Homeschool Goal Setting

The TOS Crew has been sailing for about 2 months now and it is now time for the blog cruise to get on its way.

What is the blog cruise, you may ask? It is a sort of blog carnival where members of the crew share about a specific topics and how it plays out in their homeschooling. Every two weeks there will be a new topic, so let's board!

The first topic for this year is about homeschool related goals for the year.

To be honest, I am not a big goal setting person. I think it is because I do not like to fail, so I shy away from specific goal setting. I do not usually have new year resolutions for example.

That said, I do believe that setting goals is important. Someone well said : “aim at nothing and you will be sure to reach it every time.”, that says it all.

So what do I do about this?

This year I will use this blog post to set some goals for our homeschool year. Usually even if I do not set specific goal,s I do have an overarching goal of finishing up whatever curriculum I purchase. I do spent a lot of time researching the boys' curriculum precisely because I intend to finish them, and because I cannot afford to keep switching throughout a school year.

Now, if I want to be more detailed about what we will attempt to achieve this year I have to know what it is I am trying to accomplish.

I want the boys to be thinkers, develop wisdom and meet academic standards, without making it the goal to be achieved no matter what.

To that end:

Language Arts:

• Continue to improve their reading. They both read well-above grade level but there is always improvement to be made.

• Learn to spell. They are not good spellers, mainly because they hate spelling.

• Improve their handwriting.

• Improve their comprehension skills

• Improve their grammar skills and understanding

• Continue their exposure to different literary genres

Math:

• Cement Math basics (fact and mechanics)

• Continue to develop their mathematical thinking skills

• Improve their logical skills

Improve their critical thinking skills

Social studies:

• Continue learning about history

• Continue learning about the world around us (geography and civics)

Music Appreciation:

• Expose them and teach them about composers and orchestras

• Practice an instrument - Zach violin, Joho piano

Science:

• Continue learning basic scientific facts: this year is all about biology.

Languages:

• Teach them french


• Continue with Latin

Others:

• Continue learning diligence

• Improve their responsibility skills

• Improve their physical skills

• Continue learning about godly wisdom, christian doctrine and christian living

So these will be my goals for the year. We shall see how it goes . . .