Midwest Homeschool Convention Recap - Sessions I Attended

Since I returned from the Midwest Homeschool Convention, my brain has been buzzing in a hundred different directions from all of the wonderful (and sometimes contradictory) information that I gathered/heard at the conference!  I had an amazing, uplifting, and enlightening experience at the conference.  Processing all of the information that I gained will take dedicated time and effort but I am excited about making educational decisions based on the information I gleaned from the conference.

In an effort to recap my experience, I'll start by sharing with you the sessions that I attended.  Whenever possible, I have included links to the notes from the session or the speaker's website.

• How to Teach High School at Home - Dr. Jay Wile
• Homeschooling - The Solution to Our Education Problem - Dr. Jay Wile
• Truth or Tragedy - Sean McDowell
• The Well-Prepared Student (High School):  How to Get Ready for College by Susan Wise Bauer
• The Well-Guided High Schooler:  Preparing for Each Year of High School - Matthew Bullington
• Reading, ___________, 'Rithmetic:  What Has Happened to Writing in Our Homeschools? - Sharon Fisher (Bob Jones University Press)
• High School Grades and Credits - Lee Binz
• Your Son's Battle for Purity - Hal and Melanie Young

I also purchased a number of seminars on CD that I was unable to attend at the conference due to scheduling conflicts.

• Reasonable Faith - The Scientific Case for Christianity - Dr. Jay Wile
• Educating Our Own Minds:  How To Teach Ourselves As We Teach Our Kids - Susan Wise Bauer
• Raising Real Men:  Surviving and Appreciating Boys - Hal and Melanie Young
• Ballistic Homeschooling:  Teaching and Appreciating Boys - Hal and Melanie Young
• Preparing Sons for Life:  The Mom's Part - Shirley Solis
• How to Teach Latin:  A Primer on How to Teach Latin - Cheryl Lowe
• Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death:  The Critical Role of Home Education for Our Country's Future - Cathy Duffy
• Shepherding a Child's Heart:  Getting to the Heart of Behavior - Tedd Tripp
• How to Think and How to Get Your Kids to Do It Too - Martin Cothran
• Decoding the Classics:  How to Read, Enjoy, & Teach Great Literature - Janice Campbell
• How to Homeschool the Real (Distractible, Impatient, Argumentative, Unenthusiastic, Non-Book-Loving, Inattentive, Poky, Vague) Child - Susan Wise Bauer
• Why the New Testament Can Be Trusted - Sean McDowell

From that extensive list, I'm sure you can pick out a few themes:  homeschooling through high school, raising boys, and apologetics.  I truly enjoyed and found quite valuable ALL of the sessions that I attended.  I hope I feel the same way about all of the CDs that I purchased!

Of the seminars I attended, though, two stand out as being particularly excellent and meaningful to me.  I adored Susan Wise Bauer's talk about Preparing for College.  I was taking notes like crazy during her talk and I even purchased the CD so that I could listen to it again!  Thankfully, I was able to find her handouts for the session online.

As well, Hal and Melanie Young's talk about purity and boys brought me to tears.  I can't wait to read their book, Raising Real Men.   

I have a stack of CDs to listen to and a stack of notes and handouts to read again but I am very excited about  what I am learning from all of this information.  In my next post, I'll share the big nuggets of wisdom that I took away from the conference.  

So, for those of you who recently attended a homeschool convention, what seminar did you see that was particularly relevant to your situation?  What seminars do you wish you could attend again to hear all over from the beginning?