Love to Learn homeschool conference

It is that time of year - time for the Love to Learn homeschool information and resource conference. We will be making the trek to Charlotte Friday evening, meeting up with a friend of mine for dinner and then some rest and relaxation Friday evening. Saturday, I will be presenting both workshops for the kids - Draw-and-Tell (ages 5 to 8) and Writing Roads (ages 9 to 12). Jess will be helping me out again. I'm looking forward to the weekend.

If you happen to be in the Charlotte area and are a homeschooler, come visit the JGDS booth. For more information on registration, please check out the Love to Learn webpage. Hope to see you all there - E :)

SC Festival of Discovery

So Saturday, Jess and I trekked to Greenwood to set up for the festival, which happened to be outside. The crafters were in a parking lot along Main Street in front of a couple of buildings and on the other side of the street, the stage and performances and first aid area as well as all the BBQ pits were. It was very hot Saturday, this being July and all. Anyway, right after we set up the tent and got the tables semi-situated, it started to drizzle (thankfully we had a screened tent). The rain didn't last long and not much was affected - mostly the one table where Jess had set out the games for the kids to play but I had laminated everything and the bingo pieces and prizes were in plastic boxes so nothing really to get ruined. I did walk the craft tables once and let Jess walk them and get our food and stuff at lunch. We sold four books for the whole day but I had several teachers and librarians and a couple of homeschoolers or someone who knew a homeschooler stop by the table and ask all kinds of questons and took my contact information. I think in total we had nine serious inquiries of the folks who are teachers, librarians or homeschoolers. Fingers crossed all those leads do pan out. The guy next to me who was selling marshmallow guns took a handful of bookmarks because he said he was the custodian at his school and he would pass my info to the media specialist at his school.


Here is the table, after we pulled it inside the tent because of the sun and heat (we originally had it facing out at the doorway but the sun was coming down on the display, we just moved it inside. We didn't really have it arranged too well since you can't see the new cover for Wilderness, but it's all good.



This is the other table with Ms. Faye's book on it and my afghan which is the prize for the drawing I will be doing on December 1. Jess had her game pieces on the other end of the table. We had a few people pick up Ms. Faye's book but no one bought a copy. I'll put her bookmarks in the library when I go up there next week.


Only one man played the State Capital Quiz - not sure what he won because I had stepped away to the restroom. I did hear him say he almost majored in geographic studies in school.



I did meet one lady who was doing face painting and she painted my arm as advertisement for her - I got this beautiful red, white and blue butterfly done. She is quick and very good at what she does.


Jess saw the bushes that had been cut as "monsters" and decided to take pictures. The green one was at the end of the parking lot and the red and white one was kind of behind us but to the left (as you were facing the tent). Greenwood sure has changed since I attended school at Lander eons ago. But it is a very nice town and the upgrades do wonders for the economy.

We stopped at DQ on the way home to get something to cool us off and that ice cream cone hit the spot. Overall, I think we had a very good day, although the heat did get to me. After I dropped Jess off, I kind of fell asleep in my car (took the key out of the ignition, was about to get out and had opened the door a tad, but I think I passed out for a bit - not really fell asleep), came inside and crawled on the bed for about an hour or so and then got up and checked emails and was right back to bed within a couple of hours. I thought I really had drank plenty of water but apparently not enough or my body doesn't adjust to extreme temperatures very well any more. Yesterday was kind of a blur. I couldn't even really start work until late evening. I will think about doing this event again and if I do, I will have to get some personal battery operated fans and hope we are on the other side of the parking lot where all the shade trees were. Have a year to decide whether we do this one again or not - :) See you all in the postings - Ma America!!

SC State Library, SC Festival of Discovery and State Capitals Bingo?

I realized after this past weekend's event and doing my workshop that I'm going to need more games to play for prizes in the workshops and at events where I'm not really doing my workshop; I had one girl in my workshop who remembered playing my game last year at the table and winning a prize, but thankfully she won a different prize this year.

Jess, my wonderful assistant, attended the SC State Library workshop during the time I was actually doing my "Writing Roads" workshop. She came back with a Day by Day calendar, which isn't dated but is themed by the month. Anyway, glancing through it, not only does it have daily activities that can be done as a family unit, but there are tidbits of events or activities going on around the state each month and recommended books to go along with the month's theme. I was scanning through the calendar and in July found the SC Festival of Discovery in Greenwood, which is only about 25 miles from where I reside. So I contacted them and after submitting my information (my sell sheet and a picture of my table setup) they decided that writing is a different form of art and that I could be a participant in the Arts & Crafts fair during the festival.

After sending off my registration form and check, I thought "hmm, I need some activity in my tent for the kids to do to win prizes that will be different than my "Road Trip" game and keep the prizes different too." So I texted Jess and asked that she brainstorm some ideas. I googled "free printable united states games" and this Super Teachers worksheets website came up with lots of state related pages. One of the first ones I pulled up was the State Capitals Bingo game - and decided to print it out. The first time I printed it out on regular paper and then thought it needed to be sturdier, so I printed again on card stock. Then I decided to color code the calling sheet and the bingo cards (yeah, I'm a geek, I use highlighters for work - usually just four colors but I do have the yellow that I haven't been using, so that gave me five colors, which worked out perfectly). This is the result of the calling card sheet and one set of bingo cards:


This is the call sheet, which I'll laminate and cut the pieces up so that we can put them in a box from which we will do the drawing.



This is a page with two finished cards. Again, these will be laminated (dry erase markers will be used to mark the spots) and cut apart but as you see, the colors go along with the call sheet - the bingo cards list the capitals and the call cards have the state and the capital under it.

I figured that we could call and show the color that would help the kids figure out the capital and if they have it on their card or not. The card on the left has 9 spots that are blue (hopefully not all the blue capitals will be called during a bingo game). The one on the right has 7 orange spots. Some game cards are pretty evenly distributed, but then again, no one was thinking color coordinating the call sheet with the bingo cards for prompting the kids.

I printed off another one which I may use in a larger workshop called "I have ..., Who has ..." - the cards have the capital of a state for the "I have" part and then you ask "Who has the capital of ??" and you say the state on your card. This may just be an occupier type activity - not for prizes.

Two other state capital things I'll probably use are the States and Capitals Quiz, laminate so that the kids can use the dry erase markers to fill in their answers to be checked and the numbered state/capitals worksheet - will probably do either state or the capital but they have to get so many correct in order to win a prize.

So what do you think of one of my new games? Any other ideas or resources out there to be used for small prizes to keep the kids entertained, state or patriotic related? Share your thoughts, please. Ma America :)

SCHEA conference - Great weekend

We started out late Thursday (about an hour later than planned) and we arrived to USC-Sumter about 8:30 (supposed to be out of the building around 9) to get our table set up.

Jess and I had the table setup somewhat by about 10 or 15 after 9 and then a few minutes we were kind of pushed out by the cleaning people.

I needed a couple of things so Jess and I headed over to Walmart. Jess found this delightful rug that answers the question "Where will the adventure take you next?" and I decided to buy it, although it was $5 more than I was planning on spending (actually it ended up being half price when, so it was well worth the cost). What do you think?




When we got back to the hotel, we had a hard time getting online and it took forever. I wanted to check my email and do a little plurking or socializing online, but that didn't happen.

Got up and headed back to USC-Sumter to do last minute fixing up of booth and wait for the crowds.

My table, done mostly by Jess:

(Full table view with mat and map)


(first three books plus the passport booklet)


(Passport booklet with books 4, 5 and 6)


I forgot to put out book 7's cover that I had printed off (was hoping that Wilderness's cover had gotten to me before leaving to print out and show everyone the new cover for the re-release but it didn't arrive in my email until I had shut down my computer and didn't even get it until I got to the hotel and got to check my emails Friday night; Heather is working on another cover now so that should be ready to be shared soon). Anyway here is Uncle Beary peaking out from between the Passport booklet and the cover from State of Acceleration; I even had one girl ask me how much he was - lol. I had to let her know that he is just my mascot, but it's all good.




Had four kids in my workshop on Friday afternoon but overall I think it was a successful day. Did sell two copies of State of Successes and one of the Passport booklets on Friday. Went to the Hibachi Grill and Buffet with a couple (Kyra and Dwight, WriteShop representatives) and enjoyed the company.

Saturday was kind of a slow day for everyone as the crowds were low and with half the vendors as compared to last year, we just couldn't compete with the big convention that just occurred in March in the upper part of the state (The Great Homeschool Convention Southeast conference - was supposed to draw folks from North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and possibly part of Florida). Dwight had said he was going to buy a couple of books for his nephew to read over the summer and after lunch, he came over to the table and bought a copy of all six books - lol. How is that for a day? All in all, a good weekend (I've not sold 9 books at any conference or event yet; I think the most I've sold at one sitting was 6 or 7 at the Love to Learn conference last August. I also had four or five people who remembered me from last year so that was a nice touch. My biggest thing is getting known and it is slowly coming, so I do consider this successful and we are on the right track.

Next big events that need to be paid for (and wow would I love to have some sponsors or some huge sales right about now - lol) will be the SCCSS and GCSS conferences ($425 and $300 respectively). I know if these are meant to be accomplished the funds will show up. Coming up in August is the school/library visit to Matthews Elementary School in North Carolina, Love to Learn homeschool conference, Mint Hill's Sunday in the Park, and maybe the Williamston Spring Water festival but may not do that one as I haven't heard much from folks about events. See you all in the postings - Ma America & the JGDS :)