Faith Kelley works on her math assignment at the kitchen counter. Faith is home-schooled by her mother, Mary Ann Kelley. When Mary Ann Kelley began looking for home-schooling resources for people like herself, she couldn't find many, and what she could find was not in a central location. So she started her own Web site. smc

Mary Ann Kelley home-schools her daughters, Faith, 6, and Michaela, 9, at their Stafford home. She started a Web site and monthly newsletter for home-schooling resources, and families around the country turn to her for information. smc

Mary Ann Kelley helps her daughter Faith with her math work. Kelley started a Web site with home-schooling resources. smc

Stafford County woman is 'TheHomeSchoolMom' in the virtual world of cyberspace

By CATHY DYSON

Date published: 3/8/2005

HEN MARY ANN Kelley started home schooling five years ago, she didn't know what resources were out there.

She joined an online group and asked around. Other home-school mothers shared some great tips about types of curriculum and where to find free samples of educational products.

But Kelley never found a single Web site that contained all the information she had gathered in a few e-mails.

So, the Stafford County woman started one--and became "TheHomeSchoolMom" in the virtual world of cyberspace.

Kelley, 38, started a Web site by the same name and created a monthly newsletter. At first, most of the subscribers were family members or fellow home-schoolers in the Fredericksburg area.

These days, her newsletter is viewed by more than 9,000 people worldwide. Most are in North America, but a few are military families stationed overseas.

She doesn't charge for her service, but she does sell ads in the newsletter--as long as the products are educational.

"TheHomeSchoolMom" is no longer the only home-schooling resource on the Web. A Google search produces more than a million links with some sort of reference to those who teach their children at home.

But it does stand out, for both its content and design, said Ron Thompson, a regular advertiser.

His Florida company publishes a magazine called "Learning Through History." For two years, he's advertised regularly in Kelley's newsletter and has gotten good results. He's tried--and dropped--a lot of similar Web sites in that same time.

"Mary Ann's is consistently the most successful one for us," said Thompson of Classic Education Inc. in Naples. "She just does a real professional job of putting it together, and she understands what a home-schooling mom needs."

Kelley doesn't consider herself an authority on home schooling. Far from it.

But she does know a thing or two about finding resources online. She's used a lot of them to develop a curriculum for her own children: Michaela, 9, and Faith, who turns 7 tomorrow.

Kelley prefers to give them the basics, then let the girls explore topics that interest them. That style is known as child-led learning.

Date published: 3/8/2005