Love to Learn conference and NC Technology Expo GIS day

The Love to Learn conference was held yesterday at CPCC's Overcash Building as it had been for the previous two years. This was my third year participating, and the crowd seemed a bit bigger this year. It also seemed we had fewer vendors this year than last and more informational type exhibitors than folks selling curriculum related items (just how it seemed to me). Even though the attendee numbers seemed to be a bit more than last year, the feeling was that there were many first time homeschoolers, about to embark on the homeschooling adventure and those kind of thinking about homeschooling. I was a bit disappointed in my workshop attendance as there were plenty of kids there but I had only two kids show up for my drawing workshop and one for my writing workshop. This was in part due to a little miscommunication in the wording from the online description of my workshop and the printed schedule where there was no description - just the workshop title. I had a couple of parents thinking the workshop was geared to giving them direction on how to get their boys interested in writing. So I'm thinking for my workshops to be effective, I need to go back to doing games at the table and offering prizes there and doing workshops for the parents. Now that I'm developing a workshop for teachers and librarians, it shouldn't be a problem to do a workshop for parents on writing and getting the kids interested in writing. If I do any homeschool conferences next year, this will be what my workshops will be geared towards, instead of the kids, since this type of workshop is not netting me sales. It was a long day but I did make some good connections.

I know you are thinking "What does the NC Technology Expo GIS Day have to do with a homeschool conference?", and it's simple. Thursday afternoon while I was registering my youngest son for school, I received an email from a Mr. Paul Martin from the Meckelenburg County government offices. He stated he came across my books and was trying to think of a way to bring me up to participate in their Geography Awareness activity on November 16th (GIS Day). I invited him to come observe my workshop and he showed up. We chatted a good bit, he checked out the books and feels that I can offer something to the teachers and parents and students who attend GIS Day. Geography Awareness week falls November 13th through the 19th this year, that Wednesday falls right before I would leave for the Savannah Children's Book Festival but it should be a doable and relatively lucrative day. The only problem I have at this moment for being able to get to Charlotte on the 16th of November is transportation. With my daughter starting college on the 24th of this month and her class schedule being on campus Monday through Thursday, I'm pretty much carless during the day (from the time I drop my son off at school and return home for her to head out until she returns right before school is out for Benjamin), but he did say that there was the possibility of them offering me a stipend to get a rental car for the event. So looks like one more event has been added to my busy calendar, but I'm very excited for this new adventure. Stay tuned for more information as the time draws closer. - Ma America & The JGDS :)