Just Taking Notes

Apr. 27, 2007 - Conferencing and boys

Last weekend my husband and I attended the local Homeschool conference here in the big city where we were encouraged and refreshed.   I have never seen so many mini vans and passenger vans in one place, not even at a dealership   LOL.  As a matter of fact I have never seen that particular lot so full for any event; gun shows, gem and mineral shows or RV shows.  I think that says something great for homeschooling. The boys all attended the kids conference while DH and I attended the adult conference and curriculum expo.  We heard some great speakers, learned a few things, bought some books, got sick, recovered but the highlight was meeting Steve Demme, creator and writer of Math-U-See.  (Yes, I would love to buy his house.) We attended 3 of his 4 workshops which were very encouraging to us.  It is nice to hear from families that are similar to ours (he has 4 sons) and how they do things.  It made me feel more on target than when attended the "How to schedule your life minute by minute" workshop (or something like that. KWIM? Not that scheduling is a bad thing, it isn't.  I just prefer a general flow for the day rather than the 15-30 min increments for everyone.  Because, let's face it, it is the boys who just wanna have fun.  Getting them to be still, be quiet or focus on anything for more than 30 seconds is nearly impossible.  Often, I will throw out the assignments, present a challenge of some sort, such as "Whoever gets his work done in the next 30 min gets an extra cookie for dessert.", then go on attending to the babies.  I find that SO much more will get done in that 30 min than I could have imagined.  They may be sword fighting listening to their mp3 players but somehow they will get the work done.   I am learning that boys can be really easy.  I just have to start thinking more like one which exhausts me.  Competition, challenges, rewards, consequence (whoever does not get his work done gets to scrub the toilet this week).    Ah, boys- Gotta love 'em.

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