I am so pleased that I was able to go to the local Christian homeschooling conference. My husband was able to move out of shift-work just in time for me to go. I talked to my neighbor the day before and she decided to go as well.

Both days were just wonderful. I mainly chose the workshops that dealt with homeschooling in junior and high school, but I did attend a workshop put on by IEW on story and book report writing.

The high school workshops were presented by Mary Schofield, the author of The High School Handbook: Junior and Senior High School at Home. I learned so much in these workshops. She made many great points, like the need to plan ahead and write out a plan of action for what you want to accomplish by graduation. She also had a good point about giving our children proper credit for the work they do. She said 1 credit in high school is equal to about 150 hours of work. If you give your child 300 or 400 hours worth of work to do, they should earn more than 1 credit.

I came away with a renewed energy and a renewed vision for what I want to accomplish in training my children. The keynote speaker was Ken Swanson and he was wonderful. He, along with Mary, reminded me that I need to work on character education first and that preparing my children to serve the Lord should be the most important part of our homeschooling journey. It will not matter how high the kid's GPA's are if they do not know Jesus as THEIR savior. Nothing else matters if you won't be spending eternity in heaven with Jesus.

The Bible tells us to do everything as if we were doing it for Jesus. That includes our homeschooling.