Homeschool Planning: Setting Yearly Goals
(This is the fourth post in a series of planning post, and the third post on planning for our homeschool.)
Setting yearly goals for our homeschool is something that I have been doing from the beginning. In PA we were required to submit our objectives each year, and while these can be very vague, I felt that it was to my benefit to really consider what I wanted to get out of our homeschooling year, and to come up with some detailed objectives. Those I couched in all the "high falutin" very academic jargon. However, now that we are in Florida, a state that doesn't require objectives, I still find a benefit in goal setting. Now they are much simpler, and to be honest, sometimes I think the entire purpose of the academic speak is to make us look smart, and confuse outsiders.
For the upcoming school year, I find myself months before thinking about what my end goal is. I can see weaknesses and strengths as they come up. I can see interests that the kids are developing, and often think of projects or future tie ins. I make note of this stuff as I go, and I kinda ponder where I want to go next. So, when I get ready to actually sit down and plan for the following year, I'm not really starting from a blank slate. Sometimes I even go back and compare this year's goals to what we have managed to accomplish. I have spent the last four nights in a row, roughing out goals for our three students for the 2018-2019 school year. And this post is to share something about that process.
For me, our focus at this age, and at our children's ability levels is math and reading, and something in particular to interest them. I sat down the first night and set some math goals. These after you get started are in some ways obvious. This year, Britt and Ruth mastered adding and subtracting large numbers. In fact they finished up math in February. The next thing obviously will be to tackle multiplication and division. I also worked on science goals. We have all but ignored science for the last two years, opting for history instead. I would like to add back in some general life science, and I happen to have a teacher book, and three unused copies of student workbooks that were passed down to me, that will fit the bill.
The second night I set down to set some goals for history. This area right now is where we devote much of our time, outside of those two core areas. History is something that I'm passionate about, and that the kids have really enjoyed thus far. It's a way for them to work on many of their language art skills in a fun way. It's a way that we have incorporated bible studies, and cultural references. I have over planned this area. You may find that you fall at the end of the spectrum in that you don't plan enough, or that you planned more than could be reasonably accomplished in 3 school years. I have had to gradually learn (with the obsessive personality that I have), that I'm not failing if we don't cover everything I planned in a give school year. I'll talk about this more when I talk about scheduling, but in this situation, I want to give myself plenty of options, and write down everything we would do in a perfect, super industrious school year.
The third night, I spent twice as much time as the two previous nights really working on language arts goals. For me the most important is reading, after that would probably be handwriting, and composition (though right now we do most of our composition work orally, such as dictating blogs). We also introduced spelling this year, and continue to work in grammar. This would also include our nearly daily read alouds, and speech therapy for Ruth. To me, this is the single most essential part of homeschooling, and it is something that I devote alot of time into during our homeschool day, and alot of time studying up on in my evenings. I really want to flesh out what I most want to focus on here.
The final night I spend trying to think of any other areas that I think need work, that don't fall into the neatly academic areas. Things like character work, or chores, or bible studies, music and art, extracurricular clubs or projects we want to do. Some of these goals are really ambitious like Rebecca memorizing 10 new bible verses this year. Some are more notes, plan to work with her on learning to ride a bike. All through this process I'm typically trying to get input from Gary, but as a very hands off "principal" he doesn't typically have much to add. So this is the night where I annoy him, until he agrees to discuss some of my concerns and bounce around some possible solutions or adjustments.
Finally, tonight, I sat down and wrote up everything, passed it over to Gary for a once over, and he told me as usual, looks good but pretty ambitious, I doubt you get to everything. Which will lead me to the next step of the process - curriculum choices.
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