Date/Time

Thursday, July 29, 2010 – 10 AM to 4:30 PM at the Cobb Galleria Centre Atlanta

Cost

• Individual registration – $60 early online registration ($75 at the door)
• Husband/wife registration – $75 early online registration ($90 at the door)

Many parents considering or just beginning to homeschool would like to have personalized help. Homeschooling for Excellence 101 is a one-day conference where homeschool parents can get individualized answers for their own personal situations from other seasoned homeschooling parents. Children ages four and up can attend the Homeschool Kids Zone while parents attend the Homeschooling For Excellence 101 Conference.

• Where do I begin?
• What materials should I choose? There are so many!
• How can I encourage my child to learn?
• How will I fill my child’s time – will he be lonely?

The homeschool lifestyle is so much more than just ABC’s and 123’s. It includes a lifestyle that encourages learning all the time and learning together. Bringing frantic, fragmented family lives back together can seem inviting and at the same time mystifying. Not knowing what to do throws parents into a whirl of confusion and concern. Each parent is uniquely qualified to educate their own child.

The Homeschooling for Excellence Workshops are designed with extra time and personalized attention for your unique situation. In a friendly and encouraging small group environment, top notch, enthusiastic homeschool parents will share their wisdom and pass along lots of information on how you can make the best decisions for educating your own child.

Homeschooling for Excellence 101 registration automatically includes registration for the Southeast Homeschool Expo. Return Friday and Saturday for the Southeast Homeschool Expo and additional workshops.

Conference Schedule

10:00 AM, Choose One

• Beginning Homeschooling: Most Asked Questions - Randi S. Denis; Randi enthusiastically helps parents learn how to get started, where to find educational materials, other activities including sports leagues for homeschool children, how to occasionally locate someone else to teach subjects such as chemistry and the value of homeschool support groups. Get answers to your questions, including explanations of the law in Georgia and other Southern states. (Room 105)

• DeCompartmentalizing and Destressing for Your First Year of Homeschooling – Lisa Brown;  Lisa relates her own personal journey as she helps parents bring their children home from other educational settings. She encourages parents that homeschooling is not ringing a schoolbell, it is so much more relaxing and so much more rewarding.  We live such fast, fragmented lives, often having one personality for home, one for work, one for church, and one for our friends. Sometimes we feel like we actually have multiple personalities, and too many lives pulled in too many directions! Compartmentalizing our lives make them so much harder to live. There is an easier way! Lisa shares how homeschool families can begin to think in a new way, bringing all their individual parts into one comprehensive whole, allowing more efficiency, integration and relaxation. When we quit compartmentalizing, we get rid of the “I’m overscheduled” syndrome and the “fake” lives. Our lives start anew in a whole different and better direction. (Room 103)

11:45 AM – Lunch. Enjoy lunch on your own in the Galleria Food Court or at Ruby Tuesdays.

1:00 PM, Choose One

• Beginning Right: Developing a lifestyle that promotes homeschooling togetherness and a family team for success and load sharing - Randi St. Denis; Homeschooling is so much more than academic subjects like Math and Science. It’s also about raising children to be responsible, honest, hardworking and helpful people. While it’s a lovely thought – having children who happily help out at home, it actually takes some effort on the parent’s part to get this to happen. Learn how to go from chaos to a family team that shares the work. (Room 105)

• Relationships, Relationships, Relationships: They Are Forever - Lisa Brown; It is right and prudent to set academic, work skills, character and spiritual goals for our children when we begin homeschooling. It is right that parents should follow schedules and maintain standards and exercise consistent discipline to mold their children. But sometimes relationships with our children, spouses, and friends, those precious jewels of eternity, get scheduled right into oblivion when we homeschool. Learn how to establish and maintain those most important items – relationships. (Room 103)

2:45 PM, Choose One

• Choosing Curriculum Like a Pro - Randi St.Denis; Entering a curriculum hall can be like being run over by a steamroller. Confusion, frustration, and a feeling of being overwhelmed by a myriad of choices sets in. Randi St.Denis, an educational consultant and tutor, homeschooled her seven children from birth to college, shares her ideas that allow parents to take the guesswork out of choosing curriculum by assessing each curriculum and determining whether that particular curriculum meets the specific needs of their child and their family. (Room 105)

• Lisa’s Gems for Beginners - Lisa Brown; What inside tips would a home schooling mom/teacher of 19 years share with moms who are on the journey to home school? Come hear Lisa Brown share her wealth of practical advice and information in her hilarious style on what she personally recommends what  moms and dads do and not do when they begin homeschooling. Be enlightened and encouraged and entertained… all at the same time. (Room 103)

4:30 PM – Homeschooling for Excellence 101 Conference adjourns

Randi St. Denis, Director of Home Educators Encouragement Alliance (HEEA), shares personal insights and will offer valuable tools for training and teaching homeschool children. She specializes in counseling parents with difficult to teach children including special needs and gifted children. She also works with parents on preparing their children for college. Together with her husband, Hank, she homeschooled all of their seven children from birth. Five are now in college.

Conference Speakers Lisa Brown, homeschool mother of four children, three boys and a girl uses a touch of humor and many personal stories to help all kinds of parents learn basic truths about family life.  She says that trying to avoid the hard work is really only temporarily avoiding it.  Surely the hard work eventually comes when the repercussions begin to be felt.  She and her husband Tony originally had their children in public schools – the best around!  It didn’t take long for them to realize that they needed to make educational changes; but, pulling their children out was a bigger problem than they thought.