In a world that is moving at warp speed, it’s easy to forget that kids are still kids. Their needs haven’t changed: they need time to explore and experiment with the real world around them, to absorb life through all their senses, to process their thoughts at their own pace. All of these are crucial in laying a firm foundation for higher learning, but this TAKES TIME. Learn why this is so important and how to protect and defend your kids’ childhood.

Can you recall those early days when your children were very little? What do you remember most? The happy times? The fun adventures? Or do you remember the mistakes you made and the ways you failed? Science and research have shown that our brain is hardwired to recall negative memories over positive ones. It’s vital that you take steps now to ensure your memories are not distorted with this natural tendency to focus on the negative. In this session Jeannie will share what you can do now to preserve joys of your homeschool journey and how this will increase the joys your family experiences in your daily life.

Join Erin Port from -Simple Purposeful Living- as she helps you meal plan simply, on purpose, for your busy family. Together, you will debunk popular myths about meal planning and walk through the meal planning process step by step. You will walk away encouraged with tangible tips and tools to be successful and take the stress out of “what’s for dinner” so you can gather around the table for a delicious meal and meaningful conversation. Get ready to see meal planning in a whole new light; we will laugh and have fun along the way.

“The parent who would educate his children, in any large sense of the word must lay himself out for high thinking and lowly living; the highest thinking indeed possible to the human mind and the simplest, directest living.” – Charlotte Mason Simplicity is a topic near and dear to Charlotte Mason’s heart and completely relevant in today’s complicated and consumeristic culture. She said that the quality of simplicity is “the first condition of all successful work with children.” What did she mean by that? Through Scripture, poetry, art, and lanterns, we will examine the nature of simplicity and uncover what hinders us from living simple lives and doing the deep work required of us as parents.

Mathematicians and scientists have been closely tied to many famous disasters. The Challenger explosion, the failure of the Mars Explorer, and the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse all involved thinking errors. Our future mathematicians and scientists must know how to prevent tragedies such as these from occurring. Because science and mathematics instruction is often dominated by facts and calculation, children are rarely exposed to these important concepts. You will leave this session with many high interest stories and activities that will fascinate your children and show them the strong connections between math and science and the world we live in.

Does your child have a learning disability or severe special needs? Have you pulled your child out of public school where he used to have an IEP (individual education plan)? Participants of this workshop learn the purposes and benefits of an SEP (student education plan), the homeschool version of an IEP. This workshop also provides guidance on drafting an SEP. Participants look at sample student education plans and receive a template of a Student Education Plan as well as a resource list of books that will assist them in drafting their own homeschool student education plan.

Come and explore nature journaling as a formational practice. Responding to the natural world around us is not only a skill which can be learned, but, more than that, it is a practice which we form to, in turn, form us. It is a practice which trains our attention, our affections, and our devotion to the first Maker of good and beautiful things.