I'm Home!

A distant view of the place where they held the 1st Cincinnati Homeschool Convention.

A nice quiet place to sit and "reflect"!

A tree in bud.

I am home from the Cincinnati Homeschool Convention. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and learned a lot. I went to four sessions that were an hour each in length. The sessions I went to were all given by Susan Wise Bauer of The Well Trained Mind. There were many sessions to choose from but I felt that these would be most beneficial at this time. It is not often that she comes to a convention nearby. I feel that having heard her speak, I will be better able to understand her book "The Well Trained Mind" that I have owned for quite some time. I have read the pertinent sections several times but I plan to read them again as I endeavor to put together my curriculum for our next school year. One thing I learned during the sessions was that my note taking skills are extremely rusty. It has been about fifteen years since I finished college. Oh my, where has time gone?

I really enjoyed the somewhat relaxed pace. They gave a 1/2 hour break between sessions which was very helpful. It was nice to be able to leave a session without having to race to the next one. Another thing that attributed to the relaxed feeling was the setting of the convention. While the buildings look old, they were set back a long winding drive and the place was surrounded by trees such that you couldn't see the surrounding city or interstate. It gave one that relaxed feeling that one gets out in the country.

The pond in the middle photo is right alongside the drive before getting up to the parking area. There was a manmade waterfall along the drive before getting to the pond. I had wanted to take a picture of it but it wasn't running on Friday when I went back. The tree in the last picture reminds me a little of the tree in the book "Sky Tree" by Thomas Locker. This is a book that we have enjoyed together. Check your library to see if they have it and if they do borrow it and enjoy it with your child(ren).

While in Cincinnati, I spent Thursday night at my sister's house and enjoyed the little time I had visiting with her. On Friday I drove down through rush hour traffic in the rain (people in Cincinnati seem to have great difficulty driving in rain or snow), picked up my sister, and then we went across the river to get fuel and supper. We ate in the car on our way back to drop her off so that I could get back to convention in time for the last session. I left the convention to drive my “20 minute” one way drive to my sister's place with 2 hours and 5 minutes in which to get there and back. Needless to say, due to traffic I spent almost that entire two hours in the car.