So are you a secular homeschooler ?

It is so hard for some people to come out the closet on this topic. Let me be the first to SHOUT IT OUT "I am a secular homeschooler and proud of it!"  You would be amazed at all the secular homeschool blogs that are out there and the educational lessons that some of these families are doing! I have to admit that most of them are so wonderful that I feel almost ashamed that I am not doing the same types of things with my boys. (and yes I gleam some of their ideas to use with the boys too) Secular homeschoolers are free thinkers who almost always go outside the box to teach their kiddos. Now I am not saying the religious based homeschoolers don't do some amazing things, because they do. I do have several friends (believe it or not) that homeschool with Christian based curricula even though they are not homeschooling for religious reasons. Some find that these types of curricula often offer a lot of structure which they desire BUT just so you know there are secular homeschool curriculum out there as well! There many families that take a Christian based curriculum and tweak it to their families needs. I did that my first year of homeschooling, I took FIAR and just omitted the stories/lessons that I didn't feel were necessary for us. Of course, we also were doing a secular based program (Time4Learning.com) at the time as a supplement to our FIAR lessons. It worked great for us.

It feels good to come out doesn't it! Yes not an easy thing to do in the bible belt areas of the US but there are secular groups creeping up all over the place.

Get to know me, will ya?

Here are two reasons why I get up in the morning!

Well I have been a homeschooling mama for 3+ years now, I think that it is finally time to start a blog of everything that we do. Even if it is only me looking at it! Sorta of a "Dear Diary" of sorts;) I am more than just a homeschooling mom, I also love to garden, cook(most days), do a little woodworking, anything DIY, decorate ( not my strong suit but I like it when it comes out), organize, hiking, playing board games and last year I started running! OK once you see me you might laugh a little( just a little please) cuz well I don't look like a runner but I do like it. My DH talked me into it so that we could get healthy together, and lose the weight we gained over the years. I am still working on it I have my good and bad days but I am determined to get thru it! 

I also am proud to say employed at home for a great company (yes a plug here) Time4Learning.com, which we started using our first year of homeschooling. My boys love it because of the cartoon looking lessons that make them laugh while they learn. Over the course of that first year I met one of the site administrators thru the parent forum, and decided to apply for a State Moderator's job that they had up. Well I GOT IT! At first it was for North Carolina only but now I look over six states (some I would love to live in) and I have met even more wonderful members who give myself and others great advice and links to help us homeschooling more efficiently. Double bonus I get paid to work from home! I also help out at SecularHomeschool.com, a great source of information. The members there all have an open mind about homeschooling their kids, they all have been extremely knowledgeable and friendly.

My newest endeavor has become my third baby of sorts, its a site that features stories about homeschoolers or homeschooling families. The books that are up there are a mixed of religious and secular stories which so far have been a delight to read. I just added books by homeschoolers to the site, so that anyone who wrote a story and was homeschooled can let others know about it there. Feel free to check it out HomeschoolLiterature.com!

Well that is me in a nutshell, I hope that you will come back soon to check out what we have been up to!

I will be posting great sites(both homeschool related and not), recipes, anything fun that we are doing or we are thinking of doing!