Midwest Homeschool Convention

Heading to the Midwest Homeschool Convention this weekend! I've been homeschooling for approximately six years now and I think this is my fourth year attending the convention - my husband's second. I never had a desire in the past to attend the convention until a friend of mine decided to pull her kids from public school and was interested in attending - so I followed. I have to say, I enjoy it quite a bit and look forward to it every year! Luckily, the first year I attended I had already been homeschooling and was pretty settled on my curriculum choices and therefore, wasn't freaked out in the Exhibit Hall with all the curriculum vendors. I think that first year I was only considering what history curriculum to use: Mystery of History, Story of the World, or Veritas Press. I ended up coming home with a set of Veritas Press cards and Enhanced Homeschool CD. I chose it because of it's format and the song. Apart from all that, the workshops are so helpful! I remember the first one I attended. The speaker got up there with a color-coded chart on the overhead and she spoke about how she's working on this or that with a specific child while another child was doing this or that... I about FREAKED OUT! I thought "if this is how I'm suppose to be homeschooling, I'm never gonna make it!" THEN, up came the next speaker and she giggled and spoke about how she was nowhere near that organized with her homeschooling. WOW, I was so relieved! The thing is, we are all different and we're just trying to figure out what works for our individual children AND ourselves. Trying to figure out everyone's different learning styles and NOT squashing their love of learning is an everyday journey. Anyway, this last school year we ventured down the homeschooling road with Classical Conversations. I have been exceedingly impressed! I had been highly interested in the Classical model and just couldn't get it together on my own. Classical Conversations put it all in motion for me. I even stepped up and have been tutoring the Essentials class! It's been trying on me but well worth the effort. We're about to finish up our last few weeks and I'm for sure we'll be purchasing our Cycle 3 supplies at the convention. Maybe on my next post I will list all the items I have on my "NEED To Buy" and "WANT To Buy" list. :-) So long for now!