Setting Goals In Our Homeschool

One thing I always try to do as we're winding down our homeschool year and I'm looking ahead to the next year is to set a few goals. 


I try not to set so many goals that I couldn't possibly meet them; much like following a planner or buying curriculum,

I don't always follow or remember to focus on my goals.

However, I still like to set some anyway in the hopes that perhaps this time I will meet them.


In setting goals I am forced to look back over the past year and see where the boys have really started blossoming and developing.

I typically look back through ALL the years of homeschooling and see the random jumps and leaps they've each taken in gaining new skills.

I think critically about our schedule and what has been working and what needs to be changed.

I ask the boys for their input and their general feeling about what we have been doing.

I have them reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and ask them what they think they can do to improve.

 I step back and try to look at the big picture; what do they really need to know to succeed in life, what do they need to know (or start learning) now so that they'll have enough time to master those skills, when are certain topics going to be relevant to them and their lives, how much have they learned in the last year, the last 3 years, the last 5 years?

And then I stop and think about how many years I have left with them.  Even with my oldest I still have more than 1/2 of his school- life left!  That's 6 more years and a whole lot of time left!

Keeping everything I've mentioned above in mind, here are some simple goals we've set for our upcoming year:

  • adding more art back into our days & weeks
  • doing more hands on science experiments
  • adding some math flash cards or one minute math test back into our day for quick, easy review and recall of facts.  I really want to build fluency with all the boys on addition, subtraction, multiplication and even division.  
  • Read every day
  • Incorporate more movies & YouTube videos into our school day 

Linking up with:

photo TWTpictures_zpslz1mzxyh.jpg


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prime Purchases I Made in March

Image
 Happy April Fool's day to you! It's the first Monday of the month and time for Prime Purchases with Tanya.  I was doing so well with my Amazon purchases right up until the end of the month when we decided to host Easter dinner at our house and I felt like I "needed" so much not having any Easter decorations at all.  I bought a few new cardigans for this "in between" season and really love this cable knit one so much it's all I can do to keep myself from buying a second one! I also like this gray one.. . but I find myself wishing I had bought it a different color since it's not very "spring" feeling.  Evan needed some new hiking shoes and we really wanted something waterproof this year but our local shoe stores didn't have anything that worked so we turned to Amazon and he found this pair that he really likes.  I've been working on lots of scrapbook pages and I needed to buy some more of these adhesive refills and Cricut cutting
Read more

Alec's Accepted Student Day at JWU

Image
Last spring when Alec started his college planning I was pretty surprised that he only wanted to visit 2 colleges out of state (he visited a few in-state with his high school culinary class).  He ultimately decided to apply to just the 2 colleges we visited-- Johnson and Wales University (JWU) and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Both ranked as the #1 & #2 schools in the U.S for culinary and baking/pastry arts. Funny enough out of his 2 culinary teachers he's had in high school one attended each of those schools!  Photo of harborside campus from last spring JWU Future wildcat photo also from last spring Visiting the CIA over the summer We were lucky that both schools are easily visited in a day and we had a great time touring them both. Alec made sure to ask lots and lots of questions. The two schools were so comparable to one another that we had quite the pro/con list going.  He LOVED the CIA's campus and that it was along a river and rather rural and quiet... but
Read more

Day in the Life: Friday Favorites

Image
 I decided to document last Friday for today's Friday Favorites post. I hardly ever document a day in the life anymore now that my boys are grown and mostly on their own. But I knew we had a pretty full day and thought it might be fun.  These are some of my favorite posts to read and I think I did a pretty great job remembering to document and take pictures for the whole day! 5:00 wake up and I allow myself to blog, read emails, etc. until 5:30 5:30 get up, get dressed for the gym, put away my laundry from the night before, make the bed. 5:45 head downstairs to make Alec's lunch (1/2 way though he came to the balcony to tell me he wasn't going to school since he wasn't feeling well-- he's 18 and allowed to make this call himself).  I decided to make a salad, some chicken salad, hard boil some eggs, and cut up all the fruit since we had just done groceries after dinner last night and none of that had been done yet. I emptied, reloaded, and restarted the dishwasher. 
Read more