Convention!

I'm getting all excited about going to the homeschool convention! Last year I was not able to go, so it's even more exciting. I am staying in a hotel with a couple of friends Friday night and the convention is Friday afternoon and all day Saturday.

The seminars are my favorite part of the convention. The vendor hall is overwhelming to me and I can only take it a little at a time. There are a few things I am for sure going to buy (Math-U-See) and I'll probably run across some other stuff. I do prefer to get most of my curriculum used to make my dollars stretch as far as they can.

The seminars I am considering attending are:

• Is Art Essential to Your Child's Education?
• Wholehearted Writing (from IEW)
• How to Teach Language Arts
• Developing a Love for Learning in your Home School
• Peace Treaties in the Living Room
• Preserving Educational Freedom: MI at the Crossroads
• Homeschooling the Strong-willed Child
• Contingent Contentment
• Content Area Writing (IEW)
• Media & Entertainment: Monitoring What Influences Your Family
• Teaching Like Jesus
• Creating, Editing, and Grading Writing Assignments (IEW)

I heartily prefer seminar topics that are actually about HOW to teach, WHAT to teach, and WHY to teach. I dislike family/faith issues at a homeschooling convention, unless they relate specifically to homeschooling.

I can only attend 7 (and I usually can only handle the information from 5 or 6 anyway). So I'll be narrowing it down. Sometimes I make last minute choices at the conference, based on a like (or dislike) of a certain speaker or opinions of fellow convention attendees.

At least 16 families from our homeschool group are going. The first time I went to this convention, NO ONE from my group went!