INCH Report

Arrived at the conference Friday afternoon and took my bags up to our room at the hotel. Paid my registration fee at the conference and headed into the vendor hall. Wow, look at all the STUFF! Oooh-wee!

Off to the first break-out session - Is Art Essential to Your Child's Education? The first screen of the PowerPoint presentation read: Congradulation! I should have left right then, because it only went downhill from there. I'll spare you all the details, but just say that the woman has a PhD in art education but does not know how to communicate with an audience. This is the worst seminar I have ever attended at a conference. Ever.

So, it can only get better from here, obviously! lol

I then attended the seminar - Peace Treaties in the Living Room. This was presented by Sarah, Steven, and Grace Mally, homeschooled siblings who are now ages 29, 22, and 19. This was a wonderful seminar and I highly recommend it. However, some friends attending the conference didn't give it as high marks, so your mileage may vary. This is the seminar I bought the DVD of. (See previous post for link.) They discussed: How to handle irritations successfully, conflict resolution, how to have meaningful conversations, and what parents can do.

Those are the two sessions I attended on Friday. I did not attend the general session in the evening (nor on Saturday morning) so I did not listen to the keynote speaker, Phil Downer.

Some of us wanted to eat together Friday night, but the downtown area isn't big on good restaurants. We found a list of restaurants and called one. We asked, "Is your restaurant more like a pub or more like a restaurant?" We were told it was more like a restaurant, so we walked several blocks to it, only to discover that, no, it really is more like a BAR. So, we walked back and ate at a sports bar RIGHT NEXT to the convention center. lol

Stayed up late playing games and chatting.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast in the little cafeteria at the convention center and then headed into the vendor hall. The first seminar I attended on Saturday was Raising the Strong-willed Child by Paul Downer, a twentysomething homeschool graduate who admits to his strong-willed disposition. This was an AWESOME talk and again, I highly recommend it. Here are his main points. (He had a LOT of them! lol)

A - Kids take energy!
B - Our Enemy has a very specific plan for each of us.
C - Satan always goes after the next generation of God's warriors.
D - He told his own story.

Strategies for dealing with SW children:
1 - Remember the power of modeling daily dependence on the Lord.
2 - The power of prayer
3 - Say "I was wrong and I'm sorry."

Practical Ways
1 - Celebrate your child without a reason.
2 - Have fun together.
3 - The power of YOUR happiness.
4 - Dates with mom and dad
5 - Draft your strong-willed child onto your team.
6 - High Impact Relational Experiences (Do fun stuff!)
7 - Communicate to your child that you are FOR him, not against him.
8 - Explain the flesh vs. the spirit.
9 - Name their gifts
10 - Draw them to the heart of God. Rom 2:4
11 - Acknowledge the good in their flaws and call them to a higher standard.
12 - Study strong-willed heroes.
13 - Avoid comparison.
14 - Danger of crushing the strong-willed child's spirit.

Discipline:
Explain the offense.
Communicate the standard.
Explain the consequences.
Administer discipline.
Wait for repentance.
Give forgiveness.
Restore the relationship.
Giving grace is beneficial at times.

The other two seminars I attended were given by Danielle Olander from Institute for Excellence in Writing. They were Content Area Writing and Creating, Editing, and Grading Writing Assignments. Both were excellent and neither required that you use IEW materials. (Although I do.)

I spent some time in the vendor hall, as you saw if you read my previous post. Lunch was at the restaurant hotel and it was overpriced and the service was very slow. Six of us stopped at Don Pablo's on the way home and that was a great time of fellowship and the food was excellent!

All in all, a wonderful convention experience. Well worth the time and money.

INCH Purchases

Thought I'd post some photos of my convention acquisitions.

OK, this first pic is all the free catalogs, brochures and fliers that I was given at the conference. Have to spend some time perusing it!

These are my freebies - a tote bag, umbrella, and lanyard from ASVAB (military aptitude test), baggie of coffee beans, 2 pencils, 1 pen, a bracelet, a pin. Also had some candy, but that's long gone. lol

I bought the book Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends 2 years ago and read it aloud to my kids. (They need to hear it again! lol). The authors - the Mally siblings - were at the conference this weekend and I sat in on their seminar of the same title. I decided getting the DVD of the seminar was a good idea. And, lo and behold, now there are activity books to go along with the book! Way cool!

My necessary Math-U-See items for the upcoming year. Actually James is ready for Gamma right now. I already bought Alpha used for Suzy (thanks Sarah!) and she has already started it.

That Algebra book is the Honors supplement. I already have the Algebra I program for David.

The big box is a board game based on Pilgrim's Progress. Looked very cool in the display. Hope the kids find it enjoyable. We watched the movie, if you'll recall and Emily recently read the book.

Also in the pic, a board book of the hand signs to remember the 10 commandments. Even though none of my kids is a toddler anymore, I thought this book was great! The game and book are from Kregel.

Also a couple stocking stuffers for the boys. (not from Kregel - can't remember where.)


Some stuff I bought at Miller Pads and Paper - one of my favorite vendors. We needed new dry erase markers and they also had dry erase CRAYONS!

The colored pencils are also for Christmas stockings and the Mosaic book is for Suzy at some point. On the right are some tortillions for blending and some drawing pencils.

I've been considering the purchase of Edu-Track software for quite some time. Since David is approaching high school at a rapid rate, I thought it would be good to get it now and get familiar with how it works. It does lesson plans, report cards, transcripts, and more.

This stuff was FREE for signing up for a mailing list. It is a very cool family journal for helping a family be accountable for family and personal devotions and Bible study. I hope it will help us! The planner is a personal prayer journal. The book is entitled The Spontaneous Spread of Home-Discipleship Christianity and I've read the beginning. Looks intriguing! This stuff is from a church in the Grand Rapids MI area called Family of Faith Church.

I also bought the kids some Smencils which were a big hit and some little notebooks. I gave those items to them already as a "mom's home!" gift.

More about the convention itself in another post.

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!