A New Town Is Coming
5 min read
Pour yourself a cup of coffee, friend. I have news, and it deserves a front page.
Over the years of teaching, leading schools, and homeschooling my own kids, I have talked with thousands of families who were piecing it all together on their own. The story is almost always the same. A state website in one tab, a curriculum review from four years ago in another, a printable that is almost right, and a Facebook thread where everyone answered a question except yours. And somewhere in the middle of all those tabs sits a mom with a cold cup of coffee, wondering if everybody else got a map she never received.
So we built one. Then we built the town to go with it.
Top Story: The Homebuilt Community Opens This October
The Homebuilt Community is a little town online, made for homeschool families. In the middle is Community Square, where moms ask questions and answer them. Around the square are eight places, and each one does a real job in your homeschool week.

You walk from building to building on a map. You step inside, and there is a room with someone behind the counter who knows what that room is for. It is free to join, and you will find me behind the front desk. If you are not sure where something lives, ask, and I will walk you there.
Why a Town, of All Things
Homeschooling is a lot of small errands. You need to know what your state asks of you. You need a spelling page with this week’s words on it. You need to count your school days, and one day you will need a transcript. Each errand is small. Scattered across forty places, they wear you out, because you are the only one who knows where any of them are.
A town puts every errand on one street. The records are in the Records Office. The printables come from the Print Shop. The rules for your state are at the State House, right where you would expect a state’s rules to be.
A town also has neighbors, which matters to me more than any building on the map.
Around Town: Your First Walk Down Main Street
Here is the quick tour, in the order I would walk it with a friend.

The State House. Pick your state on the map and see exactly what it asks of you, in plain English, with the official source behind every answer and the steps to leave public school in order.
The Curriculum Library. A shelf of nearly two hundred curricula. Search by name, filter by subject, grade, faith, and price, then compare them side by side before you spend a dollar.
The Print Shop. Walk in, pick from nine sections, and answer a few quick questions at the counter. Handwriting, Spelling, Math Facts, Chore Charts, Certificates, and more, made for your child and ready to print in about a minute.
The Records Office. Take a number and step up to the front desk. Attendance, Report Cards, and Transcripts for every child, kept for you, all created to meet your state standards.
The Guidance Office. Counselor Mandy keeps the high school years straight: credits, the diploma, dual enrollment, work permits, and scholarships.
The Homebuilt Press. Our town paper, new every Monday morning, with a bulletin board for jobs, giveaways, and notices.
The Token Bank. Tokens are how the Print Shop works. They land in your account on the first of every month, and you earn more when a friend joins.
The Freebie Vault. Spin the dial and the door swings open on free printables for members, starting with four I think every homeschool family should have.
Community Square. The middle of town. Ask a question, or answer one.
The Records Office and the Guidance Office are for Resident members. Everyone who joins can walk the whole town.
A Letter From the Front Desk
When I was a principal, I learned what a good front office does for a family. It is the place where somebody knows where everything is kept, remembers what you asked last time, and never makes you feel silly for asking again. Parents would walk in flustered and walk out with a plan.
When I started homeschooling, that front office disappeared. I became the principal, the registrar, the counselor, and the lunch lady in one afternoon, and nobody handed me the binder. I know so many of you feel the same way.
Every homeschool mom deserves a front desk. That is really what this town is: a front desk for your homeschool, with a whole town of help behind it.
Every homeschool mom deserves a front desk.
Every Stage Has Its Own Corner
Whether your child is three or seventeen, there is a page in town built for where you are right now. Pre-K, Elementary, Middle School, High School, New Homeschoolers, and Family each have their own page with the tools picked for that age, so the mom of a preschooler is not wading through transcript talk, and the mom of a junior is not scrolling past alphabet tracing.
At the bottom of each one, you can Walk Around Town. Every building lifts when you point at it and tells you what is inside.

Classifieds: How to Get Your Keys Early
Wanted: homeschool families who would like to move in first.
The waitlist is open now at heymandydavis.com/community. Before the doors open to everyone, people on the waitlist get Early Keys. Your own key arrives by email, and you can walk in and look around before the rest of the town arrives.
Everyone who moves in during those early days becomes a Founding Family, with a badge on your profile that stays for good. It belongs only to the families who move in early, so it will always mean you were here from the start.
Today’s Forecast
Clear skies over Main Street. A shorter to-do list by midweek. And a very good chance of finishing your coffee while it is still hot.
Here’s to our new town, and to you, moving in.

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