I cannot believe 2015 is coming to an end. It seems the homeschool years fly by faster and faster with each passing year. Our children are growing up at record speed! There is so much to teach them about academics and life and so little time.
New Years offers a wonderful opportunity for life lessons with reflection and setting new commitments. We typically call them resolutions, but I’m not sure I like the flippant way society treats resolutions these days. These days resolutions are broken all to easily. If we look at resolutions on more of a spiritual level we realize they are more than just goals. They are commitments. Why settle for having just a good homeschool, when you can have the best homeschool? In order to accomplish this, we need to faithfully commit to the New Years resolutions for our homeschool.
Today I’m sharing with you the New Years resolutions for our homeschool for 2016:
- Keep God first in our homeschool. We need to stay committed to prioritizing our day by beginning, ending, and focusing on God through prayer, Bible memorization, reading and discussing His Word, faith-based curriculum, and homeschooling. If we seek Him first, He’ll take care of the rest.
- Be more like Christ. We are planning to study our Bible more and plan more service opportunities for the second half of the year. We want our homeschool journey to be one of growth, outreach, and blessing to us and others. We can spend all the time in the world learning academics, but it won’t do our children any good in this life if they haven’t learned to be like Jesus. True success is measured by how many lives we change.
- Smell the Roses. The beginning of the year seems to be so rushed. We jump in with both feet and sprint through the first semester. Many times we miss opportunities for life lessons, cuddling on the couch, sweet discussions with our children. It’s true that they will be grown before you know it. We are so stressed and rushed. We don’t want to pass these bad habits on to our children. So take a slow down, take a deep breath, and smell the roses.
- Stay up-to-date on paperwork. Oftentimes we get lazy and push aside things that need to be done because we are just too tired. We fit our homeschool schedule around everything else in our lives. It should be the other way around so we are committing to keeping our grading and paperwork current. That may mean we will need to say no to some opportunities, but it will be worth it in the end because we won’t have a pile of paperwork to do.
- More hands on activities, less seat work. By this time of the year, we are becoming weary and are ready for summer break. Livening things up a bit with activities will help us stay motivated during the second semester. Shake up the hum drum a little bit with games, crafts, and field trips.
If you are in need of an overhaul on your homeschool this year and want to start the New Year organized and prepared, check out this wonderful faith-based curriculum:
Sit down with your family and set some New Years resolutions for your homechool. I’m praying for you and your homeschool journey in 2016. May it be successful and fruitful! It is my hope that when summer break arrives, you’ll be able to look back on 2015-16 with little or no regret and an overabundance of blessed memories!