Connections: Snapshots of PA Homeschool Groups - May 2022

“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.” – B. B. King

With the steady increase in the number of homeschooling families, making connections with other families of like-mindedness are increasingly important.

Consider the many opportunities these homeschool groups from around the state offer for connecting, encouraging, and learning.

Surveys completed by leaders of homeschool groups across Pennsylvania will be posted over the next months until all received have been published. All information was current as of November 2021. Permission of those depicted in photos was assumed when submitted for use online.

Please review these four snapshots of PA homeschool groups below and access further information on these and others provided on the CHAP Online Resource Page.

If you are a homeschool group leader that did not complete a survey but would like to now, please contact the editor through magazine@chaponline.com.

Central York Classical Conversations
County: York
Contact(s): Jessica Deitrick
Website link: www.classicalconversations.com

Co-op (academic) (hired teachers or parent-teachers)

Cost to participate: Contact Director for program costs
Membership acceptance: Annual

“Share the love of learning through a Christian worldview and fellowship with other families. Our families thrive using three keys to a great education: Classical, Christian, and Community. How do you teach your child to experience and examine the world? By learning alongside them in a community with a common goal. Classical Conversations empowers you to guide your child’s educational development at every stage (and teaches you, too!). Our Christ-centered curriculum is rooted in the classical model and is in tune with the way children naturally learn. A classical education recognizes that we learn anything by using three distinct arts: learning the words and basic facts associated with the subject; sorting, understanding, and practicing using those words and facts; and, finally, using the information by teaching the subject to someone else, writing original essays on the subject, or solving problems with the information. These three arts are called, respectively, grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. At present our community provides the Foundations and Essentials programs for our community and our hope is to add Challenge into our community in the next year.”

“We believe education is best experienced together, and that’s why community is the bedrock of our homeschool model. When you’re part of Classical Conversations, you belong to a local community that’s got your back, whether you need help with math or an extra hand running errands. You and your child benefit from the type of comprehensive education that creates inquisitive, astute adults who have a lifelong love of learning. We’re the homeschool program that helps you cultivate a curious, intellectual child through an intentional community-based approach to education. Learning together with families like yours, you’re equipped with the tools and support to provide a Christ-centered curriculum that’s rooted in the classical model. Memorization Fun, FOUNDATIONS is a grammar-stage program for children age twelve and under and their parents. Parents and tutors use the Foundations Curriculum, which outlines a comprehensive core of grammar for history, science, English, Latin, geography, and math. Students will encounter these facts again later in the Challenge programs. The Foundations Curriculum clearly leads parents through a classical education at home, week by week. In addition to the memory work, students also participate weekly in public speaking, science projects or experiments, and either an art or music activity, building a firm foundation for a rich education. ESSENTIALS: Why do people in other countries know several languages and on average Americans do not? It is because we do not know our own language. Americans do not know the basic grammar of the English language because it is no longer taught in schools. You have to know your own language in order to learn other languages. Essentials not only teaches excellent grammar skills, but it lays the foundation for acquiring foreign language.”

Christian Home Educators’ Fellowship of the Susquehanna Valley
County: Union, Snyder, Northumberland, Montour
Contact(s): Christine Mast, Karen Stamm

Local meetings for support of homeschooling parent(s)
Co-op (academic) (hired teachers or parent-teachers)
Social group for students
Field trip group

Membership acceptance: Ongoing

Classical Civitas
County: Chester County
Contact(s): Dawn Gross
Website link: www.classicalcivitas.org

Co-op (academic) (hired teachers or parent-teachers)

Cost to participate: $50-$150
Membership acceptance: Ongoing