Free Online Homeschool Conferences and Workshops

When I first started homeschooling, I was very excited to attend my local homeschool conference. Although in person conferences are great, especially when it comes to learning about your local homeschooling laws, they can be expensive if you have to travel and find babysitters - or pay for your children to attend the conference.

I also found myself overwhelmed with new information, and I had very little time to process it while racing between conference sessions.

I was overjoyed when I found my first online homeschool conference, sponsored by HECOA. For the simple price of sharing my email address, I was rewarded with free workshops that helped me think about what I really wanted to do with my homeschool, and helped lesson the guilt that I felt for not attending my state homeschool convention.

Although the information wasn't the same as the information that was shared in my local homeschool conference, it was still valuable information that has helped me become a better homeschool teacher, and a better parent.

As I am writing this, in February of 2018, there are currently three free online homeschool conferences that are happening this month.

Most of the conferences that I have attended have replays that are available for free - usually for a 24-48 hour period after the conference session first airs. They also usually have an option where you can purchase the session. Although this is helpful for some people, I have never purchased the sessions from the online conferences that I have attended.

I do still have a problem with being overwhelmed with data from the online workshops, but at least I can take a break and do something different for a while between sessions.

I hope you enjoy attending free online homeschool conferences as much as I do, and I hope they bless your homeschool.

Even though I do not live in Canada, I really enjoy the Canadian Homeschool Conference. This year the conference includes session for Youth and Kids, in addition to the parents sessions. In addition to these workshops, The Canadian Homeschool Conference offers live chats using Zoom, and a Vendor Hall Giveaway Game which allows you to search for clues in the vendor hall in order to win entries for a giveaway.

I am really looking forward to learning how to take control of my digital curriculum, and to learn more about dictation - and teaching language arts in only 5-10 minutes a day. Trying to decide what kind of language arts curriculum to use next year has been bothering me for the last two months!

I am also looking forward to watching the kids sessions with my kids, so that we can learn more about Canadian history, and the Arctic. The Life in Nunavet session will fit in nicely with some things we have been talking about lately.

I love the format of The Homeschooling and Liberty Summit. Attendees are emailed one email per day containing that days workshop, and each session is available for 24 hours. It is so much easier for me to find 30-60 minutes a day to listen to one workshop than it is to try to find the time to listen to 3-4 session, which is so common in the free online homeschooling conferences.

The Start Homeschooling Summit is from February 19-24, 2018. They offer 34 free workshops that are 100% online. Although I have been homeschooling for several years, I find that I can still learn things from this type of workshop. I am especially looking forward to the sessions on An Educating Life: The Simple Plan for an Engaging Homeschool by Bethany Ishe, and Self-Directed Education and the Future of Learning by Kerry McDonald and her 11 year old, unschooled daughter Molly.