By: Debbie Phillips
This is a great post with lots of information! In the homeschooling world, it is time to hit up the fairs for books, new ideas, etc. Sit down with a pen and paper and takde notes while reading tghis informative guest post from TOS Crew Member Debbie! ~Kelli
If you are going to a Curriculum Fair for the first time, especially a BIG one, there are a few things you should know. This is a good review for those that have been to Curriculum Fairs before, too. Being prepared will make the difference between a bad experience and a great one. Going to a homeschool convention can impact your school year too, depending on what you buy there! Shop wisely!
Before I begin talking about the actual fair there are some preliminary choices I want to talk about:
- Is the fair one day or two, will you stay both days, come only for one day, travel home at night, stay in a hotel??
- Food?? will you bring some, eat out all meals, eat at the convention, eat outside the fair, or a combo? Does the fair have a list of recommended eating places? If not, do a search before you go or ask at the hotel, if you are staying overnight. When we went for two days we usually took snacks and lunch for the first day and then ate the rest of the meals out. Breakfast, the second day, was sometimes included with our hotel cost (continental breakfast), lunch the second day was something fast, dinner both days something nicer (like Cracker Barrel) .
- Will you bring the children? All of them, some of them, only nursing infants? Who will watch the ones staying home? I recommend leaving your children at home. The halls are usually crowded and you need all your attention to go toward buying curriculum and listening to the speakers. We did make exceptions for nursing infants and high school age children. When our girls were high school age they each got to go with us to at least one convention. It motivated them to see so many homeschoolers in one place at one time. They got to help with choosing their curriculum for the next year(s). One year we took a high school child, the next year we went alone, next year a high school child, etc.
Some of these decisions will depend on how far away the curriculum fair is from your home, how much money you have at the time, and the ages of your children; but they are all decisions that must be made.
Now on to preparing for the actual fair.
- First you need to prepare your mind for the amount of curriculum you might see. At the curriculum fairs my husband and I have attended there are hundreds of vendors. Some of them with small booths that take up one spot and some with large booths that take up multiple spots and they bring hundred’s of books. So the vendor area could be full of thousands of choices! Do not be overwhelmed by this. If you follow the suggestions below you should be prepared to handle and even enjoy your experience!
- Vendors: Do research on the fair you are going to attend so you will be more prepared when you get there. Most large conventions have online resources that can help you prepare. As an example, my husband and I attend the CHAP convention in PA. Chap has hundreds of vendors and the hall is huge!!! It can be very overwhelming for first time convention goers. If you have an idea how big your convention is, before you go, you will be less overwhelmed.
- Each year CHAP posts a list of vendors: http://convention.chaponline.com/vendors.html
- They also give you a map of the vendor hall: http://files2.chaponline.com/convention_map_09.png
- Most of the homeschool conferences I looked at online from this past year have similar resources. Make sure to check out the resources of your convention. Having a list of vendors and/or a map will help a lot. You can print out the map and circle or highlight the booths of vendors you want to make sure to check out.
- Here is the HEAV site, they have a picture of their vendor room so you can get and idea of the number of vendors and the crowd: http://www.heav.org/convention/exhibitors/index.html
- Speakers: Hearing speakers is one of the things homeschool conventions have that is a real asset to new homeschoolers (and veterans too). It is a chance to hear homeschool moms and dads, veterans, popular speakers and vendors speak about many homschooling subjects. This is a great pick me up to carry you through the rest of your year. Most homeschool fairs will have a list of speakers online and will also have a schedule. Some will post the schedule online, all should have one to hand to you when you arrive in case of last minute changes.
- As an example here is the Chap schedule from this past year if you want to look: http://convention.chaponline.com/workshopschedule.html
- They also have a more detailed description of each of the workshops so you can make wise decisions about which workshop would be beneficial for you. Here is a link so you can see those details if you want: http://convention.chaponline.com/schedule.html
- One of the things to consider in your $$ planning is whether the convention has tapes or cd’s of the workshops/speaker sessions. Over the years I have purchased many of these so I could listen to them over and over through the year(s). Also you can hear more speakers than you would have time to listen to live. There is only so much time in a day and you have to leave time for looking at the vendor booths. The tapes are also now available for my children to listen to as they wait/prepare for homeschooling their own children. [side note: I keep a list of the tapes I have so I do not buy multiple copies. I don't want tapes of the same speaker doing the same topic, even if it is a different year]
- Another thing to consider is how much time you will have to spend listening to the workshops. When my husband and I go to CHAP we expect to spend the whole first day just looking at the vendor hall. Most of the second day will be spent this way too since it is sooooo big and most years we did not listen to the workshops live at all. We just buy the tapes/cd’s. Some years we take in one seminar on the end of day two because we are ready for a break and to sit down but most of the time we just finish up our buying and take off for home, eating dinner somewhere on the way and listening to one of the cd’s we bought of the seminars.
- How to Choose Curriculum: I am not going to go into a lot of detail about how to choose curriculum but I also did not want to just skip over this very important topic. Before you go to a curriculum fair you need to have a list of things you are looking for. If you do not do this vital step you will be susceptible to every vendor and the thinking that what they have is just the thing your family needs. You may come home with something that does not fit your family at all. These are some things to consider when making your lists
- What method works best for your family: textbooks, workbooks, unit studies, lapbooks, Charlotte Mason, Classical, Workboxes, etc.?
- Do you have auditory learners, visual learners, kinetic learners or a combo?
- What grades are your children?
- What topics are they/you interested in teaching this year? Make sure you make a list for each subject you will cover.
- What strengths and/or weaknesses need to be addressed?
- Is there a fun game out there to address any needs your family has? We love board games and I buy at least 2 a year.
- Here is a link to a post on my blog about choosing curriculum, with a freebie for you!! The freebie is a link to the Curriculum Purchase Sheet that I made up and use every year in my planning, whether I am going to a convention or not – check it out http://debbiesdigest.blogspot.com/2009/07/choosing-curriculum-and-freebie-for-you.html
- If you need more help choosing curriculum:
- There are a lot of articles on this topic online… Google it
- Or you could contact a homeschooler you know and see what they are using
- Check out some homeschool books, most of them have a chapter on choosing curriculum (see what you local library has). I usually buy at least one book on how to homeschool each year to keep refreshed and “in the know” about new trends, I also try to read one of my “old favorites” each summer.
- Or you can contact me, I love to help homeschoolers, especially new ones, in any way I can! [e-mail me at dlphsmom@aim.com or contact me at my blog at: http://debbiesdigest.blogspot.com/]
- *** Note: we have a master list (actually an online database, with ability to make a printout) of all the books we own and take the list with us to homeschool fairs, conventions, used book sales. This helps us to not buy duplicates of books we already own. This is important to us because we have limited funds for books, as do most homeschoolers. We want to spend our money wisely and make it go as far as possible. We have so many books we cannot remember what we have, so the list has been invaluable to us.
Some other tips:
- Wear comfortable shoes and clothes
- Bring a bag/backpack or see if your curriculum fair allows small carts (CHAP does). I have one of those crates on wheels that I use.
- Don’t buy anything/much on the first day if you are going to be there for two days. Make notes about things you want and the booth it was found at and come back to it on the second day. Think about it and talk it over with your spouse in the evening.
- Bring a notebook and pencil to take notes about vendors, products and in the sessions, if you go to any.
- Bring some address labels with your name and address on them. They are useful for signing up for mailing lists and for contests if any of the vendors have them. Much easier than writing it out over and over.
- Pick up literature from vendors you are interested in so you can contact them, buy more things, or think about their products and buy later. It may also help in planning for later years when your kids are older/more ready for certain subjects or curriculum.
- Get there early so you can park as close as possible. You don’t want to carry all of those books very far if possible. At Chap you could end up parking as far away as a mile.
- Some vendors do not take checks, some do not take credit card or check but cash only. This is one time you want to carry cash in case you need it. One year our credit card company put our card on hold. Lots of purchases made through different vendors raised a red flag with our company. It’s good to have cash just in case, even though it is a bit riskier.
Other Resources
- Here are some links to other articles on this topic:
- http://simplycharlottemason.com/2009/04/23/preparing-for-a-homeschool-convention/
- http://www.donnayoung.org/forms/help/thefair.htm
- http://www.home-school.com/Articles/phs13-joshuaharris.html
- http://knol.google.com/k/carletta-sanders/homeschool-curriculum/232p4eed9p5ya/3#
- The St. Louis convention has a post with convention tips that would be good no matter where your convention is held http://www.stlhomeschoolexpo.com/tips.html
- Beyond Survival by Diana Waring has a chapter on this subject. Chapter 5 “Surviving Your First Homeschool Convention.” She also has other chapters that will help with choosing curriculum and figuring out what works for your family. I highly recommend it.
- A Survivors Guide to Home Schooling by Luanne Shackleford and Susan White has a chapter called “A School and Her Money are Soon Parted” which is great! Their book will leave you laughing and thinking about many things.
About Me: I am a homeschool Mom of 4. We are starting our 19th year of homeschooling today, Monday 20th. Two daughters have graduated from our homeschool, they were homeschooled all the way from K-12. I am currently homeschooling our two boys ages 15 and 12. Besides homeschooling I enjoy: scrapbooking, cross stitching, reading, playing board games, and singing with my family. I hope this article helps many and if you have questions please feel free to e-mail me at dlphsmom@aim.com or Check out my blog at: http://debbiesdigest.blogspot.com/ and leave a question/comment there!
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