and is extremely good at what he does. Saxon is good, though the younger years are extremely drawn out…and the spiral method in the later years (4th on up) can really confuse a lot of kids (though it works just fine for others). For history, Story of the World (though it says it’s a Christian curriculum) is really pretty secular – it’s just got things like the story of Abraham (in a very paraphrased version) or a somewhat historical account of the crucifixion mixed in. They are history, after all, and it helps to set the time period. It also has a watered down version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Greek and Roman mythology, and Asian/Australian history. For science, can’t really help you; we’re Christian and use a Christian curriculum. Reading, the library 🙂 Better than any curriculum! Language Arts, I really like Learning Language Arts Through Literature, there are other good curricula also. Geography, I would suggest looking at Geography Matters – it’s written by homeschool parents and the company offers some great products. Hope that helps!

I am using a Christian program (Sonlight) for my English, Literature, and History subjects. It is all in one and it also has a bible portion but I just cut that out. There are also bible books they want you to read in the schedule, but I cut those out as well. Here’s what I’m using: (SECULAR) Algebra 2 — Saxon Math Algebra 2 -OR- Teaching Textbooks .. I have heard excellent things about those~~ Chemistry — various kits from Home Training Tools homeschool supply (no set curriculum) (RELIGIOUS – BIBLE PARTS SEPARATED AND CUT OUT) American History, Literature — Sonlight Core 100 (RELIGIOUS – BIBLE PARTS SEPARATED AND CUT OUT) World History, Literature — Sonlight Core 300 (RELIGIOUS – BIBLE PARTS SEPARATED AND CUT OUT) Civics, Literature — Sonlight Core 400 (RELIGIOUS – BIBLE PARTS SEPARATED AND CUT OUT) British Literature (history, literature) — Sonlight Core 530 (SECULAR) Microbiology — Microbiology College Textbook, Microbiology Coloring Book, Microbiology College Lab Manual (SECULAR) Physiology — Physiology College Textbook, Human Anatomy Coloring book, Kits from Home Training Tools homeschool supply Can’t help you with the sciences – those are the most difficult to find secular! I am just doing eclectic science using college textbooks I picked up locally for cheap… ALSO have you done 2 years of a language.. You might have to have a foreign language learned for 2 years if you plan on attending university. Hope this helps

My oldest daughter is 4 1/2, and we’ve started with Singapore Math. The first two Early Bird kindergarten workbooks start at age 4. Singapore also offers vocabulary, science, grammar, and some foreign language books. I suggest checking out their website and forum at: http://www.singaporemath.com/Default.asp

We’ve used a mix of Kumon workbooks and any pre-K workbook we find at the grocery or other store. We’re going to start reading lessons with “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons” in about a month.

Personally, I’m planning to do organized math and vocabulary work, read lots of books from the library together, and unschool everything else through the early years.

This website and the corresponding books tells about the most popular curriculums out there and whether or not they have any religious bent: http://www.cathyduffyreviews.com/index.html

Good luck!!

Some good options have already been mentioned, along with some that are religious even though you asked for non-religious. Calvert is Catholic, Alpha Omega and Abeka are Protestant based. We use Math U See for math. Oak Meadow has secular curriculum for K-12. None of their curriculum is religiously based.

It’s not necessary to use textbooks. After reading about the early 90’s textbook which claimed the U.S. had dropped the bomb on Korea, I ordered a complete set of The Illustrated History of the World by Oxford historian J.M. Roberts, and we’ll supplement them with other real books. if you’re interested you can get great prices on them used, through Amazon. antother great history reference is The Timetables of History.

Also check Rebecca Rupp’s Year by Year curriculum guide.

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Tim: “What good is knowledge without people skills?”

Well, Tim, for one thing, it allows people to address the actually question when formulating an answer. Some might even consider the ability to do so not only a matter of knowledge but a people skill as well.

As opposed to, oh, I don’t know, let’s say rudely interjecting one’s ill-informed opinion or making laughable assesments of an entire group of people’s personalities based on brief television clips with just one member of that group.

I like Horizon and Saxon math, they are from Christian publishers but are not overly religious. I found Alpha and Omega and ACE to teach flawed science and history AND flawed theology. I like to unschool history entirely. I actually unschooled science to grade 6 and then threw out ACE science because we had already surpassed it, and it was also not very good. I will start Apologia Science at the high school level as our first formal science. It seems not too bad as far as religious bias. Good Luck.

For a simple, step-by-step program that can help your child learn to read visit this site: http://readingprogram.toptips.org

Learning to read at a young age is important for the development of the child. It helps them develop a better understand of their surroundings, allows them to gather information from printed materials, and provides them with a wonderful source of entertainment when they read stories and rhymes. Children develop at different rates, and some children will develop reading skills quicker than other children; however, what’s important is that as the parent, you are keenly aware of your child’s maturity and reading level to provide them with appropriate books and activities to help them improve.

As parents, you are the most important teacher for your children.

Also Watch this video of a 2 year old child reading http://readingprogram.toptips.org
Cheers 😉

www.k12.com – all subjects

www.singaporemath.com – math and science

www.time4learning.com – all subjects

http://cfge.wm.edu/curriculum.php – science, history, language arts

http://msnucleus.org/curriculum/curriculum.html – free secular science

http://ceure.buffalostate.edu/~csmp/ – free excellent math curriculum

www.artofproblemsolving – math, awesome math, check bookstore for new preschool-4th book

http://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/ – tons of free resources and great group buys – some secular, some not. The CyberEd Plato science group buy is a tremendous deal for upper elementary on up!

Have fun!