Workshop Electives offered by Barbara Smith

Elective 1
“Avoiding Burnout – Keeping Going When the Going Gets Tough” 1 1/2 hrs
Symptoms of burnout
Causes of home school burnout
Strategies for avoiding burnout

Comments made to us after this talk:

• I was going to send my children back to school until I heard you give this talk. Now I am going to keep home educating them
• I was really worried about home schooling. I didn’t think I could do it. After hearing this talk I’m going back to fill in my exemption form.
• Excellent tips and advice
• Good – Our marriage needs work so does our own and children’s discipline
• Helpful, relevant
• Great brainfood
• I felt a huge burden lifted when Barbara spoke about not having to sit down with text books to learn but by just living and learning. Excellent.

Elective 2
“Keeping Going When the Going Gets Tough – Marriage” 1 hr

https://hef.org.nz/2004/keeping-going-when-the-going-gets-tough-part-1-3-marriage/

Elective 3
“Keeping Going When the Going Gets Tough – Loving, Consistent Discipline” 1 hr

https://hef.org.nz/2004/implementing-the-4-ds-of-child-discipline/

Elective 4
“Training Our Children’s minds”, “The Tools of Learning” and “Motivation” 1 1/2 hrs
Barbara takes the Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric stages of a classical education and applies it to a Hebrew/Interpersonal approach. This is a good workshop no matter what curriculum you are using or not using.

Here are some comments made about these electives:

• Very valuable info picked up from this session
• I would like to let you know how much I enjoyed your talk – and how very inspired it left me! My children are all under 10, so we began straight away (we have been un-schooling), and after only one week, all the kids are doing really well. (So am I — I like the simplicity.) So, thank you very much – keep up the good work. Kind Regards, Vicki.
• Thanks sooo much for your time on Saturday at WHSA. I enjoyed listening to you both. Barbara, I am going to introduce your memory box — daily, weekly etc! – Love Leanne
• Thank you for all the work you did to prepare and present the classical homeschooling workshops in South Auckland. It was a real encouragement. Thank you for sharing your vision for homeschooling. Thank you for generously giving your time in this way, for sharing your love for the Lord and how that translates into educating your children. Love, Tarnya
• I went to the homeschool workshop last weekend, and it was lovely to see some of you there. Barbara Smith led some excellent workshops on classical education. I was renewed in my vision for where we are going and in the joy of the journey!
• Good explanation of the logic stage in classical education. Still very down-to-earth and practical. Appreciated finding out about resources.
• Excellent tips and advice
• Helped me to focus again on memory work for our younger ones
• Lots of things to think about
• Read Read Read Read! I think it hit me that reading to our children is so important
• A very interesting and informative workshop.

Some comments in the Wellington Home Schoolers Association newsletter:

• The Classical Education session was what I enjoyed, especially the reminder that one to the best things I could do for my children was to read myself and also to read to the children more. I like the idea of memory cards for maths facts, memory verses, poems, etc. Kaye
• I particularly enjoyed the Classical Education session led by Barbara Smith. I realised I have trained my mind very successfully to “forget”, rather than remember. I have instigated the memory card idea in our home, and am now focusing on training minds to “remember”. Jennifer
• The idea that grabbed my attention in the Classical Education session was that after the children have mastered the basic facts, it should only take 2-4 years to teach them the tools of learning! i.e. how to write an essay, take notes, summarise material, and how to research, etc. Once they have the tools they can then learn whatever they want to, and hopefully you will then have a motivated, independent learner. The other idea that I found helpful is the one about the stages of learning – the age of knowledge when facts are easily learned, followed by the age of understanding, which is then followed by the wisdom age, when things will be applied. Jocelyn

https://hef.org.nz/2003/training-childrens-minds/

Elective 5
“Training Our Children/Youth to Be Pure“ from a Christian perspective
What does it mean to “Train up a child”?

Elective 6
“Home Educating Through Secondary and Preparing For Tertiary Education and the Workforce”

Elective 7                                                                                                                                                                                                                     “Books, Great Books and More Books – Creating your own library; how to use it” How is your home library coming along? From her years of home education experience Barbara will share her wisdom of what it really is worth spending your money on to develop your home library. What books are of greatest value? And Why?

Elective 8
“Raising our Daughters to be Godly Wives and Mothers”

Elective 9
“Training our Children to Worship”

https://hef.org.nz/2003/training-our-children-to-worship/

Elective 10
“Getting Started in Home Education”

Elective 11
“Keeping Going in Home Education”

Elective 12
“Home Education Support Groups”

Elective 13
“Christian Parents Preventing and Changing Rebellion in a Child’s Heart”

Some comments about this elective:

*Agree with Principles taught – good references to look up afterwards

*I was very interested to learn about sheltering/protecting our children. Wow, we need to be so careful. Thanks for your wisdom.

*Really enjoyed Barbara’s teaching, her honesty and transparency. We need to hear more of this teaching. She has transformed my thinking in raising and training our children

https://hef.org.nz/2008/changing-the-heart-of-a-rebel-2/

Elective 14
“The Biblical Trustee Family”