New to home-educating in southwest Washington state? Feeling excited and maybe a little scared? We've all been there! My #1 advise is to connect with one of our local support groups and talk with other home-schooling parents. The resources below will help you get started. Enjoy your journey!

Here are my two favourite local listservs:
SWWAH - SouthWest Washington Homeschoolers
CCH - Clark County Homeschoolers
This new group is for secular-liberal-progressive homeschool families:
Clark County Liberal Home Teaching Co-op

Kim Railey runs lots of field trips and events through www.HomeschoolingEventsandmore.com. Outings, tours, plays, ballets, classes (e.g. at OMSI), sporting events, park days, etc. Some things are free, some cost money, everything has a $2 set-up fee which is well worth it.

The HS laws for washington are contained in what is called "the pink book" which is now really a series of links at www.k12.wa.us/PrivateEd/HomeBasedEd/regulations.aspx. This site has info about the "letter of intent" that you must file with the state annually.

The foremost WA state homeschooling support group is WHO at www.WashHomeschool.org. They run an annual homeschooling convention (family oriented) every June in Puyallup WA, see www.washhomeschool.org/convention/convention.html.

We are true independent home-educators ... we do not do "school at home" nor use any alternative school programs. We base our secular curriculum roughly on the neo-classical education model as described in The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. (Read "What is a Classical Education?".) We do lessons 6 days a week year round and take days off at our leisure for field trips and travel.

The following links provide specific details on our curriculum by grade level.

• The Preschool Years
• The Grammar Stage
  • Grade 1 ~ Age 4 ~ Aug 2005 - Sept 2006
  • Grade 2 ~ Age 5 ~ Oct 2006 - Oct 2007
    (If we had been in public school CJ would have started Kindergarten Sept 2007.)
    
  • Grade 3 ~ Age 6 ~ Nov 2007 - Aug 2008
  • Grade 3/4 ~ Age 7-7½ ~ Sept 2008 - March 2009 (CAT gr.3 test July 2009)
  • Grade 4 ~ Age 7½-8½ ~ April 2009 - March 2010 (CAT gr.4 test April 2010)
• The Logic Stage
  • Grade 5 ~ Age 8½-9½ ~ April 2010 - Aug 2011
  • Keely's on sabbatical ~ Sept 2011 - Dec 2011
  • Grade 6 ~ Age 10 ~ Jan 2012 - Dec 2012
  • Grade 7 ~ Age 11 ~ Jan 2013 - Dec 2013
  • Grade 8 ~ Age 12 ~ Jan 2014 - Dec 2014
• The Rhetoric Stage
  • Grade 9 ~ Age 13 ~ Jan 2015 - Dec 2015
  • Grade 10 ~ Age 14 ~ Jan 2016 - Dec 2016
  • Grade 11 & College Freshman ~ Age 15 ~ Jan 2017 - Dec 2017
  • Grade 12 & College Sophomore ~ Age 16 ~ Jan 2018 - Dec 2018

 

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!