Homeschool Encouragement

I just spend the past 2 1/2 days at the Greater St. Louis Area Home Educators Expo! This was my third year going on Thursday night and checking out the vendors but my first year to actually attend the conference. I am so glad that I went!

The highlight of the conference was without a doubt Sonya Shafer of SimplyCharlotteMason.com. She is a wonderful speaker and was such an encouragement. I went to all four of her workshops;

• Laying Down the Rails- The Power of Good Habits in Your Homeschool
• Charlotte Mason and Her Methods
• Why More is Less- A Call to Simplicity in Your Schedule
• Looking Past the Fear

Now is the place where I tell you which session was my favorite, but I just can't choose. They were all so good. Mrs. Shafer has such a heart for home educating and it is hard to not get excited listening to her share.

I also attended a session on nature studies which was a huge blessing to me. I have always loved the concept of nature studies but for some reason I just still couldn't get a grasp on how to do it. Sue Pruett did an excellent job explaining how to implement nature studies into a home school setting and I am so excited to give it a try.

I loved getting to check out all of the different vendors. I bought some things that I am very excited to use next year. There were also several things I saw that I couldn't buy this weekend but would love to get my hands on in the future (Lamplighter books, anyone?)

The downer of the weekend was that I have a really nasty cold and have been coughing my head off. I am hoping I can actually get a little sleep tonight. I am thinking after I sign off here I will get some tea with honey going and see if I can convince the hubs to watch an episode or two of Downton Abbey with me (we watched the first season when it was on and then got way behind, so a sweet friend just lent me season 2 and 3 on DVD so there is much catching up to do!).