Why form a co-op?

Although co-ops aren't necessary for using Tapestry, they do present many benefits to a homeschooling family! Here are just a few.

• Group studies keep students (and their parents) accountable and thus on schedule. While parent-teachers lose a little freedom, they and their students learn to be good "team players," agreeing to the group's overall requirements for amounts and types of work be done in a timely and thorough manner.
• Group studies often motivate students to do their best work by providing a peer audience and/or socializing context.
• Skills that home schooled students often lack can be developed in a co-op setting, especially things like: raising hands, respecting others' speech, supporting/participating in a discussion, giving a speech, team work.
• Parents can split the load of lectures and hands-on activities according to mutual strengths, and all benefit!
• Various parents have sundry gifts and talents. In co-op groups, parent-teachers can each contribute their best skills, and students benefit from the added variety of teaching approaches.
• One of the essential elements of a classical high school education is discussion: thinking on one's feet: taking a position and supporting it out of one's own knowledge base and the evidence one has gleaned from one's research. We believe that this is an essential element of historical and literary studies that, without a group context, your high school student will miss unless, of course, you engage in regular discussion with him one on one.
• Group writing classes give the student the chance to have others enjoy (and critique) his writing. At first, we recommend that the instructor do the critique, unless the group knows each other well and can offer constructive and gracious comments.
• Co-ops can provide contexts that single-family settings struggle to achieve. For instance, groups can hold formal debates, put on a Medieval Feast, and pool resources to allow older students to go on key local field trips while younger siblings are cared for.

Sample Documents

• Behavior and Discipline Agreement
• Blank Course Contract
• Calendar
• Commitment Form
• Guidelines for Rhetoric Co-ops
• Mission Statement and Charter
• Registration Form
• Rules and Regulations
• Small Co-op Information
• HSLDA sample language on marriage and gender that should be included in your Statement of Faith
• Word Document: Statement of Faith that includes wording on marriage and gender