Setting your Goals - Homeschool planning

Over the next few months I'm going to sharing with you my tips for planning your homeschool, giving you an idea of how I go about making plans for my family each year. So today is....

Step One: Creating your Goals

• What are your goals for homeschooling?  

Knowing what you stand for, and what you hope to achieve will help you know where you are going,  what tools will fit YOUR homeschool, and will help you stay on track when the winds of change come your way, which they inevitably will. For example, you might go to a homeschool group, join a online group or two, read some blogs and websites, all of which will be filled with great ideas. There are so many resources and ideas out there in the world that you could use, but not all of them will fit YOUR homeschool. So defining your goals, how you want to teach, how your children learn best,  what will fit into your schooling day, what your schooling day will look like, etc. are all decisions which will help you refine what will work for you, and what won't. A lovely idea isn't any good to you if it won't work in helping your family and will quickly become more of a burden to you than a help.

1.  Why are you choosing homeschooling or home education?

People make the choice or decision for many many reasons. What was your reason?

* It's no good if you choose to home ed because you want your family to spend time together, but then you construct your homeschool in such a way that you are always on the run from one activity to the next and the only time you spend together is in the car or around the table at night, exhausted.

2. What lifestyle do you want to create for your family?

If you want a structured lifestyle, then a structured curriculum might be the way to go for you, however If you wanted a more relaxed lifestyle so you could be a bit more free to be able to take advantage of the different things that are going on in your local area. <   >Or you might like to be a mix of both.

3. What skills do you value and wish for your children to learn?

Is it Cooking, Gardening, Building, Craft, Sewing, Caring for Livestock, Horse Riding, Etc.

4. What are your educational goals with your children?

For me, I aim to create independent learners and thinkers, and not just rote learners, so I am working towards teaching them how to learn something they don't currently know, and interactive thinking about what they are learning. I am also trying to build discerning learners, as not everything that is presented as truth actually is.

5. Do you have a particular passion or topic area that you want to share with your children?

For example, you might have a cultural background that you want your children to learn about, or special interests that you feel are important for your children to learn, like growing food to feed themselves?

6. What are you family goals for the year?

Do you have some particular things that you as a family are working towards for the year?
- it could be living with less.
- Giving more to charity.
- A family trip.
- Growing enough food to feed yourself.
- Start a business.

The list is endless.

7. What goals do you have for your children in each subject area?

• Reading - e.g. reading independently
• Writing - e.g. effective letter writing
• Math - e.g. learning multiplication
• History - e.g. Learning some local history
• Science - e.g. Doing experiments 

• Art - e.g working on learning painting skills
• Music - e.g. Music appreciation 
• Handicrafts - e.g. Wool Crafts

• Spiritual - e.g. learning bible verses
• Emotional - e.g. learning to express feelings well. 

• physical - e.g. good body health
• Social - e.g. learning to introduce yourself to others
• Financial -e.g handling pocket money
• Home skills - e.g. learning skills in cleaning. 
• Business skills - e.g. learning to type on the computer. 

You might have very different goals for each of your children, some might be same.

So what are your goals?

Did you find this useful? Leave a comment to let me know what you thought.  ~ Christina