Homeschool Convention 3 -- Activities (?) and exhibit hall

Saturday, 11:30 AM "Field Tested Suggestions And Activities For Infants Through School-Aged Children"
Carolyn Schulte, "Flowering Baby"

Well, you can't win them all, right?  This one is definitely chalked up to a loss!  She was the sweetest "little old lady" (and I mean that in a flattering way!) but by the time we got through her experience as a public school teacher (in California, no less!) and all about her daughter and especially her grandson, we got very little, if any, suggestions for activities!  By the time she flew through the Powerpoint presentations on actual activities, I was too tired and too cold to write them down.

After that hour-long session, Candace and I split up.  I went to the exhibit hall.  WHOA!  In the program for the convention, there are 4 solid pages of vendors listed.  Page 1 alone had 81 vendors so that means there was probably somewhere around 320 vendors!  Now, not everyone of those vendors was a homeschool company.  There were TONS of colleges (secular & not), there was a Mennonite family-run KitchenAid stand, Lego was there, many places that sold used books, 1 vendor that did only art supplies, and 1 vendor that did t-shirts and things like that (I got a purple tote bag that says "Homeschool Mom Of 6" for $5!).  I picked up a few catalogs, actually picked up and looked at a few books I'm thinking about using next year, and other than my tote bag, I made 1 other purchase.  A friend of mine (thanks, Beth!) had sent me an email earlier in the week with many links on it and I noticed that a place called Knowledge Quest had National Geographic maps 25% off for the weekend.  After I went to Knowledge Quest's founder, Mrs. Johnson's, 8:30 session, I then found a social studies book I was interested in buying called "The Star Spangled State Book".  I stopped by their booth and bought the map I wanted for $17 and that book for $19.  Bonus -- it was TWO maps for that price.  One of the world and one of the US.  They're huge and came laminated!  I've hung the world map on the wall behind our kitchen table and used shipping tape to put the one of the US on our table.  Could have spent hours there going through the booths with used books but, alas, I only had what I thought was 2 hours before the session featuring Michelle Duggar.  Thankfully, my tummy got a hold of me and told me to eat around 1 or I would have really been hurting!  Not finding anything in the exhibit hall that interested me, I followed my nose to the cinnamon almonds up on the 3rd floor but, sadly, didn't buy them and bought a pretzel instead.  At this point, it wasn't even 1:30 yet and the line for Michelle's session was already forming!  So I ate my pretzel while in line for me & Candace.  Michelle's session was the highlight of my day but that's another post that will be on it's way shortly (I hope!).