This is my view as I sit on the porch of the family cabin in the mountains; a place on this Earth that is very dear to my heart. It was here that I enjoyed summer vacations as a little girl, it was here that Dave and I officially crossed the line of friendship and knew our relationship would move towards marriage, it was here we got engaged, here we went on our Honeymoon and here where we now bring our two daughters for summer vacations.

The family will soon join us, but for now, it is just Dave and me here to enjoy a little weekend get-a-away together.

I love the history of this cabin. It was built in 1956 and purchased by my great-grandfather in 1966, two weeks before his death. After his death, his daughter (my great-aunt) took over the cabin. Little did he know he was purchasing something that would become a special place for the entire family and would be passed down from generation to generation. When the upkeep of the cabin got to be too much for my great-aunt, my parents took over the cabin in 1991. One day when it becomes too much for my parents, I know my brother and I will take it over.

And so here I am on the front porch which stretches the length of the cabin.

It is so serene here. So peaceful. So very quiet. As a teenager I can remember I would always spend some time reflecting on the past year and praying about the upcoming school year. I’d do the same during my college years and teaching years. It was always just a nice way to start the new year for me.

I haven’t done this much in the past four years because it’s been a blur of diapers, formula, sleep schedules and managing two small children. But as I find myself now at the brink of a new chapter in my life, I am grateful for some time to sit and reflect on the past four years and pray about our upcoming first year of homeschooling.

I like to be intentional about everything that I do.

Which is why I think it is important that I take some time to map out some specific goals I have for our first year of homeschooling.

1. I want to put an intense focus on instilling the truths of God’s Word into the hearts of my little girls. With this being one of my main reasons for choosing homeschooling, I don’t want to miss any opportunities to mold and shape my girls’ hearts to the truths found in the Word of God. That is my number one goal as a mother and number one goal as their teacher. We haven’t really done any redecorating after moving this spring, but Dave and I do desire to add a few decorations to our new house by writing Scripture on our walls and above our doorposts. In the Old Testament, the people were told to do this so that they would remember the Scripture and we just think it is a wonderful idea to incorporate Scripture into our home décor so that it is where we can all see it, every day. We started by hanging a plaque with the verse “Be still and know that I am God” in the living room. That is one of our favorite verses in the Bible.

2. I truly want this year to be jam-packed full of FUN. I firmly believe that preschoolers need to play and read books more than anything else, academically. Structured seat-work will come but preschool years are just not the time and place for there to be a huge focus on that. I want our days to be full of meaningful play where my girls are learning through hands-on experiences. All of my curriculum choices for this year were made with this in mind. And I feel like each choice is going to provide me a way to structure our days with meaningful learning experiences. I have a post coming soon about our curricula choices for 2013-2014.

3. While I want our focus to be on playing and having fun together, I do have academic goals for each of my daughters. Preschoolers are also sponges for learning and there are many things I want them to learn this year! Little Bug’s academic focus will be on letter recognition and letter sounds. I am not one of those that has to have their 3 or 4 year old reading. If she was expressing interest to learn to read at age four, I would, of course, go for it. The time will come for that, but this year, we will focus on the foundations to learning to read: phonemic awareness, print awareness, letter knowledge, listening comprehension and motivation to read. I feel Little Bug already has a wonderful foundation in these pre-reading skills, but we will spend this year focusing on them even more. I will begin work with Sweet Pea on letter recognition, numbers, counting, colors and shapes. These lists are nowhere near exhaustive but these are the core academic goals I have for them.

4. Our days will be structured even though we officially have no babies in the house for the first time in four years. Little Bug is 4 and Sweet Pea is 2. I am forever grateful that I was given a copy of the Babywise book when Little Bug was 3 months old. That book is the reason I have two children that are truly pleasant to be around (most of the time!), are great sleepers, and who thrive on structure to their days. We might not have babies in the house, but I will continue to use the basics of Babywise as we start this new journey of homeschooling. There will be a time for everything that we make a priority for in our days. I think this is what I love most about Babywise. All throughout my years of having a baby in the house, our days were organized and predictable (for the most part!). Babywise taught me to manage my time so that I knew I had X amount of time each day for XYZ. I know those skills are going to come in handy as I start managing our homeschool routines on top of everything else that must happen to keep our household running efficiently.

5. I want homeschooling to become our family lifestyle, our way of life. We place high value on the family unit and making time to just be a family and not rushing from here to there and having our calendars full every night of the week so that we are rarely HOME as a family. There is so much value in being home as a family; in playing games after dinner, having dance parties in the living room, taking a family walk in the evenings before bathtime and bedtime routines get underway, our children seeing Mom and Dad talk to each other after a day of being apart. Just….being a family. I’d like for Dave to take part in some of our schooling. For now, that simply looks like a Read Aloud time with Daddy after baths. He gives the girls their baths and while I get Sweet Pea to bed (she goes to bed earlier than Little Bug), Dave and Little Bug can often be found lying on the living room floor engrossed in a book. Grams and Gramps are joining in our homeschool journey too! We spend time at their house weekly and we are going to incorporate some preschool science experiments while at their house! Family is a HUGE part of our life, which is one more reason why homeschooling is such a perfect fit for us.

I know what I desire homeschooling to be for my family and the reality of what homeschooling will be for our family might be two completely different pictures! But I feel it is important to have goals in mind, and hopefully we can find one way or another to meet each and every one along the way.

- Elaine