Tampa Bay Homeschool Conference

We traveled to Tampa, FL for the last of my conventions. This was a new convention for me. I used to live in Tampa so I was looking forward to seeing old friends and my old stomping grounds. The convention was held in a new building (since I lived here).

 We were packed to the gills! The space to the right was for my assistant's bags, etc. We filled that up in no time!

 Here we are! The Fountains and me. Stopped at a red light of course.

 The booth is all set up. The tables were not 8 foot long like I expected so the tablecloths drooped. At least it wasn't the other way around! But that meant that I had 6 less feet of display space so I had to tweak the display set up.  Instead of having a sign-in table, I used that 4 foot table to display the Science rack. That's what's on the right side.

Another shot of the full booth. The booth space was small so instead of setting up the other front table in front and crowding our booth, I had it on the side which helped to define our space.  It worked.

Once we had our booth set up on Friday afternoon, I went to my friend's house where several old youth group kids (I used to be a youth minister when I lived in Tampa) came over to visit and catch up. We had a lovely pot luck cook out.

I hadn't seen Phil since he was in college in Atlanta. I got to meet his son. It was fun to think back to when I had two children and doing youth ministry. When I left I was pregnant with my third. It's crazy to think that Kathryn is at that same stage in life with three children, one about to start kindergarten. I left her a Sonlight catalog :)

The sweet, sweet Lopez girls! I missed seeing the two Victors but they were both occupied and couldn't come.

Shawn's daughter looked just like him but his son must look like his mama. Emily doesn't live in town so I didn't get to see her but the Waltrips filled me in. Jen, Wes's wife of almost one year, was very sweet!

 A room full of kids's kids! How crazy it is to see your youth group "kids" with kids. I'm getting old, no doubt about it!

Wes and Jen with Wes's jeep. He followed in Michael's footsteps!

Thank you Rodebushes for hosting us! I had a blast!!!!!

HERI 2012

We had a great time working at the HERI convention last weekend, talking to parents who are either new to homeschooling or looking for something better than what they were currently using.

Here is the face shot. On Friday, my friend Natalie helped out in the booth until Michael could join us. (Didn't get her photo). He worked a half day then came and joined us. Sophie is Natalie's daughter and she was great at handing out catalogs.

 Here is a closer shot. Sophie pointed out that her shirt matched the tablecloth perfectly.

 Here she is showing off Core 100.

And here's a fun shot of Michael with Timothy. Timothy didn't want to work in the booth but he and Tommy were my roadies on Thursday when I set up, unloading the car and setting up the banners and racks.

This was my tenth HERI if you count the two years I worked as an assistant. The organizers really do a great job with it.

Scripture Memory

Ever since we first started homeschooling, back in 2000, we have been memorizing scripture. Before beginning that first year I attended the HERI Homeschool Convention where I attended several workshops.  One person who spoke that year was Pam Tebow. At the time she was well-known in the homeschooling circles as the homeschooling mom of 5 children. Now, of course, she is known as the former Gator quarterback,Tim Tebow's mom.

That year she spoke of the importance of scripture memory and shared how she did it. She told the audience that "What is set to song is remembered long." She explained that she comes up with a little tune and sings her scripture memory. I thought it was a good idea and we tried it that year. We had a little Preskool tape deck with a microphone and used that to record our songs. That year we were doing Sonlight's Core K (now A) which had A to Z scriptures to memorize. At the time, they didn't have the CD that they now have so we came up with our own tunes. I also didn't like all the scriptures that they had selected. There were others that I really wanted my kids to know so I sat down with my Bible and a sheet of paper labeled A through Z down the side. I found scriptures I wanted my kids to know and filled in where they would fit. For those more difficult letters (X, Z?) I used Sonlight's suggestions.

My oldest son is starting his senior year this year. I bet he still knows every single one of those songs he learned in kindergarten. I plan to test him on this just to see.

This system worked so well for us the first year that we used it again the next year. I again came up with my own scriptures using a scripture that would fit character traits. I called them the "Be Scriptures." You know, Be alert, Be kind, etc and again, we came up with songs for those. We were not as diligent at memorizing that list but we did revisit it this past year.

This has been the method of scripture memory I have used even for myself. I participated in First Place For Health a few seasons back where we had weekly scripture memory assignments. Yep. I came up with a little tune.  It just works for me, even though I am not musical. The little Preskool tape deck is no longer with us, but now I use the voice recorder on my IPhone to record my ditty so I don't lose the tune.

Recently a friend shared a scripture memory method shared on the Simply Charlotte Mason board that uses a filing box and 3 X 5 cards. I think I will try to incorporate it into our school year next year. I will start with our ABC scriptures, then add our Be scriptures. We'll see how far we go at filling in the box. Then we will add the BBC Manual scriptures that Timothy began a few years ago (but never completed) and Annie will do this year. This may be just the ticket to get through that list.

Do you memorize scripture? If so, how do you do it? I'd love to hear!