Photographing children with a digital camera. Finding promising places both near and far to photograph nature. Creating a photograph by noticing, framing, simplifying, and then taking the picture. Choosing cameras and lenses. Trade offs between digital and film. Enjoying your photographs: getting prints and enlargements and framing them. Web sites, blogs, suppliers, and other resources.

Why challenge the Baraboo ordinance outlawing raising chickens in the city, especially when others had failed? Researching the issue and finding out what to do. Networking and developing grassroots support. Enlisting others to help make the case before a public hearing. Using the media to gain support. Effective ways of interacting with both supporters and opponents in person and in writing.

Explore ways to connect with people in the context of food preparation, for example by cooking large batches of food with a group of friends, swapping meals, sharing a cookbook, having potlucks, participating in a community garden, etc. Along the way, learn more about food and cooking and make feeding your family easier and more enjoyable while expanding your social life.

Come join a group of like-minded souls with an abiding interest in the stars. Hear how Dad’s lifelong passion, fueled by a child’s imagination, gave everyone in the family rocket fever. How they “built” the International Space Station, named the astronauts’ living quarters, and had close encounters with real space travelers and engineers. Resources for further exploration included.

Share your talents with an appreciative audience of homeschoolers. Spend 3-5 minutes talking about a special interest, singing, reciting poetry, playing a musical instrument, etc. Participants must contact Anna Syvertsen at and indicate what they will do. Non-performing audience members also welcome.

Did you know speed skating has earned 75 Olympic medals for the US, the most of any winter sport? Join a Category 1 speed skater who’s also a homeschooling teen while he explains the nuances of the sport, shows photographs, demonstrates the skate sharpening process, exhibits a skater’s tools of the trade, looks into the social aspects of the sport, describes how homeschooling has enabled his speed skating career, and answers your questions.

Hear about the month-long road trip a homeschooling mother and daughter took in a tiny camper. Suggestions for planning a route, choosing places to visit, packing essentials, keeping the trip affordable, finding good food, keeping a record of a trip, and other topics.