Conference-goers say:
- I expected a lot, but the workshops surpassed my greatest hopes.
- I have never been in a workshop that hasn't helped me in some way. I've attended for 11 years.
- I always get reassurance and support along with information.
Workshops:
Curriculum
Denotes a Connections workshop.
F-1 Better Than Money Can Buy: Creating Your Own Curriculum
Rethinking curriculum choices to make a curriculum that fits your child rather than making your child fit a curriculum. Ways to create a curriculum that's better than a prepackaged, one-size-fits-all version. Including topics important for your child-either now or later in adult life that are not usually covered in conventional schools. Studying subjects at different depths, in non-traditional order with non-traditional resources and spending more time on some than others.
F-4 Helping Your Child Learn to Read and Write Without a Purchased Curriculum
Helping kids become lifelong readers by encouraging them to learn to read in their own way and time. Creating an environment that encourages reading and writing. Discovering the connection between letters and sounds. Working with late readers and reluctant writers.
F-5 High Quality, Low Cost Science Equipment
What do we need to set up a basic science lab? Where can we find, scrounge, beg, borrow, or build the tools needed to get started in biology, chemistry, earth science, physics, and astronomy?
F-6 How Homeschooling Prepared Me for Adult Life
How homeschooling prepared the speaker for and got him through both planned events (such as starting a career and becoming a parent) and unexpected (a 3-year recovery from automobile accident). How he thinks his experiences validate the sacrifices his parents made to homeschool him.
F-7 How to Begin Homeschooling
Choosing an approach and planning your homeschool. Complying with the law, including filling out the required form PI-1206 to send to the DPI.
A-1 Science is a Verb: Hands On Activities
Interested in making science fun and engaging? Come and see how to experience science as a verb and learn how to build models that move, inspiring the natural creativity and curiosity inside everyone. Part presentation, part activity, so bring the kids and have fun designing, building, testing and innovating together.
A-2 Understanding Geometry
Take a fresh look at geometry. Get a basic review of the fundamentals of geometry, including the properties of points, lines, planes, angles, and solids. Learn about activities which relate geometry to everyday life. A written bibliography of resources such as textbooks, workbooks and manipulatives will be provided. Bring a pencil, paper and a calculator.
A-3 Learning a Foreign Language
Ways of learning a foreign language, including independent study, taking college classes, attending an immersion language camp in the US, and living with a family and taking classes in another country. Speaker is a grown homeschooler with experience using these approaches.
A-4 Balancing Structure and Flexibility
Looking for ways to have a more relaxed homeschool? Or thinking you need more structure but feeling reluctant to give up the flexibility you have now? Finding a balance and then adjusting it when necessary. Practical ideas that can be used in any homeschool and that offer both structure and flexibility, including designing your own unit studies, planning your curriculum in reverse, and pursuing special interests.
A-5 Brain Wizardry: Presentation followed by discussion
Synapses, axons, and neurons, oh my! What is that gray matter behind the curtain? Learn basics of the brain in simple, lay terms: how it works and what, according to recent scientific research, it needs to function well. Hear fascinating results of research by neuroscientists on how we learn, then translate it into strategies for maximizing your child's learning.
A-6 Choosing and Using Purchased Curriculum
Overwhelmed by all the homeschool curriculums available? Brief descriptions of basic facts and special features of at least 12 well-known, mostly Christian, textbook-based (not Internet-based) curriculums, including A Beka, Alpha Omega, Bob Jones, School of Tomorrow, and KONOS, to help you decide which might work well for your family, whether you purchase one complete curriculum or parts from different companies.
A-7 Exploring the Basic Ideas of Unschooling
An overview of the concepts of unschooling and the reasons it works. Examples of how unschooling works. Ways parents provide support while allowing children time and space to explore their interests. Why unschooling does not mean unparenting. This workshop is primarily for people new to unschooling.
A-8 Fun and Easy Book Discussions Based on the Socratic Method
Help kids (including pre-readers) develop critical thinking skills using the Socratic method to approach literature. Learn easy, enjoyable, tried-and-true methods to discuss books and short stories, including Great Books, Newbery Award winners, and your own selections. Use simple conversations to sharpen your kids' minds and develop their ability to defend their thoughts and opinions. A sample discussion included.
A-14 Joys and Challenges of Homeschooling for High School
Discover many of the options offered by homeschooling for high school. Dealing with academics, anxiety, action and aspirations. How to help our teens deepen their roots while spreading their wings.
B-1 Comparing Math Curriculums
Hear about the pros and cons of math curriculums from A Beka, Singapore Math, Saxon Math, Math-U-See, and teaching textbooks. Supplemental math tools will also be discussed. Come ready to share your ideas and learn from the experiences of others.
B-2 Effective Ways to Learn Language Arts
Want to cover the topics included in each grade in a typical conventional school without having to spend the money to buy a curriculum? A list of topics covered in each grade. How to find free and inexpensive resources in public libraries or on the Internet for each topic. A demonstration of how to cover one specific topic will be included.
B-3 At Home With 3, 4, and 5 Year Olds
Why and how children learn best in their homes. Helping children learn from daily life and carefully selected learning resources and activities. The importance of play. Meeting kids' (and parents') social needs. Disadvantages to formal preschool.
B-5 Foundations of Unschooling: A Discussion of John Holt's Ideas
Hear an introductory presentation about the life and ideas of Holt, a school reformer who turned to homeschooling in the late 70s and strongly influenced modern homeschooling. Then read quotes from his writing and share your response. What did Holt mean? How do these ideas influence our homeschooling?
B-12 Exciting Learning Opportunities Outside of Conventional High School and College
Spend your high school and college years exploring interests and developing skills and contacts you need through internships, apprenticeships, work experience, volunteer service, travel, and time off. Finding friends and developing a support system. Minimizing or eliminating debt. Preparing for the future by taking responsibility for your life now. Deciding what to do if you don't know what you want to do next.
B-13 Homeschooling for High School: One Family's Experience-A Presentation Followed by a Discussion
Hear how one family began homeschooling during high school, developed a curriculum that worked for their teen who loves learning but strongly disliked conventional school, and are homeschooling while both parents work full-time. Ben is earning an Associate in Science degree online, primarily through CLEP tests and has taken university courses as a special student-while his former classmates are still in high school. Then share your experiences homeschooling for high school.
C-1 History Travelers
How two homeschooling moms learn history with their children (ages 4-15) the fun way! Hear how they bring history to life by spending a day with friends "visiting" famous people and places from the past. Ways they develop a sense of chronology, sample new foods and have fun with games, storyboards, maps, timelines, travel notebooks, crafts, and more.
C-2 Math Without Tears
Secrets to helping kids of any age learn math calmly, with a minimum of frustration. Understanding general principles of how numbers work. Avoiding or overcoming fear or strong dislike of math. Choosing resources that work for each child. Using games and math manipulatives.
C-3 Music for Homeschoolers
Listening to, singing, playing, and creating different kinds of music. Advantages to different ways of learning, including Suzuki and improvisation. Ways parents can learn to sing and play. Finding time for practice and practicing so it is worth the time. Making music as a family and finding or creating larger groups.
C-4 A Homeschooler's Best Resource: The Local Public Library
Books, films, music, magazines, references-in addition to providing materials to check out, your library offers at no charge other valuable resources, including real live librarians, special collections, access to books in other libraries through interlibrary loans, and more. Learn to communicate and work effectively with the staff and use services you never knew existed.
C-5 Deciding How to Homeschool
Understanding the variety of approaches to homeschooling (purchased curriculum, classical homeschooling, unschooling, and others). Strengths and drawbacks of each. Kinds of families that might choose each approach. How to know what's right for your family. How to change when kids grow or needs change. For beginning homeschoolers and anyone who is considering changing their approach.
C-6 How Parents Learn to Unschool
Ways parents can overcome their own conventional education and the pressures of mainstream culture so they can trust their children and provide the encouragement and environment that allows children to pursue their interests and strengths. How parents deal with their own doubts and criticisms from others.
C-8 Record Keeping Made Manageable and Meaningful
An overview of the purpose and benefits of documenting your homeschooling experiences and activities. Finding a method that suits you and meets your needs. Ideas for simple records that save time yet are meaningful and retrievable for portfolios, credentials, college applications, etc.
C-10 Learning to Relax and Trust Our Children: A Discussion About Unschooling and Relaxed Homeschooling
What do you especially like about unschooling or relaxed homeschooling? What problems haven't you solved yet? Can parents really trust that their children will learn to read, do long division, etc. and stop worrying about courses of study, grade levels, etc.?
C-13 Earn College Credit (and a Degree) Your Way and Inexpensively
During high school and after, learn on your own and earn college credit (and a degree) for what you know by taking CLEP and other exams and completing distance learning courses. Resources to prepare for tests. Test taking strategies. Speaker earned 140 credits and a degree this way.
D-1 Become a Part of History: A Workshop on Family Legacies
Make history come alive. Collect diaries, written records, photos, etc. from ancestors. (Speaker is assembling a book of family history from her grandparents' diaries.) Gather stories, photos, videos, etc. from relatives still living. Work with your children on the legacy you and they will leave for future generations through diaries, photos, and other artifacts that you create now as you are homeschooling.
D-2 Encouraging Reluctant Writers to Write
Encourage reluctant writers (yourself and/or your children) by realizing that "writing isn't grammar," that it works better to write first and worry about spelling and punctuation later, and that people who enjoy writing are much more likely to do it. Suggestions for stimulating writing by doing family writing activities, recording family history, writing fiction or poetry, and more. All ages welcome.
D-3 Continuing as an Unschooling Family
For established unschooling families with at least one year's experience. (For an introduction to unschooling, see B-4.) How do parental guidance and direction continue to show themselves and allow for a peaceful coexistence with our kids? How might we as parents react when our children pursue topics we feel negatively about or did not expect? What can parents do to maintain a balance between the fear of external academic goals and the internal joy of unschooling? What about all that time the kids spend doing "nothing?"
D-4 Homeschooling Children of Different Ages
How to keep your sanity while keeping up with curriculums, lesson plans, and records for several children of different ages. Why multiple ages should be an asset to teaching and learning in a family. Discuss the many benefits of children helping younger siblings and participating in family chores. Time for questions and discussion. Speaker is an experienced mother of 6.
D-6 How Teens View Their Homeschooling Experience: A Panel Discussion
Teens share their homeschooling experiences, some of what they've studied and done, and how they feel about it.
D-7 The World is Our Classroom, Literally
Join us for a whirlwind trip and see how one family used the world as their classroom. For four months we lived on a floating university, visited 11 countries, 14 different ports, and circumnavigated the globe. See photos, hear stories, enjoy a virtual adventure, and learn about the Semester at Sea experience.
D-12 Diplomas and Other Credentials That Will Get You a Job or Into College
How you can develop credentials that will get you where you want to go. Understanding that the most important credentials you have are yourself, your experience, your ability to learn, and your confidence. Ways to demonstrate your strengths and abilities.
More Workshops by Time Slot
Friday, 7:15-8:30 PM: F Workshops
Saturday, 8:30-9:30 AM: A Workshops
Saturday, 9:50-10:50 AM: B Workshops
Saturday, 1:30-2:30 PM: C Workshops
Saturday, 2:50-3:50 PM: D Workshops
More Workshops by Category
- Save $300 to $2,000 per child per year by not purchasing a curriculum
- Save $10,000 to $150,000 on college
- Save $100 to $3,000 a year on food
- Save $100 to $5,000 a year by using the public library
- Save $100 to $5,000 a year on entertainment
- Curriculum
- Basic Subjects
- May Be of Particular Interest to Mothers
- Workshops Fathers May Want to Attend
- Beginning Homeschoolers May Find These Workshops Particularly Helpful
- Workshops for Parents and Teens About High School and the Teen Years
- Workshops Especially for Teens
- People Interested in Unschooling Often Choose Workshops Like These
- Connections Workshops
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