I love this time of year. Every year we come to the family cabin and for the past two years, I have found some time to sit on the front porch of our cabin and think about my goals for our Homeschool for the coming year. That time has rolled around again, and I am currently sitting on the porch of the cabin writing this post about my goals for the 2015 Homeschool Year.

My mom was telling me that my grandfather liked to set up a table on this porch for him to work. It is the same exact spot on this porch I always go in to work! This was a special thing for me to learn about my grandfather because he passed away two weeks before I turned five years old. The last time I physically saw him I was three years old. He and my grandmother were missionaries in Brazil when he died suddenly at the age of 62 from an aneurism. Needless to say, I have no real memories of him at all. This has always been a sad fact for me because my Mama loved her Daddy very much. My grandfather was loved by many and I wish I had had the privilege to know him. Knowing he worked a lot in the same place I like to work on homeschool things makes me feel connected to him, even if in a very small way.

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

This will always be one of the foundational reasons our family has chosen to homeschool. We feel homeschooling affords our family the best opportunity to instill the scriptures into the hearts of our children while they are young. The tangible way we intend to talk about the Scriptures with our girls as we go about our days is to have a Monthly Memory Verse. We have chosen 12 Bible verses, one per month, for the next year. Our desire is to plant a Bible verse in the hearts of our children each month. How awesome would it be if we do this each year until they graduate?! They would have 144 Bible verses memorized as they head out from home!

2. Enjoy these early years.

This was my main lesson learned from last year. Since it was hard to keep up with the academics I learned there is more to homeschool than getting through the curriculum from one year to the next. This is not to say that we do not value the academics. We most certainly do. However, in these early years when my children are in elementary school, I don’t want to look back on these precious years and have missed out on the days of purely enjoying my children in their childhood innocence. These are the days. I will never again in my entire life have my children in this season they are in now. So much potential and opportunity lies in these years. They are a small fraction of my life and my children’s life but they have the potential to make the biggest impact on who my children grow up to be. I don’t want to miss out on this opportunity due to being stressed about getting through curriculum each year!

3. Continue to teach beyond academics; make time to teach life skills!

This goes along with my third goal from last year – to teach my girls independence and responsibility. I am not all about having my girls do their laundry independently by the time they are 8, but I do want to teach my girls age-appropriate household chores. If they show they are ready to learn to do their laundry independently by age 8, then by all means, I will teach them! Starting a Morning Routine last year was my main goal. This year, learning to load and unload (non breakables) dishes from the dishwasher, sweeping the floors and wiping off the table seem like very appropriate and attainable goals for this year.

4. Get our feet wet with Classical Conversations.

We are joining a Classical Conversations community. It will be our first year with CC. I am still trying to figure out what CC is all about and if it is something that we will do long-term or if it something our family will participate in only in the early years. I don’t think I have to know this now; I don’t think I can know this now, which is why my goal for this year is to just get our feet wet! We will go to our community weekly and I purchased the CDs so we can review Memory Work during the week. Beyond that, I have no real expectations. I don’t expect my girls to memorize all of the Memory Work this year. I hope I will be pleasantly surprised and they will click with it and memorize the facts anyway just by hearing the CDs throughout the week. (I play to play them every morning during breakfast and Morning Routine time.) We will explore topics that are of interest to the girls by checking out books from the library. Beyond that, we aren’t doing anything else with CC.

5. Academic goals.

Little Bug

We are sticking to the 3 R’s again this year, with history and science added in through living literature. By the end of the year, I would love for Little Bug to be able to read fluently. I know once reading clicks for her she is going to love being able to read on her own. (I think!) She loves stories and to be able to pick up and book and read the story herself is going to open a new world for her. I can’t wait to witness it. My math goals for her include finishing Horizon’s Math K and heading right into the 1st Grade Horizons Math. I also want to really work hard with Little Bug on memorizing her basic addition and subtraction math facts via flashcards and fun games. My goal with handwriting is to teach her the proper letter formation. Whether she will take what is taught and apply it to the way she has taught herself to form her letters, I don’t know! I have attempted to show her proper letter formation during various times this year and she has responded with, “But I make that letter this way.” Well, all right then. Handwriting may be one battle I choose to not fight with Little Bug. If her handwriting becomes more legible as time goes on, who cares how she forms the letters!

Sweet Pea

It will be Sweet Pea’s last year of preschool. That is hard to believe and I am thankful I have another one to do preschool with. Preschool is fun! By the end of this year, my goal for Sweet Pea is for her to know all her letters and sounds and to begin to be able to read some CVC words in preparation for beginning AAR Level 1 in Kindergarten (if she is ready for that then). For math I will continue to expose her to fun, hands-on math activities so she learns the basics to be able to begin Horizon’s Math K in Kindergarten.

Sarge

My main goal with Sarge concerning homeschool is teaching him to play independently. This is going to be imperative to the success of our homeschool. Once Sarge drops his morning nap (probably sometime after the New Year), I will need him to be content in Independent Playtime in his bedroom for 1 hour during the morning so I can have one hour of morning teaching time with the girls without also having to entertain the toddler! I start this by teaching him to play independently in the pack n play for 20-30 minutes once he starts sitting independently. From there I extend the time until he is playing in his bedroom for 60 minutes every morning around the age of 2. Before I take him out of the pack n play for this time, he will play in his bedroom in the pack n play for 45 minutes.

The only academics for a toddler is reading books and lots of playing!

- Elaine