Here are my 2014-2015 Homeschool Goals for my girls. To read my 2013 Homeschool Goals for them click here.

1. Talk about the scriptures as we go about our days.

One of the biggest reasons we have chosen homeschooling as the way to educate our children is because of the time it affords us with our children on a daily basis. These early years especially are critical for development of body, mind and spirit and we want to be as involved in this process as we possibly can. While academics are very important to us, the spiritual growth and development of our children is of utmost importance. Deuteronomy 6:7 tells us to “Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” What a privilege it is to be with my children every day to be able to talk about the scriptures with them all throughout the day as the opportunities arise.

Besides the Bible, Don’t Make Me Count To Three! is probably my #1 parenting book. Yes, it even beats Shepherding a Child’s Heart which is a close (very close) second. Don’t Make Me Count to Three! is FULL of practical advice on how to handle specific situations that arise in parenting. Except this advise is not just advise from some person with a PHD who wrote a book and is instead written by Ginger Hubbard who’s parenting advice goes straight to the Scripture. This book is phenomenal. I need to write a post just about this book and if I do it will be posted to my other blog, Faithfully Infertile.

The nutshell summary of Don’t Make Me Count To Three! is that we as parents must be more concerned about heart issues within our children and not just changing their outward behaviors. The Bible clearly states that it is from the wellspring of the heart that we speak. This book goes into specific examples of how parents can address heart issues (sin!) within their children by using Scripture. I am currently making a list of these behaviors we see in all children and the Scriptures that point children to Christ so that I can constantly address the heart issues within my girls as we go about our day.

2. Continue to foster a desire to learn within my children.

Another reason we’ve chosen to homeschool is to find freedom from the cookie-cutter education children receive in the public school system. We are free to learn about what we want to learn about. If one of my girls becomes interested in frogs then we can go to the library and check out every frog book that we can carry home and then we can learn about frogs to their heart’s content. Children don’t have that same freedom sitting in a classroom with 20 other students and a textbook that the state has mandated they learn from. Parents can certainly encourage their children to learn about what interests them and I have friends with children in the public schools that do this, but, sadly, in our society today, we have a lot of students sitting in public schools right now who think school and learning is boring. I hope to avoid that trend with my daughters by homeschooling them. Sure, we will have parts of our homeschooling that we just have to trudge through and do because it is important for a well-rounded education, but I can also give my girls the joy of learning about what interests them because we have the time and freedom to do so.

3. Work on gaining independence and being responsible.

I have noticed recently that I do too much for my girls. I know it stems from desiring to be a mother and then finally becoming one and then just doting on my girls because they were finally here after our struggle with infertility. As infants and toddlers, they required me to do nearly everything for them understandably so. Now, as preschoolers, I see that we really need to work on gaining more independence and being responsible. Little Bug dresses herself and has since she was three, I believe. This came from Little Bug’s natural personality of wanting to be independent. She started wanting to pick her outfit every morning and I let her! That was easy to let go of and she’s pretty good about even matching her clothes.

Responsibility is something I really need to work on with both girls. Cleaning up toys is the pebble in my parenting shoe. It was a constant, daily battle in our house until I took drastic measures to put the responsibility on the girls and not myself or by me constantly asking them to clean up their toys. Again, I should write a whole post about this, but in a nutshell we 1) reduced the number of toys in our home drastically and 2) made one of our house rules be “Take care of your things” and if toys were not taken care of the consequence would be that the girls would lose those toys. This system has worked and I love it because it puts the responsibility on the girls to take care of their toys.

We are also working on establishing chores for the girls. My goal with this is to find some kind of chart/system that I can make for them so that they can visually see what is expected of them every day. Right now, we are working with Little Bug to clear her plate from the table after a meal and to put away her panties and pjs on Laundry Day. I’d like to also see her start cleaning the table after meals. I also plan to work on getting her to do her Morning Routine without any prompting or reminding from me. The girls having a good Morning Routine that they do every morning without fail and without reminders from Mom is going to be a pivotal part of our homeschool day getting off on the right foot. I don’t want to be asking children to get dressed and do their morning chores when It is already 10am and we should be doing our school work! I want that routine to be so ingrained in them that they wake up and automatically just do it, no questions asked!

4. Academic goals.

Little Bug

For Little Bug’s Kindergarten year I want to keep academics to the 3 R’s (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic). If Little Bug learns to read this year, that will be absolutely fabulous, but I am not going to put the pressure on myself or on her to have her reading by the end of Kindergarten. We can always put off All About Reading Level 1 until 1st Grade if I see she isn’t quite ready for it this year. The Horizon’s math curriculum that I chose will give her a very solid foundation in math which I am very pleased about. This curriculum will challenged her but not push her beyond her capabilities. And then there is writing. I saw great strides in Little Bug’s fine motor skills over the summer when she began coloring in the lines in a coloring book! I am hopeful Handwriting Without Tears is going to give us the tools we need to begin to see Little Bug start forming her letters and numbers on paper this year. Beyond the 3 R’s, I want to continue to develop a love of learning in Little Bug. We will foster this through reading lots of books. Some books I will choose to read to her but a majority of the books will be chosen by Little Bug based upon what she is interested in learning about!

Sweet Pea

Little Bug attended a local preschool when she was 3 years old along with homeschool preschool that I did with her 2-days a week, but I am excited to do preschool with Sweet Pea exclusively at home this year. My academic goals for Sweet Pea are for her to learn most, if not all, of her letters and numbers 0-10. Beyond that I want to work with her on foundational skills that should be learned before entering Kindergarten. Of course I want to make learning fun for Sweet Pea with lessons centered upon literature and fun, hands-on learning activities. I know that will easily be accomplished by using Ready-Made Preschool Level 1. We’ve got two years of preschool ahead of us. I will be sad when I no longer have a preschooler to teach! It is such a fun age to teach because they are little sponges and soak everything up.

- Elaine