Congratulations to Dianne G. who won the Kids Love VA State Guide.
Didn’t win? That’s ok – stop by to see Kids Love Travel at the HEAV convention and pick up a State Guide of your very own!
Be sure to tell Michele Homeschooler on the Edge said Hi!
Thanks for the giveaway Kids Love Travel!
Hello and welcome to the HEAV Exhibitor Interview Series. This is a five part series (as I talked to five different exhibitors) and I hope to present one every few days or so. The vendors I spoke with all attended the CHAP (Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania) convention during the second weekend in May. They are also going to be attending the HEAV convention during the second weekend in June.
To learn more about the HEAV convention or to register you can go directly to their website.
Today and over the next few convention posts we are going to focus on exhibitors. What are exhibitors? Who are exhibitors? Which exhibitors will be at HEAV?
Well, the last question is the easiest to answer. To find out which exhibitors will be at HEAV simply check out the Exhibit Hall Link on the HEAV Convention page.
To meet a few of the vendors more personally – keep reading.
Today we are going to talk about travel. And our featured exhibitor today is:
A number of years ago I met Michele Zavatsky at the HEAV Convention. Michele, together with her husband George have written 14 State Guides and 2 Interstate Guides. Kids Love Travel also carries Carol Marsh mysteries (Real Kids in Real Places) as well as State Activity books, Travel Games and Invisible Ink Books.
So what is the difference between checking out a Kids Love Travel State Guide vs. looking online or picking up any old guide book. The difference is huge!
The mission statement of Kids Love Travel is to help families “create family memories”. According to Michele, “Sometimes, the most special memories a family can have are those that have been created when taking the family “out of its daily routine”. When we were children we were blessed to travel to many states with our parents and still talk about the trips like it “was just yesterday”. We have “lived” each book with our kids, write about the best “kid-friendly” places, and remove the frustration that comes from planning a trip that will create special family travel memories. When you purchase one of our guides, many of our readers (now more than 200,000) tell us that they feel as if they have a personal guide with them! Thanks…that was our goal!“
Located in Columbus, Ohio, Kids Love Travel has been in business for over 16 years and have sold over 200,000 guide books. While I have learned quite a bit about Kids Love Travel from hearing them speak at convention and reading the books; I learned even more during my email interview with Michele.
Did you homeschool your children? How long have you been attending homeschool conventions? Our books have been called “Field Trip Bibles” by many homeschoolers. We homeschooled our own kids for years while traveling to research sites for our books. We display our books at all large, state-wide homeschool conventions for each state. Most happen in the spring and early summer each year.
Michele Zavatsky – Kids Love Travel
What do you hope people will gain if they come by your booth at the HEAV convention in June? They are great resources to plan educational, fun day and week trips by travel theme (use our popular Activity Index). More importantly, not only can you find my insider tips (where to find freebies, what to wear, what to ask for additionally at the admission desk, where to find downloadable curriculum) in print on most every page of a book, but I’m there to answer those personal questions you’ve been dying to ask an expert who understands family budgeting and homeschooling in one breath!
I see on your website that you are now providing eBooks. This is great as they will be very portable. Can you tell me which of your books are available in the ebook format as well as if there is a recommended ereader or one that have tested well for your books? ebooks are available for every book in print, except KIDS LOVE INDIANA (but a little birdie says a new version is out soon!). The books are epdf format on our website. If you have an apple product, GoodReader apps work best to read pdfs. Otherwise, many of our books are now on Amazon as print and ebooks. Kindle offers free apps to format the book on any platform.
Have you traveled to all of the places in your books? Well, we’ve been to 5000 places (and counting)! With 500 listings in each book, it’s close (14 books in the state-by-state series). We have pretty much visited every museum, historical site, lodging or dining, and many outdoor exploring venues. Just not able to hit every state park or festival in the land. Wish we could!
Do you have any new books in the works? Hum…not sure where wind takes us but looks like something with the word “New” in it!
Do you ever need or want people to send in ideas about places to visit? We get updates from readers all the time.
So far I have the Kids Love Virginia, the Kids Love Florida and the Kids Love Pennsylvania books. Regular readers of my blog will know that when we decided to move to Pennsylvania I wasn’t the most excited person in the world. After all, having been born, raised and lived all of my life so far in VA this was a major change for me. One thing that helped was Kids Love Travel.
Yes, I know it doesn’t say – Kids Love Moving – but here is how it helped. At the HEAV convention I went to see Michele at the Kids Love Travel booth. I told her that we were going to be moving to PA sometime soon and asked her if they had any books about PA. They of course have a wonderful book – Kids Love Pennsylvania.
I purchased this book, and then went back home and shared it with all of my friends and family. I had each person look through the book and pick out places that they would want to visit when they came to see us. Now, not only do I have a book that has given us lots of tips and new places to visit, but whenever I look in my book I see the notes from my friends back in VA.
Think you know everything about Virginia? Want to know of more fun places to go and things to see. Do you want to win a “Kids Love Virginia” book?
Michele and Kids Love Travel will be at the HEAV Annual Convention you can win a FREE Kids Love Virginia Book. Enter to win here – once the winner is chosen they will receive a certificate to present to Michele at the Kids Love Travel booth at the HEAV convention. You do need to be able to pick up the book @ the HEAV convention.
Thanks to Kids Love Travel for the giveaway! If you want to find Kids Love Travel – they are all over the web –
We had a great day today – it was an impromptu kind of day, but it turned out to be a great day for science.
We started off with Princess and I outside. I had been mowing the grass and then Princess and I were working in the garden. While in the garden Princess spotted a butterfly – needless to say all thoughts of turning over soil and getting the garden ready were forgotten for the moment as we NEEDED to follow that butterfly.
Princess sneaking up on the butterfly – she is hiding behind part of a bush that we had cut earlier.
Using stealth mode (i.e. hold a branch in front of your while tiptoeing towards the butterfly) we were able to get close enough to get a picture.
Then because she is super gentle Princess managed to convince this butterfly to sit on her fingers.
Princess was still wearing her gloves from gardening.
and of course, in case the butterfly was hungry – we had to give her a flower
At this point Princess and I decided that it would be ok if we kept the butterfly for a day or so, however while I was inside looking for our butterfly habitat – she flew off. I came out to find a very sad little Princess sitting in the grass. However, a short investigation realized that the butterfly had not gone far, so we were able to safely catch her and place her in our butterfly habitat with flowers and sugar water feeding station.
After the butterfly was safe – Princess decided to make a blind where she could hide and watch for more butterflies. She started off with a stick and a chair - and then Mom got involved and . . . well – it kinds evolved into this —
(I should probably explain here that I have a degree in engineering – as a homeschool mom I can teach math fairly well, English (from a book), and build all sorts of things with Lego bricks, pillows, or tree branches!)
As the day went on we saw our rose bush’s first blossom -
Found quite a few of our caterpillars had cocooned -
and the biggest surprise – We discovered that Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches molt. It was a bit of a shocker to look in on Honey and discover this white thing crawling out of her shell at first, but then we got to watch her finish and then change back to her black and brown coloring. (The change in color takes quite a few hours and is a gradual thing – but very cool to see).
All in all – it was a good day for science and I have to say one of the great parts was that none of it was planned. We were just enjoying God’s world and found ourselves surrounded by nature and therefore – science!
What kind of impromptu learning have you done? Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a project and then realized – hey – this is school!?
I recall seeing a saying the other day (yes, I know, seeing a saying sounds weird – I should have heard a saying, but it was posted online so I saw it rather than heard it.) Anyway – the saying was this:
I am not sure who said this, so I am not sure who to attribute it to. I do, however, wholeheartedly agree! There is also such a thing as not enough space to put all of the bookcases. So when you get to the point that there are books on all of your bookcases, books stacked in baskets in your bathrooms, books piled high on night stands, and books threatening to fall on your youngest child whenever they walk down the hall – then it is time to think about parting with some books. The great part about this is the Used Curriculum Sale (or UCS) – you know how you feel when you see a new book and you just must have it – someone will look at your books like that and they will pay you money for them. (Which you can then use to buy more books and a helmet for the smallest child so they don’t get hurt when the books land on their head.)
I am going to walk you through the steps for the HEAV UCS. Why? Because I am going to HEAV and I am taking other peoples books with me and this is not only good for you, but will also teach them how to enter their books. :) See – we are all learning together – isn’t that nice.
Here we go:
and your computer will melt into a sad little heap of plastic, metal and smoke. (Just kidding – well, about part of it anyway.)
Note: Not all of the categories are required, however be sure to fill out the ones that are in order to avoid an error.
Description (*Required): Here you add (as briefly as possible) the description of the book or item being sold, further down you will be able to indicate grade and category, so the best thing here is the title and subtitle is available. Some people will indicate if the book has been used or not. Subject / Category (*Required): These are both drop down selection boxes - the second box will be active or not depending on your choice of category. For example, if you select 1st grade, the subject box will become active and you can select Language, Math, Social Studies or Science. Publisher: Here you can list the book publisher if desired - I generally only do this if it is a popular publisher such as Saxon, BJU, Scholastic, etc. Year/Edition: This is optional # of Items (*Required): If you are selling items together (such as several books of a series, or a textbook and workbook, indicate the total number here. Condition: This drop down selection allows you to choose a condition for you items. Bear in mind that people will be looking at and flipping through your items, so if the outside looks new, but the inside is written all over your condition marker should reflect that. Friday Price (*Required): The UCS is open on Friday and Saturday. That is why you have a Friday Price and Saturday Price option. People will spend a little more on Friday to get something they really need or want, on Saturday they will also spend money on things they may like or want to try. A good rule of thumb is to choose your Friday price and then knock down your Saturday price by 1/3 to 1/2. Saturday Price (*Required): See Friday Price Donate: This check box indicates if you want to donate your books or if you want to come and collect the ones that didn't sell after the sale is over. If you choose to donate your books, it is wise to lower the Saturday price by at least 1/2 if not more; after all, it is better to get something for them rather than nothing at all. Add another: This little check box is a wonderful help. If you are entering in more than one book at a sitting, then keep this box checked and after you hit the "Create" button, the box will clear and be ready for the next item.
Once all of your items have been entered and you have checked over your list to make sure you don’t have any corrections to make you will need to print your labels. Clicking on the Print Labels link in the right-hand menu brings up a new tab (or possibly a new window, it may depend on your browser setup.)
This new window gives you options and instructions. You can choose to print all of your labels, only those that haven’t yet been printed, certain labels, etc.
You will get TWO copies of each Label - this is important. The reason you get two copies is so that you can place one copy on the outside of the book and one label on the inside (in case the outside label falls off). It is amazing how many books end up on the “No Label Table” at the UCS – if your label falls off and you don’t have one secured on the inside, your book won’t be able to be sold.
HEAV asks that you use ONLY ONE strip of tape ACROSS the MIDDLE of the label. The way I figure it, HEAV has been doing this convention for 30 years, if they recommend that I only put one strip of tape and I have an label on the inside and outside – I’m going with their recommendations.
So that was my brief “How To” on the UCS Barcoding system. If you have other questions or if you want more details – Visit the “How to Sell” page on the HEAV website.
Thanks for taking the time to read through my little tutorial. If you would like me to bring your books to convention, I only charge a modest fee. :-) Send me a note – we’ll chat.
Otherwise – See you in June!! And don’t forget HEAV’s Bounty Of Blessings – 30 Days of Giveaways is going on through the end of April – don’t miss out on the last few days of goodies!!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
So you are going to convention! (Notice I didn’t say you are thinking about going, you are wondering if you should go, you might be going – I just said you are going – consider this permission to go)
Anyway – now you have to start preparing – over the course of the next few days, weeks, hours (depending on how many minutes I can squeeze together at one time) I am going to be posting tips. For those loyal readers who have been here all along, you will recognize quite a few things from the TCTGYRFC newsletter. I “borrowed” (sometimes word for word) quite liberally from them. But it’s OK – it’s my newsletter as the President, CEO, CFO, ROYGBIV, and Supreme Overall Queen of TCTGYRFC – I can do that!
(on a side note – for those who haven’t figured out the acronym - TCTGYRFC == The Committee To Get You Ready For Convention)
#1 – Use return address labels to save you time when filling out door prize entries. To do this, you will want to print return address labels with your name, your homeschool name (if you want), your address, your phone number and your email address. This way you can use these labels to place onto the little door prize entries at all (or most) of the tables. This will save you over 3 hours in the vendor hall. Want to see the math? Check out my post: Filling out Door Prize Tickets.
#2 – Use return address labels to put your name in your homeschool books that you lend out. The plus side here is two fold – One the person who borrowed your book knows that it is yours and can get it back to you and B if and when you go to sell the book you can take a blank return address label and cover over the one with your name one it.
#3 – Well, you know you can use these on your letters and such, right?
Anyway – stay tuned – next time we will talk about . . .
Wait for it . . .
Almost . . .
3 RING BINDERS!!! Woo hoo!!
Have you ever used return address labels for convention? Have you ever used them for anything else? I would love to hear from you.
mcrooker – Homeschooler on the Edge
