Homeschool Conference Wrap-up

Pin It

I attended a homeschool conference last weekend and it was AMAZING! Not like I thought it would be amazing though, MORE amazing than I thought it would be! I learned so much about my kids and myself and what was available for us to learn together. I am still in awe of everything I learned, saw, witnessed and heard! I bought some CD’s to listen to some of the sessions I attended to again and I picked up some other CD’s to use when I start some new curriculum.

What would I do different when planning for a conference like this?
Ummm… now that I know what the parking garages look like, I will avoid the creepy ones! ACK! No way to enter the garage and we were in the basement with all the pipes and rusted doors leading who knows where. Perfect location for some sort of horror show! “Noooo! Don’t open that door you dumb person!!! The bad guy is right there!” Ergh… (The door to the right lead to another not as well marked door that lead to some stairs. Fortunately I was arriving and did not have a lot of books to haul up the stairs.)

I would plan like I did but I would RELAX too. At the end of my planning at home, in a state of being utterly overwhelmed, I said a simple of prayer of “oh my, Lord help me! I can’t do this alone!” WOW! I needed to start there. Even with all the planning I did, I did NOT stick to it all. I changed my mind on which sessions to attend in the middle of walking to one sometimes.

Oh I would so pack a notebook. What was I thinking?! I did not pack a single piece of blank paper for this conference! I saw that Miller Paper was in the exhibit hall, took notes on a corner of my planning sheets for my first sessions and bought a tiny little notebook as soon as the exhibit hall opened. Duh moment! Take a notebook… and paper clips. They come in handy! OH highlighters and page tabber thingies (technical term) are must-have-on-hand items too.

I want my whole family to go next year!!! Everyone can get a little bit of something out of this event and I want them to all come. I can’t wait!!! I may start planning for that now!

READ THE MAP! I was so crazy to not take a physical map of Cincinnati with me. GPS is great, but what if it’s not. DUH! I should have had a map in the car. Would have been very beneficial to me a few times. And if I had read the exhibit hall/session map I would have not walked in a complete circle to find a room too. That was a huge waste of energy! If I didn’t write this here, no one would have known though. HAHA!
 

What would I keep the same?
Planning which booth I really wanted to find in the 1/2 mile long conference hall was one of the BEST things I had done in my preparing for the conference. I did NOT realize how LARGE the exhibit hall would be so going over the list before I got there was a HUGE time saver. I than took the time to transfer my list to the program guide I was given at registration so all my top exhibit booths to visit were highlighted. PLUS! After getting lost several times I realized that writing in the names of certain booths at the entrances would be very beneficial.

I am so glad that I looked over ALL the books, manipulatives, art supplies, etc that we have in stock right now. (The stack to the right is our NEW stack of fun things!) I also went a step further with it and took pictures of it all and put it into Evernote Notebooks. I was saved from many an impulsive purchase because I could look through the pictures and see that I already had 10 of something. I didn’t need to buy it again. Hehehe…

Also I installed my library’s app on my phone. It is SO AWESOME! I could scan ISBN numbers with it and it would pull up the book if it was in our library. Woowho! Another money saver right there! I didn’t buy (too many) things that I could borrow from the library. (Yes, there were a few things I did purchase just because I knew I would love to just keep them in our house.)

Walking around on my own (even if I had my family in tow) is probably my route to go too. I loved the freedom to go where I wanted and get things done on my time schedule at this event. This will be a bit more challenging with my family there but maybe not. Think about it… do they really want to plod around after me as I cruise through all the booths? Probably not… I mostly want them to get what they can from the sessions! After my first round of the hall having someone to discuss which curriculum might be best would be awesome though.

All in all this was a FANTASTIC convention! I have never attended one before like it and I am not sure why I never did until now. I want more!!! I am more excited about our next year than I ever have been before (I am usually excited… but this is different) and I didn’t have to WAIT until next year to start some things now. I like that this all came together before I wrapped up this school year.

Read more about how this homeschool conference helped

 me Overcome Mommy Madness a bit too.

Find all my April Blogging from A to Z Challenge Posts Here

This post is linked up to the Hip Homeschool Hop, The Homeschool Village and
part of the A to Z Blog Challenge ( #atozchallenge )

Follow @wishfulme