a homeschool family of five
We made Arbor so more families would homeschool.
We’re Shelby and Nate. We have three kids, we were homeschooled ourselves, and we homeschool ours in Oregon, from the same app you would use. Arbor is our family’s work, and it is a small one: when you write in, one of us writes back.
Before any of this, Shelby kept meeting parents who wanted their kids home for the same reasons we did. They weren’t at peace with everything school was teaching, they wanted their kids to have a real childhood with time to play, and a few had looked at private school and the tuition spoke for itself. Nearly all of them said the same thing: “I could never do it.”
She could tell they could. So she started coaching them through it, one at a time, on the phone. Nate watched her do that for a while and finally said, let’s build you something that can help everyone you’re trying to help. That’s Arbor.
Shelby & Nate
WHY WE DO THIS
We think a lot of kids would do better with a parent teaching them.
We want to see more families homeschooling, and we especially want the families who have never done it to believe it is possible for them. That belief is the whole thing we are trying to build. The planning, the lessons, the tracking, all of it exists so that a parent who has never taught a day can sit down on Monday and teach.
We believe a kid learns best from a person, at a table, with paper, and that this is truest for the kids who learn differently. More families come to Arbor for a child who learns differently than for any other reason, and we think those kids are exactly the ones a screen serves worst and a parent serves best.
And we believe a school day at home should be short. A few real lessons, kept short, and then the afternoon is theirs. Homeschooling doesn’t have to be the huge thing that takes over your life. Kept simple, it gives a family more time together, not less, and it gives kids their childhood back.
you be the teacher. we’ll do everything else.
WORK WITH US
Partner with us on this.
If you run a co-op, a church or community group, a homeschool blog or channel, a curriculum, or anything else that helps families teach their own kids, we would love to hear from you. We are a small family company, we answer every message ourselves, and we are happy to talk about how we might help each other reach more families.
Write to us at hello@arborhomeschool.com. That address reaches Shelby and Nate directly, and it is the same one our families use.
you’ve got this, and we’ve got you