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Before you start out on a road trip, you typically know where you are headed, right? You have your coordinates plugged into your GPS or maps and directions printed off, ready to help you along your way. You don’t just pile everyone in the car, look at the sun, and then head off in the general direction hoping to figure out eventually where you are headed.
In the weeks and months before you begin homeschooling it is important to have the ‘end’ in sight as well. Without direction or having a plan for your homeschooling, you can wander aimlessly. Having an overall plan in place helps you stay in focus during the school year, adjust your days and weeks when necessary, remain motivated during those ‘slump’ times, and remember what you wanted to see accomplished.
Today I’d love to chat more with your about a few specific areas and also provide you with a few free printables to help you in your planning and goal setting.
Why Are You Homeschooling?
image courtesy of Microsoft
You could be brand new to homeschooling and just sitting down to write down your vision or your overall goals for your family. Maybe this is your first year homeschooling and you just pulled your child out of the school system. Goals can be short or long term and do not only need to include academics. You might also consider character traits, behaviors, etc… Your vision and plan for your homeschool is tailored specifically to your family.
What is it that specifically prompted you to homeschool? Latch onto that passion and consider these additional questions: How do you envision your homeschool looking? Do you have an overall focus? What will you do if you begin feeling burned out? What do you want to be able to say at the end of your school year?
Write down your plans and vision in the first part of the Homeschool Goals and Vision printable.
What Do You Want Your Children to Accomplish?
![clip_image002[5]](https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/clip_image00251.jpg "clip_image002[5]")
image courtesy of Microsoft
For each of your children, it is important to know what you want to see accomplished over the course of your year. Set measurable {and attainable} goals. You may be tempted to think in broad terms, but I would encourage you to be specific in the goals that you put in place with your children. For example, instead of stating ‘finish a math book’, you would set goals of: count from 1 to 100, understand tally marks, know days of the week and months of the year, name seasons, etc…
Maybe you have a list of books that you want to read during the course of the year out loud as a family. Write them down. Anything that you want your children or family to accomplish should be recorded.
Print off several copies of the educational goals pages from the Homeschool Goals and Vision printable.
What Are Your Goals as a Mom and Teacher?
Just as important as setting goals for you children is setting a few for yourself. For me personally, these goals might are being FULLY engaged in what I am doing with our kids {and not get distracted by answering the phone or an email}. Another goal is to get paperwork sorted and entered in a TIMELY fashion {ahem}. Or to respond with patience to the question that has been asked and answered 1,572 times already.
An additional goal that I’ve set for myself this year includes having a weekly time to sit down with our older two and review independent work that they have and make sure both understand what they are working on. Having that goal in front of me reminds me to follow through with them.
Maybe there are a few areas in your day that you struggle with and want to be more accountable in: starting school by _____ time or finishing by ______ time. Just create a list for yourself too and have a friend or your spouse hold you accountable in those areas.
Relax, Think, and Plan
Before you go out and purchase any curriculum, be sure that you know what the educational goals are for your child and family. There are so many wonderful pieces of curriculum that you can buy and use – but not all of them may fit in with the goals that you have for your child. Having goals in place will allow you to evaluate your choices before making any decisions on things to buy.
Evaluate Your Goals and Plans Regularly
As with any plans, there are times that things need to be adjusted and tweaked. Be sure to plan a time every six weeks or school quarter to review your vision and goals to see how you are doing. Are your children making progress on the goals you set for them? Do they need to be modified? How are you doing on your overall goals for the year.
While it may take some time and planning on the front end, having your goals and plans written down ahead of time will only help you and strengthen your resolve on those tough days {ask me how I know}. Homeschooling is an amazing blessing and responsibility – and you CAN do it! Take some time today to remind yourself why you first started – or why you want to begin!
But before you go, I have a question for you!!
We all have different reasons for homeschooling our children, but what is goal that you want to set for yourself the rest of this school year? What one thing would you like to see your children accomplish? Leave a comment today and chime in {and then let’s encourage each other in those goals}!
This post is a part of the Homeschool Basics series. Be sure to read the other posts if you are just joining in. For the record, I am not an expert. I’m a homeschool mom who is sharing what she’s learned so far along the way with her own family.
The printables shared on this site are FREE of charge unless otherwise noted, and you are welcome to download them for your personal and/or classroom use only. However, free or purchased printables are NOT to be reproduced, hosted, sold, shared, or stored on any other website or electronic retrieval system (such as Scribd or Google docs). My printables are copyright protected and I appreciate your help in keeping them that way.
If you download and use some of my printables and then blog about them, please provide a link back to my blog and let me know - I'd love to see how you are using them! Please be sure to link to the blog post or web page and not directly to the file itself. Thank you!
Great info? Love the printables! ;)
Ahhhhh! I must have hit the question mark.. GREAT INFO!!
My goal was to bring back the love of learning like a toddler has. We are almost there. Second, we have the Cal Poly motto, Learn by Doing. That has been a little difficult in my planning department because some things look exciting and fun but falls flat. I am learning by failing sometimes and that is another teachable moment. ;)
that is a GREAT goal, Dalilla – and much needed in so many of our homes. :)
What a great post! I plan on sharing the link on my facebook page for any others who may want to home school or are just starting. What is my goal for myself? Honestly, I’m just at the point, after doing this a little over a year, where I’ve realized that I need a goal for myself to stay motivated. At this point though, there’s nothing that means more to me than having my children walk into our learning time room and be completely and utterly excited about the activities that are out for them to see. I find such genuine contentment in watching my special needs kiddos learn things that others felt them incapable of learning. (Even if that means them waking me up in the middle of the night to show me the moon and identify it’s phase.) I post our activities on our blog http://everystarisdifferent.blogspot.com, mostly for documentation purposes, but I’ve found as others discover my blog, share activities from it, and leave comments, my confidence as a teacher soars. I’ve found the courage to share my activities, which I would have never done a couple of months ago. It’s been fabulous to become a part of the home school blogging world. I learn. I grow. I share. I’m not sure if this makes any sense. But at this point, I think my goal for myself is to enjoy home schooling, not just for my children, but for myself, because I’m doing a great job at it.
I have found that many tend to want to go with the ‘finish the book’ mentality; not just parents, but school teachers as well. I’ve found that with going through college, books are great resources, but are usually terrible instructors on the subject matter.
That is true for some, but we still have some great info to wrap up and finish in several of our books, including history and science. :) there are some workbooks I am definitely ok not finishing, but quite a few of the pieces we use all build on past information learned, so we have to be careful. Very much depends on the book. :) —
Sent from Mailbox for iPhone
So glad I found your site. We are finishing up our 2nd year homeschooling. Next year I’ll have a 3rd grader, who LOVES school, worksheets and games and a Kindergartener who is ALL boy, and currently need lots of hands on activities. I’m currently working on the planning, especially for my Kindergartner. I taught K for 5 years and have TONS of worksheets, that i won’t be using for him. :) Planning tons of ideas to keep him busy this year.
thanks for stopping by! Let me know if you have any questions. :)
Thank you!! This has been very helpful!!
Thank You! I love this site, it has been very helpful!
God Bless
You are welcome, MariLou – I’m happy to hear that. :)
Thanks for posting. I need to write it and see it this year! I think I need the affirmation that we are moving forward! :)
It has been such an encouragement (and/or strong reminder) to me of what our plans were at the beginning of the year, especially as our year goes on. :)
My son is 8 we are from England the last term at school he’s kept coming home from school with brusies so I decided that it was going to stop school said nothing was going on there so we kept him of for the last couple of weeks and the bruises stopped that made our minds up about homelearning
It’s going to left to me to do it I’m just worrying about where to start as the last 2 weeks when I asked my son to do a couple of pages of English and maths he kept saying he can’t do it its too hard and burst out crying but the books I got was for 5 to 6 yrs
It looks like I’m going to have a hard time with him all I want is for him to have a future where he can read and be the best he can be and not to think he is stupid( that I think someone as put in his head )
Nikki – praying for encouragement to you and so thankful you were alert and saw warning signs! Hang in there – it’s going to be an adjustment for both of you. Hugs from America. :)
Hi, I’m brand new to this. I have a 3 year old and I’m wanting to start pre-k with her in the fall (she will be 4). I have no idea but I want to foster an environment that shows learning as fun and engaging. I want her to love to learn. I want our day to start with scripture and end in prayer. That’s about all I know right now.