Pajama School Blog

Pajama School, Stories from the Life of a Homeschool Graduate

Join Us at the TPA Homeschool Conference!

by natalie

In just over a week, hundreds of thousands of people will converge on the Century II Convention Center in downtown Wichita. True, most of them will be coming for the annual River Festival festivities, but a good couple thousand will brave the masses to attend the Teaching Parents Association homeschool convention. 🙂

My mom and a friend will be running the Pajama School booth full of lots of great resources. And I’ll be hanging out with all the staff, teachers, and children at Adventures In Character – one of my favorite places to be! Here’s our theme this year:

Enemy Encounter

We have an amazing group of young people that come together each year to put together the program. You can see pictures and bios of the staff and advisory committee members on the AIC website. Here are a few other snapshots from our preparations:

AIC

Alexander, Wesley, Annabelle, and Mr. Davidson discuss some of the details of scene eight.

AIC

Captain Finney prepares his crew for the imminent attack of the pirates.

AIC

The dread pirate captain, Adolphina, and her scraggly pirate crew, are ready to take on the crew of the ship, Speranza. We are also thrilled this year to have composer Jared Kraft writing original music for our drama soundtrack!

AIC

Our first teacher training was a tremendous success!

AIC

The Lord has raised up a host of godly young people to serve in every aspect of AIC. We are truly grateful! If you’re in the area, there is still time to register for the convention. The keynote speaker for the adults this year is Voddie Baucham, so it should be a wonderful weekend of challenging and inspiring messages!

EventBloggers.com Provides the Opportunity for Everyone to Attend the SAICFF…Virtually!

by natalie

EventBloggers.com As I mentioned several weeks ago, our family is planning to attend the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival this year. We are thrilled for the opportunity to visit some of our Texas-dwelling friends, explore the sights around San Antonio, partake in the festivities at the event, and enjoy fellowship with lots of people who are actively engaged in impacting the culture!

I’ve wanted to attend the festival in previous years, but have had to content myself with reading reports from others who attended. This year, those who can’t attend in person will almost feel like they are there because I’m excited to report that my friend, Caleb Hayden, and his friend, Mark Stubblefield, have launched EventBloggers.com. They will be providing  “up-to-the-instant social media updates on Facebook and Twitter, video reports and interviews on YouTube, and blog posts with recaps of the films, workshops, and all the exciting happenings.” Also from their website:

“EventBloggers.com is part of a larger vision for a journalism organization with a global reach – Providence Report. We are excited about our planned 2011 launch of this organization that will inform and equip the body of Christ for disciple-making to fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and to demonstrate the good news of the gospel around the world.”

What an exciting vision that I pray will bear much fruit in the years ahead! Hope you all will be able to join in on the action in San Antonio. 🙂

Win a Free Ticket to the Heart of the Matter Online Conference!

by natalie

Heart of the Matter Online Conference

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I’ve been asked to speak at the 2010 Heart of the Matter Online Conference. The conference will be February 22-24, 2010, and you can enjoy the whole thing from the comfort of your own home! Here’s a tid bit from their website:

Are your feet dragging? Do you need a little pick-me-up? Winter is wrapping up and we are anxious for spring — for green, for sunshine, for life, for a little oomph in our homeschool day. It’s easy to get bogged down and for things to turn hum-drum.

A Woman Inspired and Heart of the Matter Online are excited to bring you a Homeschool Refresher conference that is sure to give you a boost.

This conference will feature some speakers chosen specifically for their ability to revive, rejuvenate, and renew the hearts and minds of their audience. You are sure to walk away motivated and inspired to achieve great things!

Incredibly, the full price for the conference is only $12.95, but HOTM has allocated five free tickets to give away on my blog! All you have to do is leave a comment below to enter the giveaway drawing. And…if you want to earn extra entries in the drawing, just post about it on your blog, twitter, or facebook with a link back to this post and leave another comment letting me know about the additional postings. I’ll give you one additional entry for each place that you post!Thanks for helping spread the word!

(BTW, you can click here to view the page for my workshop: Everything Your Child Needs to Know and How to Teach it to Them.

Counting Down to the Convention

by natalie

TPAAIC

After months of planning and preparing, we have entered the final week leading up to our annual TPA homeschool convention. Chris Klicka and James and Stacy McDonald are our keynote speakers for the weekend. We also have an excellent slate of workshops lined up. I can’t wait to get the recordings from the sessions and listen to all of them. I won’t have a chance to hear them live because I’ll be in Adventures in Character where we are taking a trip deep into the jungle!

This will be the first convention ever where I’ve been a vendor, and my Mom has graciously agreed to run the Pajama School booth for me. I will be doing a book signing at 6:30 on Friday evening, so if you’re in the area and are attending the convention, please stop by and say hi! I’m excited to get a little taste of exhibiting at a convention in preparation for my trip next month to exhibit at the Colorado State Conference!