I am an avid listener of Sarah Mackenzie’s Read Aloud Revival podcast. She has inspired my homeschooling journey, and so when she mentioned that she would be a speaker at all 5 of the Great Homeschool Conventions this year, I immediately looked up locations. Thankfully, a conference was being held in southern California, very close to where I lived briefly in my 20s, so I reached out to a couple of my girlfriends who live in California and suggested we go together. My best friend immediately agreed to meet me there, and plans and preparation began.
Thursday
I had an early flight on Thursday morning, and after the kids dropped me off, I quickly got through security and to my gate. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly I get things done alone. Traveling with kids is mentally exhausting for me. I constantly try to keep the kids calm, close by, entertained, and relatively happy and quiet. It's so stressful. Only being responsible for my things and quietly sitting while I waited for my group to be called onto the plane made for a very calm travel day. I arrived mid-morning and waited for my best friend to arrive at the airport. Once she arrived, we rode with her friend to our hotel and hung out until the conference began.
I had never attended a homeschool conference, so I was unsure what to expect. I was most excited to hear Sarah speak, but also excited about the prospect of being inspired, learning new things, and being encouraged by other homeschooling families. Any family that homeschools knows that it can be lonely. This is not necessarily true for our kids; they make friends everywhere, but as the parent in this situation, it often feels like I am the only one choosing this path. Finding other local parents experiencing the same challenges as me can be difficult. So imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw families of EVERY size and demographic at the conference. Some parents were brave and brought all of their children. Many couples were there, and I noticed most of them went to different talks every session to get double the amount of information.
There were speakers in abundance! Speakers who focused on math and its challenges. Others talked about how to avoid burnout, cultivate adventure, tackle reading issues, and how to add more art to your curriculum. They spoke about the power of good books, how to master a schedule that works for your family, how to outsource, and what to do if your children have any learning disability. Every topic was covered. Some speakers focused on mom, others on the importance of dad, others on teaching girls, and others on the uniqueness of teaching boys.
That first day, I listened to Sarah discuss how to approach our days relaxed, bookish, and ordinary. I love her general approach to homeschooling, which always has relationships at the forefront. She is so positive and exudes kindness and empathy for those of us with little kids who are in the struggle. Every time she spoke, I left feeling uplifted and positive that I could be the mom my kids deserve. Next, I went to a talk by Kiri Jorgenson about how to find gems within literature to teach virtue to our kids. Kiri began a publishing company after years of working in the literary world and seeing the quality of kids' literature suffer each year. When she complained to her husband about it for the 100th time, he said, 'You should do something about it.' So she did. She also had a booth with tons of YA fiction and picture books for her kids.
My 3rd session of the day was by the brilliant Andrew Pudewa from the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). He spoke about the importance of memorization. It was fascinating to hear him passionately make the case that memorization is an essential tool that is all too often dismissed. Besides helping our brain grow, it also helps create connections within the brain that can bring many long-term advantages. He shared a story of how his family, he has four grown children and a gaggle of grandkids, had a poetry recitation competition one Christmas. They loved it so much, as many of the poems were funny, and it kept them laughing most of the night. Guess what we will be doing this Christmas?
By the time the evening session began, I felt like I was drinking from a fire hose. We got some Mexican food takeout, had a couple of margaritas, talked about the seasons we went to, and got a lot of rest.
Friday
I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity to rest, as did my friend, so we didn't go to our first session until 11:30 am. If you attend a conference like this, you may have the same issue as I did, deciding which speaker to choose. For that morning session, I chose Melanie Wilson, MD, who has a podcast called The Homeschool Sanity Show. She spoke about how to use stories to teach any subject. I highly recommend you listen to her podcast. She homeschooled her six children and created great resources for families to help keep them organized. She also made an excellent math curriculum using stories to teach the concepts.
My next session was one of my favorites, and it was called 'Ten MORE books for boys (and a few movies) the experts don't want your son to read.' Martin Cothran from Memorial Press spoke about why stories of mischief, adventure, heroism, and courage are vital for boys. His list was comprehensive, included many great books, and encouraged me to try new story genres for my boys as they age. He talked about how the Spaghetti Western helped America shape its national myth and why it's still worthwhile to show old John Wayne movies.
The last session I attended that day was again by my favorite, Sarah Mackenzie. This time, her focus was '5 Habits of Happy Homeschoolers', and I left with a pep in my step. Sarah has a massive following for her podcast Read Aloud Revival, and she polled over 700 women who had their homeschool days behind them to see what advice they would impart. Her whole talk was based on those findings. Again, it was incredibly encouraging to be reminded that the most critical aspect of homeschooling is cultivating healthy relationships within our family.
I took notes and photos of all the slides. I was the annoying parent that asked questions in every session. I stayed afterward to get more suggestions, ideas, clarity, and insight. Each day offered five sessions, but all my brain could muster was three a day. So, after a full mental day, we got sushi and watched movies—more blessed uninterrupted and deep sleep.
Saturday
After sleeping in and calmly sipping my coffee, we went to our first session at 11:30 am again and went to one of the most informative talks called 'Why teaching boys to read & spell is different than teaching girls' by Aimee Eucee. She was incredibly likable and had so much information. She was diagnosed with dyslexia and had a mother who was determined to teach her to embrace it instead of fight against it. In their homeschool, they used a specific reading curriculum that helped her immensely called Play n' Talk Phonics, Spelling, and Typing. Aimee grew up and had kids of her own. She decided to homeschool them and looked for that same program, only to find that the family who owned it was looking to sell it. Knowing its benefits, Aimee bought the program and spoke about how it can help teach reading to all kids. This topic was significant for me, as our oldest son is a reluctant reader, and I wanted to do all I could to help him. He loves stories and has a magnificent imagination, so anything that could help him better grasp reading concepts is a win in my book.
My next session was with Melanie Wilson, MD, about ways to keep Mom motivated throughout the year. She had great ideas and insight about how to use our natural gifts and talents to serve our children in our homeschooling.
My last session was with Nicholeen Peck about teaching self government. She focused on knowing our own calm tendencies for more self-control. She spoke for a long time, and I had to leave early because we were heading to Mass. However, she did recommend a book called ‘The Four Tendencies’ by Gretchen Rubin, so I promptly put it on hold at my local library, and it is now on my kitchen counter waiting to be read. Her main objective is to help parents know themselves better and have greater self-control so that we can show our children self-regulation and teach from a place of peace.
Truly, by the end of this weekend, my cup was overflowing.
A myriad of vendors also sold curricula, books, extracurricular programs, supplies, and activities. The large hall was packed wall to wall with authors, artists, publishers, curriculum experts, books, books, and more books. My favorite aspect of the vendors is that many were homeschoolers themselves who wanted a specific thing for their homeschool. When they couldn't find it, they created it. Games, art, fun writing books, interactive math programs to help with learning, and online projects were plentiful. It was incredible to connect with so many vendors and find creative and affordable ways to teach our children anything they want or need to learn.
I was thrilled when my plane touched down in Phoenix, and I could snuggle my babies again. While it was an incredibly restful and full weekend, I definitely missed my family. Walther was my champion, holding down the fort. He took the kids everywhere and seemed to have fun doing it. I returned on Father's Day, so after we got home from the airport, I gently pushed him out the door so he could have some much-deserved alone time.
If you have a chance to attend a conference like this I do hope you take advantage of it. It is truly a transformative experience and helps refocus why we made this homeschooling choice to begin with. I know this piece is packed with information, but if you have additional questions or would like me to elaborate on one of the talks I heard, please let me know!
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That you organized this by days like walther’s post makes it feel like two sides of the narrative. Need a combined post with both narratives 😂😂
Sounds so great! No, you’re not an annoying parent to be asking questions -just engaged and modeling a curious lifelong learner!
Love Nicholeen Peck & Pudewa. Sarah Mackenzie’s pretty good too ;)