It began as an "Oooohhhh Mom (in that familiar whiny tone), do we have to go????" on the way across town to the Truth Advocates Speech One-day Workshop for 8-11 year olds last Friday. The drive took about 40 minutes and we had to be there by 8:30am. The kids were not very happy. Together they were tag-teaming tired yawns, moans, and forced coughing attacks (from the older one). (He was the least thrilled with the idea....convinced he had a sore throat and that he was losing his voice.) I dared to stand my ground, swear that the money I paid was non-refundable (which it was), and that afterall, they were going to have a great time meeting other homeschoolers.

By the end of the day, they were ready to start their own speech club! lololol I'm not kidding! What a great experience! They were asked to bring a 1 minute speech of anything (Bible passage, chapter book, poem, etc.) and a joke. They really had a lot of fun choosing what to do. Throughout the day, the workshop was actually instructed by high school homeschooler's that had been in their club for 2+ years...most competing at a national level. It was very impressive. The goal for Communicator's for Christ is to be able to confidently communicate your love for Christ and to share your faith and personal testimony. Everything else is secondary. But, along the way, they learn all aspects of speech (impromptu, humor, speech writing, debate, expression, and so much more).

The kids were able to give a 1-3 minute speech in some of these areas seven different times throughout the day. By the end of the day, Briar was even having a good time! Connor, my youngest who was too young to participate, and I spent our day doing schoolwork and playing games in the back row. When the kids went to breakout sessions, we picked one to go watch.

In the "impromptu", after some brief instruction, they were given a subject word, asked to think about what they wanted to say for one minute, and then timed to see how long they could talk about that subject. How fun! I kind of wished they'd let mom's do it too. =] Anyway, it was a small group, and at the end of the first round, they had so much time left over that the instructor asked Connor if he wanted to participate too. I wasn't surprised that he said YES. He had seemed very on-the-edge-of-his-seat to be a part of what was going on. For that round, he was given the direction to "talk about who you would want to be like when you grow up". Then after a minute of thinking, (Briar and I thought for sure he'd say Jeff Gordon), he came up and talked all about being just like his dad and listed off a bunch of reasons. Daddy said later that he earned lots of "cool kid" points that day. =]

All in all, it was a long day, but it was alot of fun. We finished it off with a trip to Sonic for an ice cream treat. (That came with part of the "bargaining package" earlier in the morning.) And got home about 5:00pm.