Homeschooling Conference

The beginning of May brings the WPA Homeschooling Conference.  This has become an annual trek to Oshkosh for our family.  I think that this was our fifth year going.  They have hands-on workshops that the kids enjoy and sit-and-listen talks for the grown ups.  There is a wide variety of people ranging from people just starting to think about homeschooling to folks that have grown-up former homeschoolers to share encouragement.

Since Daddy took Friday off of work, we went up early and spent the afternoon in Appleton at the Paper Discovery Center.  The museum is in an old hydro-powered paper mill on the Fox River.  Our Madison Children’s Museum membership got us in, so we spent some time learning about how paper was made and making some ourselves:

Then we headed back to Oshkosh to do more fun things.  We learned about baking and acting and paper airplanes and gravity powered cars and playing games and letterboxing and making things with duct-tape:

 

and tying knots:

One of the knots was a handcuff knot and, conveniently, we came away with three pieces of rope.  Mama is thinking smooth sailing from here on out.

A dear friend took our little Mollie dog while we were gone and when we came back, she had a new boyfriend (if you ask him) or a new stalker (if you ask her).  So now, when she pulls attitude and tells me that Melinda took her for better walks or had more time for cuddling, I just remind her that Melinda also has her main squeeze living in.

We came home expecting to finish the weekend off with a potluck picnic that wraps up another (local) conference I attended, but it was postponed due to rain and thunderstorms.  It worked out well though.  We still have a potluck with unschooling friends to look forward to and had a gray rainy day at home to unwind from our trip!