Friday morning I got up early and drove with my sister-in-law Lisa and her friend Becky to Puyallup, WA for the Washington Homeschool Organization (W.H.O.) Convention. The set-up for the convention was a lot like Education Week. They had 6 different rooms and each hour of the day their were different speakers in each of the rooms, and you got to pick which ones you wanted to go and listen to. I sat in on some really great ones, and a couple not so great ones.
One of the ones I sat in on was about how to organize your homeschool year...like making goals and how to schedule everything out. I really liked this one, even though I don't think I'll use her methods exactly, but it was really informative to see exactly how someone laid out their year and decided what to focus on and how to make things fit. That was something I've never seen a whole picture view of before, and it was really helpful.
Another one I liked was an intro to homeschooling. The speaker just talked about the different benefits of homeschooling and how to teach to all the different learning styles that kids have. She was really encouraging and positive and one thing I really like that she said was that homeschooling is about focusing on the relationship you have with your child before focusing on the different academics and how if the relationship is there the academics will come, but if it isn't then it will be a battle the whole way.
We also got to listen to a guy named Jim Wiess, who spoke about how to teach your children through story-telling. He is an awesome story teller and really fun to listen to. He talked about how if you can teach a concept in story form, it is more likely to be remembered. That rang really true to me, because as a kid (and still I'll admit) I love listening to stories. And then when I got to thinking about it, it occurred to me how much of the scriptures are given to us in "stories". Pretty cool. I bought a few of his CDs for the boys and I to listen to while we're driving around in the car. I'm really excited.
But I probably learned the very most just by listening to Lisa and Becky (who have both been homeschooling now for a while) talk about their kids and their different strategies and ideas, and the things that they do. I don't know if Lisa knows it, but she is the role model I look up to in the homeschooling world. She just amazes me all the things she does, and the ideas she has, and her list of resources. And of course her kids. They are all doing so well as far as academics goes, but even more than that, I just love looking at the dynamics of their family. The kids love each other and get along and they all seem to have a genuine respect for their parents and the world around them. They are interested in everything and love to learn and try new things. It's what I wish and hope my family will be like 10 years from now. So it was really great to be around Lisa for two days and just soak everything in.
The funnest part about the convention was the vendors. Outside of the classrooms in a big open area, they just had rows and rows of vendors selling every kind of educational anything you could ever possibly imagine, from toys to curriculum, to computer games to books, and on and on. We spent a few good hours walking around and looking at everything. It would be very easy to spend a LOT of money there. Again it as fun to listen to Lisa a Becky discuss the different curricula they have tried and what they thought about it, and to see the things they wanted to get for their upcoming homeschool year. I thought I did pretty well in the spending department, I only bought an Imaginets board set (which is a magnetic board with a bunch of magnetic shapes, and then cards that have pictures on them made from the different shapes and the person playing is supposed to make the shape on the card using the magnetic shapes) for Lincoln for his birthday. And those Jim Wiess CDs I mentioned earlier. But there were tons and tons of things I would have liked to get.
We did the convention all day Friday, spent the night at a hotel and then did the convention again most of the day Saturday and got home around dinner time Saturday night. I left the convention feeling all pumped up to homeschool. It's going to be a lot of work, but so much fun (I hope). And really, when you think about it, is there anything better to invest your time, energy, and money into than the education of your kids?
Aaron, Luke, Sydni, Lincoln, Ivan, and Zac riding the train at the mall
Aaron and the boys stayed home at Aaron's parents house, and did some fun things with Aaron's parents and his younger sister Sydni, her husband Jake and their two boys. They went to the mall and road the train and the carousel, and then played on the playplace.
Zac, Ivan, and Lincoln riding the playplace cars. I guess Ivan wasn't to thrilled about being in the middle.
Aaron said they had fun and didn't miss me too much while I was gone. :)
1 comment:
Krystal,
It was so good to see you guys! Thank you for the very nice compliments. Homeschooling is certainly a major undertaking and there are a lot of days that I feel like I don't have a clue what I'm doing, so it's really nice to hear that we at least look like we're on track!
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