My First Homeschool Convention

It ended up being an absolutely gorgeous day today. Mostly sunny, in the 70's with a cool breeze. A perfect day to spend outside. And spend it outside, I did, after attending my first and Cincinnati's first Homeschool Convention.

While, I didn't go to any of the lectures, I did manage to meander my way through the 2 exhibit halls of vendors. I had already received in the mail, the new Sonlight and Alpha Omega catalogs, and I had already gone through the Rainbow Resource catalog, so it was great to see all the products and page through them. Plus they had a lot of discounted items, and some other curriculum providers that I hadn't heard of before, that I found had some neat stuff. I did lots of browsing, and very minimal buying. I came with list in hand, and pen for writing, and I highly recommend both. I knew what I wanted to look at primarily, and then made notes of other items that I liked, but knew I could get for cheaper prices at Rainbow Resources online.

I ended up getting 2 books for Katie that were deeply discounted. Germs Make Me Sick, which is a Let's Read and Find Out Science Book, and The Big Balloon Race, which is just an easy reader that I thought she would enjoy.

I also got this very cute book called, God and Me 2 Devotional Series for Girls 2 - 5. It has a short story a day that teaches a simple social skills lesson essentially, and then a couple questions, plus a second page that gives some kind of activity to go with it. They also had a book for girls 6 to 9, and one for 10 to 13 or something like that. I thought the 2 to 5 year old one really fit better for an older 3 year old to even a 6 year old. The 6 to 9 year old version was more bible oriented. I think Katie will really enjoy it.

I looked at the various math programs and have decided that we will most likely use Horizons 1. I also liked the A Beka Math surprisingly, since most of A Beka's curriculum is very workbooky (is that a word), and trendy in my opinion. All the other math programs were very number fact oriented, and boring, including the highly acclaimed Saxon and MCP.

I also liked the Alpha Omega Horizons Phonics Readers. I don't know that I will buy them, since I already have some others, but for those of you who may consider them, I highly recommend taking a peek to see where your child may be at. I thought that the Kindergarten readers were more appropriate to 1st grade, at least early 1st grade. So even though our curriculum will be mostly 1st grade, it just goes to show you need to look carefully when combining different publishers.

Evan-Moor makes a series of Science teachers books that I like. Each one is a thematic series on things like weather, the human body, animals, etc.

I also liked Usborne's First Encyclopedia of the Human Body.

There were several other things that I put on my list of items to consider, but I think these were the main points. It was definately an interesting experience, and a crowded one at that. It was also fairly interesting to see so many Amish people mainly working as vendors, but also doing some shopping. I forget that we are so close to a large settlement of Amish people, we so rarely see them.

Hope this gives all you homeschoolers some ideas and information, and that you in turn will pass on your "finds".