Thread: Weekly Poll: It's Homeschool Convention Time...Will You Attend?

So spring is often a big time for homeschool conventions. Vendors are excited about introducing their newest products and homeschoolers are already thinking toward the next homeschool year. But secular homeschoolers can often feel left out as they browse table after table of faith-based curricula. OR...maybe you are lucky enough to live in a state that offers a secular or at least inclusive convention!

Will you be attending a homeschool convention this spring? Weigh in on this week's poll.

I wouldn't say that I have NO interest WHATSOEVER but I don't plan on attending. FPEA is the local big state convention and it takes place in Orlando so within 1 hour of my house, but it's pretty religious and last year, no workshops appealed to me. Plus since I'm not a member, the cost is pretty high for what I get out of it. I went 2 years ago on my own, just for 1 day, and I actually had a surprisingly good time and heard Susan Wise Bauer speak (a million miles an hour!) about the writing process for kids, which was very interesting. But it was my first year of using other people's curriculae so I was excited to hear about various approaches. Now I want to read about it online and ponder it and not feel like a sheep being moved from room to room to room to hear people hawk their goods. So I'll look at the schedule once it's published and then decide then.

Terri, who is a member of this group, puts together a secular convention in the St Pete area (LIFEFEST). It's a huge undertaking and I'm grateful that she does it. I haven't made it there yet though.

It's not that I have no interest what so ever. I just haven't looked into any. I've seen a few things posted on a few yahoo groups, but they were out of state. I'm still not sure whether I'd go if I found one close.

I already attended our provincial convention back at the end of Feb. It was great! We got to hear Andrew Pudewa speak this year. Our convention is decently inclusive and the schedule of events is marked as to what is Christian or General. Although some workshops are by exhibitors we spent the whole weekend going to non-exhibitor talks. We got some great books at the used-book sale and some new stuff, too.

I've only been to two conferences since we've just started but they've been invaluable to us. Last year convinced us we could homeschool our children and this year we learned some important things on how to deal with some of the issues we face in our homeschool now that we're doing it.

i attended my state inclusive convention last week. So you missed me! I still havent blogged about it . . . i've been pretty out of it. Honestly, i seem to find the full conventions overwhelming. I was exhausted for a full week after the one last year, too. But they did a smaller convention, home schooling high school and college applications, and that one was great. I'm not sure what the difference was.

I'm actually hoping to go to the one in Ohio early April. My mom has thus far said she can "probably" take my kids (so my husband can come with me) so I'm still waiting on a definite answer. There's another one about 2 1/2 hours away, but I'm not sure if I'll go or not. I'm not too interested in the speakers, so I would be going just to look at people's used stuff.

I've considered going to the Inhome conference held just outside Chicago, but initially there were scheduling conflicts with other things we were doing. Now as we've been homeschooling longer, I've found the desire to go diminish. I think we just find what works for us. I'm afraid that if I go, I'd see other ideas that I think would work only to find that what we were already doing is our best fit.

I am hoping to go to one, just to get "charged" and all that, but the closest ones to me are very religious with mostly religious-based education vendors and speakers... I'm still holding out hope that I'll find one, but I'm doubtful.

I want to try to go to this one

http://www.hscconference.com/

by myself, no kids or husband. I think for a first time, it would be to overwhelming to try to juggle the whole family. It's not too terribly far, but far enough I'd have to stay in a hotel over night.

Anyways, it's on my to do list for this year

Originally Posted by Spookygirl

I want to try to go to this one

http://www.hscconference.com/

by myself, no kids or husband. I think for a first time, it would be to overwhelming to try to juggle the whole family. It's not too terribly far, but far enough I'd have to stay in a hotel over night.

Anyways, it's on my to do list for this year

Ooh! Oak Meadow will be there? I'm so jealous! I wish they would bring their curriculum to the Midwest Convention!