Recently a homeschooling aunt named Sarah, who lives near Athens, has spearheaded a new homeschooling co-op for the area.  She wants it to be a secular co-op because there are no, active secular co-ops in the Athens area.  While there are many good co-ops here, they are all religion-based (including some of the curriculum), and some of them require a statement of faith.  While I respect each homeschooler’s beliefs and choices of teaching material, I will be using mostly secular resources.

    The reason I bring this up is because sometimes it is hard to know what homeschooling materials are religion-based or not.  Sometimes it is stated clearly on a website and other times it is not.  I have been thinking that it would be nice to have a place to turn to in order to find specifically secular materials, activities, etc.  This is part of the reason I have decided to support Sarah by helping to build a website for the co-op.

    The website is new, so there’s not much there yet.  I have invited other homeschoolers to contribute to it, and it will also be a place where the activities of Red Clay Co-op can be announced. 

    This is a long-term project.  One thing I didn’t want to do by committing myself to this is stress myself out.  So I am going to work on it when I can and build it up slowly.  I’m not expecting much participation by others because I know homeschoolers are busy people and, like me, barely have time for their own activities let alone writing for a website.  But maybe over time, it will become a useful resource and more people will contribute to it.

    I hope that the group can get going too.  There are a handful of people who are interested in some of the upcoming classes that Sarah is trying to organize.  This is no small feat.  As for myself, I’ll just be happy if I can find a group of like-minded parents and children that I and my boys can hang out with.         

    Right now, it’s too hot to do anything, but the co-op should get going in the fall.  Sarah is planning for the classes to begin then, and I’m thinking of initiating a field trip when the weather gets cooler.

    If you’re interested, you can view the site at http://redclaycooperative.wordpress.com/

    And if you’d like to write for us, I’d love that!  Read the Submission Guidelines.