Kriston, thank you! It did say that he had been a partner with John Holt, so now I know that I should go to the gifted conference that day. We are not unschoolers. And we're too far gone to restrict computer and tv. (well, we restrict both to educational uses for the most part, but obviously, we spend a lot of time on both)

If we seriously consider that route, I will be contacting you directly!

Here's the info on the seminar:

Teach Your Own
An unschooling seminar for beginners and elementary-school-age home-schoolers
Patrick Farenga, who has addressed audiences around the world about home-schooling and the work of his colleague, the late John Holt, will present a 4 ½ session on home-schooling. Among the topics he will explore are unschooling theory and practice, learning all the time, living with your children during school hours, working with different learning styles and multiple intelligences and how to use private schools, public and private business and more in support of home-schooling. Local home-schooling representatives will also be present.

Thanks Kriston. Whatever you said makes perfect sense to me. I am thinking along the same lines, but my thoughts are all over my head. It's nice to see it all written down.

I really need to go through the hs posts.

I'm sure there would be good stuff at his presentation. I mean, with GT kids, we all are pretty much following the "learning all the time" model, whether we want to or not. LOL!

But if you're hoping to get daily scheduling type info or curriculum suggestions, that probably wouldn't be the HSing speaker I'd recommend.

The stuff on learning styles and multiple intelligences might be useful, though I have yet to find anyone who turns that into really applicable info. It always winds up too generic for me to apply to my own kids. But maybe that's just me...

I guess what I'm saying is that if you didn't have something else to do that day, I'd say go! But if there's stuff at the GT conference that looks more useful, I think I'd do that instead.

Tough decision! Farenga is a popular speaker and I'm sure he has a lot to say. He coauthored a book on home education; I think it was "Teach Your Own". I'd probably go to see him, unless I had a specific reason to attend the conference. The state level stuff can be a bit elementary and "plain vanilla" in tone, though there may be a session or two that caters to parents and teachers of HG plus. Big conferences may give you some perspective though, on how "out there" your own gifties are, and maybe give you a chance to connect with other parents and kids.

Looks like you'll have a good day either way! Have fun!

Yes, I suspect it's hard to go wrong either way!

Ok, ok. Maybe we'll divide and conquer. If I go Friday, DH can take DS on Saturday and I'll go the seminar. If anyone recommends specific books or resources, let me know so that I can take a look at them there if they have them for display.

I went to our state conference and learned about some interesting resources. I mostly went to the sessions geared toward teachers. Those were the sessions of interest to me. I was extremely disappointed that there was not a single session about HG/PG children. Our conference is one of the biggest in the country and not a single session or mention of HG/PG students that I could see. It was almost as if they did not exit.

Hi Questions,
I vote for the HSing lecture (although both is good too) if only to network with the other HSing families. Lots of Holt's stuff makes complete sense to me, and is at least different from the usual way of considering things.

Either way, sounds like a fun weekend!
Grinity

Texas Summer-

It's a shame that a large conference couldn't feature one session on highly to profoundly gifted. Sigh... maybe it is because the big conferences are driven by teacher attendance and those teachers might not think much about levels of giftedness? Maybe you could offer to run a session next year? I saw you mention that you do Zome workshops, so I am guessing that a parent seminar wouldn't be too tough for you to do.

I'm a Zome fan too, BTW, and have done workshops for them as well. Do you know Paul Hildebrandt? He is the President and head Zomer, and he has been very helpful in offering me training on how to do a challenge workshop with younger children.

I was thinking that, too, Lorel. I'd at least put in a request with the conference organizers for a session for next year. If I were really energetic, I'd offer to help plan it.