Activity Days for Homeschool Groups

Support group leaders are busy people. This session is based on Marcia K. Washburn’s book, Activity Days for Homeschool Groups & Families. Recommendations for organizing activity days (frequency, location, costs, leadership, etc.) are central to this workshop. It includes a potpourri of ideas for support group activity days including Hands-On Art, Hands-On Math, Dissection Day, Bible Quizzing, Community Service Day, etc. Many families enjoy using the activities in their own homes, as well. The workshop can be taught using either a lecture or hands-on format.

Building a Financially Free Home

Do you have a SILKS family (Single Income, Lots of Kids)? This presentation casts a vision for debt-free living and gives practical suggestions for doing so. Lots of handouts and examples (but no sales pitch!).

Building Tomorrow’s Generation (While Cleaning Up Today’s Spilled Milk)

The work we do as homeschoolers extends far beyond teaching the Three R’s. We are partners with God as we lay a firm foundation in our children’s lives so their faith won’t crumble under pressure. In this session Marcia casts a vision for teaching generationally, looking beyond the daily challenges of crying babies, clinging toddlers, correcting papers and, yes, cleaning up spilled milk.

Discipline 101

What does the Bible teach about disciplining our children? Before we teach the academics, we must train them in obedience and attentiveness. This presentation deals with issues such as parental self-discipline, unity, winking at sin, exasperating your child, and righteous correction. Instructions for developing a personalized parenting manual are included. Note: This important presentation lasts two hours

Eight Habits for Highly Successful Homeschooling

This workshop contains advice and anecdotes from a veteran of nineteen years of homeschooling. Among the topics: finding support, avoiding isolation and legal troubles, recognizing counterfeit programs, and encouragement for the journey ahead.

Grace Notes

This session explores the many ways that God extends grace to us as we journey through life. Rich in personal illustrations, it is designed to encourage, uplift, and inspire listeners to trust that God does indeed have a wonderful and unique life message to speak through each of us.

Homemade Convenience Foods

Have you ever wished you could spend more time with your family and less with your pots and pans? This practical workshop shows you how to break free from the kitchen and get tasty meals on the table in fifteen minutes—without using TV dinners! Recipes and techniques are included.

Homeschool Training Camp—Preparing for a Winning Season

This workshop contains advice and anecdotes from a veteran of nineteen years of homeschooling. Among the topics: finding support, avoiding isolation and legal troubles, recognizing counterfeit programs, and encouragement for the journey ahead.

Homeschooling through Difficult Days

Life’s challenges don’t stop just because we are homeschooling. Sickness, accidents, moves, caring for elderly relatives, crisis pregnancies—they’re all a part of God’s custom-designed curriculum for us. Practical coping tips and encouragement for the journey are the focus of this sensitive presentation.

Management for Moms: Friendly Advice from a Homeschool Vet

This popular presentation reflects Marcia’s nineteen years of experience homeschooling her five sons. It includes hints for teaching several children at once, coping with household duties, dealing with doubting friends and relatives, supporting the marriage relationship, and encouragement for the journey.

Music Education for Musically Illiterate Moms

Many homeschoolers have trouble fitting music into their busy school days—time, expense, and lack of confidence all contribute to the problem. This workshop gives practical, hands-on ideas for all ages that any parent can do. A second workshop giving additional hands-on activities for making music at home is available.

PRESENTATIONS FOR MUSIC TEACHERS

Marcia also teaches workshops for music teachers that are based on her popular book, Talent to Treasure: Building a Profitable Music Teaching Business. Please contact her at marcia@marciawashburn.com for further information.

Scheduling Your Priorities

This session is designed to help parents discern the priorities God has chosen specifically for them, realizing that those priorities will differ between individual Christians and during various seasons of their lives. We will focus on building a framework for decision-making and offer specific tools for following through with those decisions. Our purpose is not to share time-saving hints (how to shoehorn more activities into your day) but, rather, how to live in such a way that you can say as you fall into bed at night, “Lord, I have finished what You called me to do this day.”

Teach Yourself to Play the Recorder

In this workshop you will learn to play the soprano recorder. No music-reading skills are necessary. Resource lists and beginning music will be handed out at the workshop. You may provide your own instrument or purchase one from your hosting organization. Marcia will assist in making arrangements for group purchases.

Teaching Young Children

Expensive curriculum is not really necessary for your little ones. Learn ways to teach your pre-school, kindergarten, and first grade children with items found around the house. Subjects include beginning reading, math, science, history, music, art, physical education, and character education. Ideally presented as a two-hour workshop, but a one-hour version is available.

The Frontiers of Homeschooling

Looking for something different for your group? In this presentation, Marcia details the story of the first-ever home education conference in the jungles of Ecuador. Using Shuar Indian artifacts and PowerPoint photos, she weaves in encouragement, humor, and the “why” of home education, leaving a memorable “take home” message for her listeners. Fascinating for children and adults. Note: This is available as a 60, 90 or 120-minute presentation.

The Ideal Homeschooling Mother

Women have a tendency to compare themselves unfavorably with other women, and homeschooling moms are no exception. This encouraging presentation explores God’s plan for your homeschool and why He chose you to mother your children. It reminds us to live our lives one chapter at a time and to gain strength from mentoring relationships.

The Joys of Raising Boys

It is no accident that boys, toys, noise, and joys are rhyming words. Rich with humor and stories, this presentation challenges attendees to look beyond the dirt and debris inherent in a household filled with boys and toward the goal of raising godly men for the Kingdom. Lots of practical ideas from a mother of five sons.

Things I Learned in the Garden

I’m not much of a gardener, but that hasn’t kept God from teaching me many things while on my knees trying to tell a weed from a seedling. This workshop explores issues of character, discipline, and making choices—for children and parents.

Weekend Conference Option

Marcia offers multiple options to customize your event to the needs of your group. For example, many groups desire a leadership event for leaders on a Friday evening, followed by a day of workshops on Saturday for the general membership of the group. Arrangements can be made to include one or more workshops with activities for children, if requested. Messages centered on specific themes can be arranged, e.g. “The Hats Women Wear,” complete with a fashion show. Contact Marcia with your ideas and she will assist in making your event extra-special.

What Makes Your Child Tick?

Have you ever wondered why your child thinks and acts the way he does? Why he expresses himself so differently from his siblings? How to find and nurture the unique gifts God has placed in him? In this session, we will build an understanding of personality types, love languages, and spiritual gifts so that you can raise your children with a greater understanding of their uniqueness.

Talent to Treasure: Building a Profitable Music Teaching Business

Have a heart for music but no head for business? Transform your musical skills into extra income: Talent to Treasure shows you how. Marcia Washburn, BA, MME, is a seasoned piano teacher, writing with authority about a subject she knows intimately and loves passionately—connecting people with music. Her warm and personable style immediately draws in the reader. She targets the woman who wants to share her love of music with others while continuing to serve her family at home. A valuable resource for rookie and veteran teachers.

Next Generation Publishing 2009

Activity Days for Homeschool Groups and Families

“The book homeschool support group leaders have been waiting for…” “Relief for busy leaders…” “This book is a gift to the dedicated parents who, despite their own busy lives, are willing to serve God by serving other homeschooling families. With this book, you won’t need to reinvent the wheel or exhaust yourself in order to get the wonderful results activity days can yield. You can quickly become an effective leader without the painful process of trial and error. Marcia Washburn has been down the road before you and she’s willing to share the best of what she’s learned in eighteen years of organizing events…In this book she’s addressed every detail, so you’ll have less stress and more success.” ~From the Foreword by Susan C. Anthony, author of Facts Plus!

Next Generation Publishing 2001