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Homeschool Conference Planning

Friday, March 31, 2023 by Catherine Gilliland | Homeschool Planning


The season has arrived for long-awaited refreshment, learning, and encouragement for homeschool parents. How can you maximize your homeschool conference experiences? Make a personal itinerary ahead of time! 


If you have already created a 5-year, 1-2 year, or even 12-month plan, you possess a powerful guide when planning your conference attendance. If not, plan for your best experience by taking a careful inventory of various facets of learning in your home. Follow this up with some thoughtful planning for the upcoming year including internet or catalog research to help you to reap the greatest benefits from your conference attendance. By knowing the future needs of your students, you can make educated decisions regarding the different main or breakout session topics of the most benefit to you. If your homeschool fair includes vendors, your prep work can also be a guide to those vendors you want to meet and/or from whom you desire to make purchases. Often purchases made at a conference can be secured for a reduced price.


Some questions to ask yourself when planning your homeschool conference itinerary:


  1. What have been areas of struggle this year for which I need answers or encouragement? Are there main sessions or workshops that may provide this information?

  2. What other sessions or workshops am I interested in learning from? Create a workshop plan for yourself.

  3. What are the appropriate basic academic requirements for each of my children?

  4. What is my budget? Do I know the correct forms of payments accepted at this conference?

  5. What previous curriculum experiences have you had? If a curriculum is working, consider continuing with it. If not, try to determine why and investigate viable alternatives.


  1. Do you know your child's best learning style? Try to match any curriculum you purchase with this learning style. Don't expect that the learning books that were perfect for an older child will automatically work for their younger siblings.

  2. Could I enhance my children's experiences by grouping learning lessons together? Often this method works well for science, social studies, and literature when you have children who are close in age or who naturally challenge each other (friendly challenge) to perform their best. 

  3. What are the special interests that my child has expressed? Can I create some mini units to fuel his/her natural interests? Can I select learning games/kits to purchase for upcoming gift-giving occasions?

  4. Will the vendors from whom I wish to make purchases be attending this conference? Conferences will publish their vendor list ahead of time, sometimes including a map. 

  5. Will vendors for whom I have questions be in attendance at this conference? If so, write down the questions you wish to ask them. Is this vendor presenting a workshop about this topic? 

  6. Is there a way for me to attend the conference child-free? If not, make sure you plan ahead to anticipate children's needs. Conferences are exhausting for any age child and certainly their mommies and daddies. Preparing a crock pot dinner or picking up a dinner to take home may help prevent nerves from fraying due to hunger and exhaustion.


As you attend homeschool conferences, fairs, and practicums this spring and summer, may your purpose be refreshed, your vision refocused, your skills strengthened, and may your excitement for future learning experiences grow.

Scholarship Essay Writing During the Summer

Friday, March 31, 2023 by Catherine Gilliland | Scholarship Essays


Summer is an awesome opportunity for high school students to begin exploring career interests.

There are plenty of free and not-so-free career interest surveys which can provide valuable information for students who are beginning the process of discovering or narrowing down their interests. Trying two or three surveys and looking for results that crossover is a powerful start.


CC Interest survey.indd (careertech.org)

O*NET Interest Profiler at My Next Move

Career Test Free for Students in High School, College, Teens, and Adults 



Summer is also a great time to begin searching for scholarship opportunities, creating some scholarship essay pre-writing exercises, and preparing practice essays for the 2023-2024 scholarship season. Beginning now is optimal because the distractions and demands of other coursework are minimal.


Scholarships are definitely more available for two and four-year degree programs, but with a little effort, a student can also create a list of scholarship opportunities for funding their vocational training and trade certificates as well.


Don't know where to begin? Have you seen my digital course Writing Scholarship Essays? Consider securing the valuable content in this self-paced, affordable, online course for your student. Alternately, I am available to work one on one with students as they navigate this exciting, but often challenging process.


Topics of Writing Scholarship Essays include:


  • Getting your Past Together (compiling past experiences for future essays)

  • Searching High and Low (for scholarship opportunities)

  • Keeping Your Act Together (organization)

  • Yikes, I Have to Write the Essay (strategies for writing essays)

  • Managing Word Count

  • The Power of Gratitude (effective follow-up)


Check out my blogs on these topics for more free information!

The How To of Documenting Your Family's Education Vision

Monday, March 27, 2023 by Catherine Gilliland | Family Education Vision


Vision is the North Star that guides you toward your family's future and is composed of your hopes and dreams for your family and for each member. It considers values, beliefs, a child's interests and passions, aptitudes, personality, and giftings. A written vision is made up of goals, objectives & activities. Goals are the high-level milestones of achievement necessary to reach a vision. Objectives are the more detailed milestones required to reach individual goals. Lastly, activities are those things that must be done to reach objectives. Each one builds upon the other. Altogether, vision drives a concrete plan for growth.


A written plan fosters continued focus on the value of your vision and helps get you back on track from the inevitable distractions that can so easily derail us. On days when one's energy or other resources are waning, reading your written plan can be an important source of inspiration and direction. Finally, taking the time to plan and document one's vision helps prevent huge disappointments like heartaches, regrets, and wasted resources that bring you sorrow.


Once recognition has been made regarding the benefits of actually writing down an education vision, we need to develop some structure for this plan. Think of the process like you would if you were drawing yourself a map. Work backward with the destination in mind. Once you have put words to your vision, write a 5-year plan of goals (drone view) even if more than five years are required to execute the plan. Remember that goals are the high-level milestones leading to the vision. Next, write a 1-2 year plan (expanded view) for shorter-term planning. This is a much more specific plan that includes objectives to meet the goals on the 5 yr plan. Lastly, construct a 12-month plan including the objectives on the 1-2 year plan and the activities you plan to experience to meet those objectives. 


An effective method to simplify the process is to create one plan per child. Divide each 5-year plan into categories guided by age,  Each "plan" can be drawn up as a spreadsheet. On the top row, create categories for character, relationship skills, academic skills, life skills, and any other category you wish to plan. On the far left column, create categories for age ranges and the goals, objectives, or activities related to the plan. This works for whichever length plan you are creating. 


The purpose of the written plans you create is to serve your family. Each plan should enable you to maintain a balance between laser focus and the flexibility necessary to keep the plan relevant. Periodically assess the effectiveness of your plan (5-year, 1-2 year, and 12-month). Assessment isn't an end in itself but allows for the inevitable fine-tuning or revamping necessary as one works out the plan. Pre-set dates for future assessments, revisions, or regular expansion of the 5-year or 1-2 year plans (that highlight goals and objectives) into the 12-month plans that identify the activities you will use to foster growth.


Treat the development or refinement of your plans as a special and exciting time. For young families, parents will be the primary planners. These planning sessions could become a special night out, a memorable planning retreat, or simply a dedicated time together, undistracted around the kitchen table. Whatever style your planning takes, they should build intimacy in your relationships because you are working towards a common goal. As the child grows, they will want to be more and more a part of the assessment and planning process; they should be-it's their life! As your older children participate, they will grow their own skills of personal management and growth, owning their plan and working intentionally toward their goals. As you begin your journey, aim to assess every 3-6 mo. As you gain experience, move to 6-12 months keeping in mind that some parts of your plan will require more frequent assessment. Expect yourself to need flexibility--life happens.


I am often asked this question: What should I take into account when creating my plans? There are many parts of development that you may want to consider, however, there is not a one size fits all protocol. Remember the purpose of the written plans you create is to serve your family. You may want to consider any of the following: 


  • Normal Child development milestones 

  • What does brain research indicate is important

  • Character development 

  • Age appropriate activities

  • Reasonable Work skills

  • Fostering thinking skills

  • Academic learning milestones

  • Value of spending time alone

  • FUN- all work no play, leads to an unbalanced child (and all play and no work, leads to an unsuccessful child)

  • Family team-building


Whatever your plan looks like, know and work with your child's natural grain, bents, or wiring. Doing so will set you up for seasons of joyful experiences, successful growth, reduced conflict, and satisfying parenting.


As the season to plan for summer and the following academic year draws near, families who have a vision and plan in place enjoy the guidance these documents provide when making decisions about summer opportunities and registering for upcoming classes and activities. 

The Value of Designing an Education Vision for your Family

Monday, March 13, 2023 by Catherine Gilliland | Family Education Vision


When I was schooling a half a dozen different-aged children all at once, while still nurturing a toddler, it was an intense, but wonderful time. Some called it chaotic. At times, I am sure it was. As I spoke with other parents in my circle, I realized that we were all experiencing in varying degrees the tendency to become distracted from "the important" because of "the urgent". Have you ever succumbed to the tyranny of the urgent? You know--"first aid" for the moment-by-moment or daily problems or saying "yes" to hastily pursued "opportunities".


Designing an education vision and written plan for our precious kiddos sounded like a wonderful plan, but I can't lie, it also scared me. What scared me about designing a vision was that I knew somehow we must integrate that structured vision plan with the reality of what went on day to day. I wasn't certain that I had the mental bandwidth to take care of the daily AND pursue the vision. Unless something changed, we were never going to reach our vision. I'm delighted to report that's NOT what happened. We did the work step by step, stumbling at the beginning yet eventually finding our stride. 


What I found was that because we had a vision and plan in place, I could enjoy the guidance these documents provided when making decisions about summer opportunities and registering for upcoming classes and activities. If the opportunities fit our plan, we could integrate them. If they didn't, we made the necessary decisions. We designed the plan to possess structure, yet it also held space for flexibility. Gone was that stressful feeling of "flying by the seat of our pants" and wondering if we were going to reach a purposeful destination. I can write to you today and say designing our family's education vision was one of the best things we did for our family.


I'll share more about the nuts and bolts of designing a vision in a future blog, but for now, let's address executing a vision. Obviously, the execution of a written vision is where the rubber meets the road. The truth, though, is that the pursuit of any vision requires real effort, sacrifice, and embracing choices when you may not feel like it. Initially designed & led by parents, the child who is becoming a young adult gradually takes more and more initiative in the process. Maintaining a team culture, however, is important. The plan works best when all team members are completely convinced of the vision's value. The more convinced, the more commitment or buy-in there is, and the better the outcome. Team accountability will strengthen momentarily weakened resolve. With time & engagement, focus on the vision takes hold, positively impacting day-to-day tasks, fostering the desired results, and building positive energy.