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jackiemomof7
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| Posted: July 21 2006 at 12:03pm | IP Logged
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Well it is time to pull out the books and start making my plans for next year. The one thing I have never really done (okay put it in writting)is goals.
So here is my question, How do you make out your goals.
Some thoughts:
A) Family goals:
1)projects (regarding house)
2)field trips
3)spiritual items
B) Mom
1)Finding something that is just for ME!
2)spiritual items
3)physical wellness
4)homeschool
C) Kids
1) educational goals
2)learning new things in sports or something
4)spiritual item
This could go on for ever.... Do you make daily,weekly,monthly goals??? Do you reward yourself  if you complete them??
I feel like in school I really need to make myself a list for each child but what where do I find the "goal" that they need to obtain???
Can you tell I have been thinking and reading to much.
Please share any ideas or what you have done.
Thank you!
__________________
Jackie wife to Jim for 27!! years, proud army mom of Chris(25),Chef Matthew(24) and Sister Grace of Benedectines (21),Joshua(19),Nicholas(17),Jaymee(15), Elizabeth(13) and 2 in Heaven.Grandma to 3!
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TracyFD
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 10:25am | IP Logged
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Hi, this is my first post! I've been lurking here as I prepare to begin full-time homeschooling with my dds 4&6 with little brother along. I saw this post and was inspired to make a list to share.
Marriage
learn to speak his “love language”
pray together
15 minutes talking every night on the sofa
Me
adjust to fist year of homeschooling
pray before leaving my bedroom
get up early to exercise/stretch to avoid back spasms
keep up with book club reading
ask friend to start a knitting circle
start my own nature journal
take a mom day one Saturday a month
get calligraphy jobs for extra $
Children
one-on-one time for each
learn to speak their “love language”
virtue/character training
find acceptable ballet class for girls
keep violin practicing fun and positive
Family
more togetherness time, not just in the van
pray Rosary at least in Advent and Lent
field trips when in the city
visit relatives more often
involving the children in concern for others in need
give Dad time on Saturdays for house projects
Now, to find a good place to post this in the house!
TFD 
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ALmom
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 1:29pm | IP Logged
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I have specific learning goals for each dc by name and subject to include PE, art and music - learn multiplication facts, introduce fractions, etc. for Math for the 8 yo. I also have a main academic goal (chosen focus in an area that needs the most work, and which we tend to neglect if not focused. In our family this is writing related for every child. So my goal for the 9 yo is that he can write a very short, coherant paragraph with every sentence starting with a capital and ending with punctuation about a book he has read (reading and writing is what he avoids most unless it is science related). For my high schooler, it is writing content essays or reports in subject matter (history - her favorite) and science (our most neglected subject for this child). I have decided that all of us our doing scripture study and salvation history for religion - this and history and sciendce will be the area of most of our projects and we can do those together by staying on the same general area.
I have other goals for me and each child. My goals include a regular rising time, prayer before leaving my bedroom (esp. to remember my dd who will be away in college), limiting time on the computer, and regular conversation and exercise with dh. For the oldest child, I want to be careful not to overtax her but I do want to develop some diligence in doing the less than favorite subjects and I want her to have time for art projects and cello. I want to spend time with her training her in the kitchen. We will be doing kitchen chores together for training and so that we have conversational time one on one. My other goal is regular exercise for her - dad has asked her to walk every day and a set rising time. For our 12 yo we want to finish therapy and make sure he has plenty of outdoor time. He, like me needs to have a set rising time. Our 8 yo needs to learn more orderliness. But also expressed an interest in art, so he will be learning how to draw.
This is specific enough and I have a list of tb or other activities that we will be using to accomplish this goal. This whole exercise may seem like a lot of paperwork but it is worth it for us. (It is part of what we have to do for our cover school but it really does benefit me). Throughout the year, I will glance at these goals, see if what we have been doing is achieving them. If not, we try to figure out why not and how to adjust, change curriculum or approach as needed. It also helps me to look at my written list and see where I may be overambitious and begin to prioritize so that I might drop a lesser goal for q more important one if we are just overtaxed. At the end of the year, if we haven't read every book on my list, or done every project, text, etc. , I can look at my goals and if we achieved our goals the other really doesn't matter so I don't end the year feeling unsucessful.
Janet
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Willa
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 3:06pm | IP Logged
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Jackie,
I'm like you. I have goals but haven't really ever put them in writing. In the past, rather than real goals, I would put tasks, like syllabus breakdowns of various books and textbooks. I've also done informal evaluations of the kids -- their interests, their strengths, their areas where improvement is needed. That helps me pin down what I want the next year will look in detail.
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AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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Willa
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 3:08pm | IP Logged
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Oh, and welcome, Tracy! I think your list of goals sounds really good.
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AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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jackiemomof7
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 3:36pm | IP Logged
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My older 3 I feel I didn't need to do this. The boys were enrolled full time. But these last 4 I have not been as good of a teacher with so much going on in life. Now I feel since they are not fully enrolled I need to make a check list of goals for me as well as for them so they can see progress. But I can't quite figure out how to set up the academic goals. I will have a 5th,7th,8th and 10th grades this year. The high school one I can pretty much have an idea on but the other 3 I don't. Okay I do but realistic ones that I feel we could actually complete  .
You would think with three done I would have a handle on this but for some reason I am more worried this year than other years.  So please feel free to throw in your ideas or thoughts.
__________________
Jackie wife to Jim for 27!! years, proud army mom of Chris(25),Chef Matthew(24) and Sister Grace of Benedectines (21),Joshua(19),Nicholas(17),Jaymee(15), Elizabeth(13) and 2 in Heaven.Grandma to 3!
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jackiemomof7
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 3:41pm | IP Logged
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Janet I like your ideas, do you check them weekly? And did you sit down and go over these with your children or ask for input from them?
Tracy, sounds like you are off to a great start. I hope you have a wonderful year. 
__________________
Jackie wife to Jim for 27!! years, proud army mom of Chris(25),Chef Matthew(24) and Sister Grace of Benedectines (21),Joshua(19),Nicholas(17),Jaymee(15), Elizabeth(13) and 2 in Heaven.Grandma to 3!
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saintanneshs
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 3:48pm | IP Logged
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Keeping things simple this year...instead of long lists I just have a few.
For ds6: get faster with the math facts
For ds5: start learning to read
For me: lots of rest
For all of us: lots of time outside, lots of time reading together, lots of fun in the kitchen
Not that I need a reason because for me, January can't come soon enough, but I'm beginning to feel WHY God thought this baby would be a good idea. We're way overdue for a "simple" set of goals...
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Kristine
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 4:30pm | IP Logged
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I only have goals for writing (expository) and math (fractions and decimals) for ds (6th grade). The rest is gravy! I know he will learn so much more that I expect anyway!
For dd (4 almost 5) my goals for her are to make progress towards reading and to be comfortable with number concepts. We will go at her own pace.
Overall goal, as always, keep the love of learning alive!
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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Leonie
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 8:50pm | IP Logged
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I tend to have mottoes for the year - here are this year's mottoes -
* Be an overcomer
* Fit by Faith
* Walk by Faith, not by Sight
* Never give up
* Live joyfully the standard
Not very concrete but we do talk about what each means. 
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Leonie in Sydney
Living Without School
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KC in TX
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 9:11pm | IP Logged
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Oh, Leonie, I like your mottoes. What a great idea. Taffy has some wonderful detailed plans on her blog.
I'm working on mine to be detailed too with my ASD son, but not so much with my other children.
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KC,
wife to Ben (10/94),
Mama to LB ('98)
Michaela ('01)
Emma ('03)
Jordan ('05)
And, my 2 angels, Rose ('08) and Mark ('09)
The Cabbage Patch
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ALmom
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| Posted: July 22 2006 at 9:15pm | IP Logged
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I don't necessarily check my goals weekly - probably more like monthly although weekly review with dh might be a good idea. I do check them anytime I start getting panicky, feel like we are getting behind or suddenly realize we've been doing tons of following our interests and I'm not sure whether we've gotten off track doing things (I often feel that way when we go off on a tangent because I tend to be very traditional schoolish, but what I find when I check my goals is most of the time we've just found a better way to meet one of our most important goals and I get excited about this tangent. Occassionally I find it is a dc that is a particular con and has found a way to distract from the distasteful thing we always end up avoiding and really need to focus on. In that case, I can be excited for all the fun we have had, but then insist that we get back on track - sometimes this means being a bit more creative in how to tackle the goal, but sometimes it just means insisting that we do something here. The second thing really doesn't happen very often at all (usually it is mostly me panicing and finding out that we are achieving our goals after all) but just enough that I have to be on top of it. My science fan will do this to avoid any reading and writing and I love all his science experiments and I don't discourage him from doing them, I just insist that we work together on the reading/writing - maybe tackle it first thing every day before doing his science. If need be, I'll drop a less important thing (ie vocabulary work as we'll get quite a bit of that discussing reading) in order to allow time for his tangent. I just need the planning aspect because I cannot focus on more than one thing at a time and I have 6 dc, so we can easily totally miss the boat if I don't have a handle on our goals- having them in writing means I don't have to carry all this stuff in my head all the time.
And, yes, yes, yes - I do ask for input from all the dc. We adjust goals as we communicate with them, although my dh and I have a few non-negotiables (basically our most important academic goal and of course spiritual/virtue/prayer development - but these the dc always like). Even though these are non-negotiable goals, we are open to different ways of achieving that goal, we are not open to dropping it as a goal. There are usually only 1 or 2 of these non-negotiable academic goals for each child so this is not a real burden, but a recognition of what we have noticed them avoiding.
As I write out their goals, we talk about them, we talk about the books we want to use to achieve this (or any other ways - projects, etc and take inputs from them and ideas on how to do it and even adjustments to many of the goals). I may have options. My 8 yo ds looked at CHC Language of God C and D and told me level C was too easy. I thought D had too small a print. He can use whichever he prefers. He requested art (something he'd avoided in the past because of eyes and I would not have even included in his curriculum if he had not requested it). He would rather not do any reading or writing unless it is looking up science information but this is a non-negotiable goal - I insisted that we do something and we chose the CHC readers. There aren't tons of required reading, but just enough that he has to narrate a bit and show some ability at beginning to infer from his reading - a skill he needs work on. He told me he'd already read the CNR 4(Kolbe recommended)and I thought that would be too hard because of the small print and the questions that come with it are almost all re-call questions so I'm happy with his choice. I'm not sure he really caught what he was reading when he did, but it must not have been too hard since he has already read it. He agreed to read a few of the stories for me out loud and I plan to do some oral discussion, oral narration with some of this just to see what he is catching and what he is missing and how fluent his out loud reading really is. The rest of his reading can be science related (basically his choice) and I need to get more science experiment books as he has evidently done every single experiment in every single book in our house . I had no idea about this, but was informed about it as we planned for next year. Maybe I can get him to write me a semi organized description of some of his experiments for some of his writing assignments. Paper topics are flexible - anything to get him to write. I'd be estatic if he wrote me one paper (very short paragraph) on a fiction book he read on his own.
He seemed happy with the results of our goals/curriculum discussions. We both had many of the same ideas - agreed with switching handwriting programs (actually both of us felt the other one we were using was great copy work but didn't really give enough guidance on how to form and connect the letters). He needed something that gave him more help and guidance in connecting cursive letters. We discussed how I really wanted him to work on writing his name, date, subject matter on the top of every single written paper, to keep it all in one place (we will provide him with a notebook for this) and how I want him to try and keep his work areas organized and neat - esp. around his desk area. I want him to put the answers to questions in an organized way on his paper - ie question one should be on the paper before question 6 and if he is not recopying the question (something I really think would be too much for him right now) - then he needs to number his answers in order. I think he knows the importance of this as we discussed how we had to re-do some things last year because we couldn't find his written work and I have to have 3 written samples for record keeping for our school. He often had un- identified stuff written willy nilly all over the place, unidentified, un-numbered and in no particular sequence. Most didn't even have his name on it. It took me hours with him helping for me to figure it out. We just have to tackle this more efficiently - and this is part of orderliness, which is something lacking not just in academics. He knows he will be trying extra hard in this area - and because of my written goals, I hope I will be reminded to praise progress in this area as a source of encouragement!
My 14 yo 9th grader sat down with me and sketched out courses for four years of high school - all of which can be changed, of course, but gave us an idea of what we have to have to meet graduation requirements for our school and any things she wanted to be sure to take. She reminded me of drivers ed.
I looked at the plan sketched out, and quite honestly thought we were over ambitious, especially in the history reading. Looking at the book list brought me a feeling of panic. When she looked at it, she was excited about the history reading - as long as we weren't doing a paper on every single thing. She was a bit concerned about 2 things we thought about reading for 10th grade theology - so we will re-look at that at the end of the school year.
Based on her comments about the history and my sense that we were over ambitious, I think I will have her write an outline for many of the papers in history without always polishing them, just to make sure she is getting content and has the idea how to organize without taking the time to perfect them all. Her writing/editing skills are fine. I just need to make sure she knows how to gather the information to prove her points and this will meet my goals as well as a full blown paper, but allow her the freedom to read all these great, original source histories without getting bogged down in the editing process. I will have her do a few formal papers with composition and history grade components but will keep these down in number. When this child edits, she can take forever because she really looks for perfection so I don't want her having to do more than a very few polished papers in history, now. Once I feel we have achieved our goal of writing a solid, well defended paper in history and that she is confident that she can do this, I really won't be that concerned about the others. If she likes them, wants to do more - fine. If she would rather focus on her notebook and projects at that point, that will be fine too.
She asked that I preview a few of the literature books for appropriate content - the Iliad and Peralandra, just to make sure- so I will be doing that for her.
She would just as soon skip science all together in terms of personal feelings, but recognizes graduation requirements and the fact that she has managed to avoid this subject so far. She really knows this has to be non-negotiable - and required for graduation and college admission. We discussed what didn't work with the way we've done science in the past and hope that we have a good fit this year. However, we just are going to have to stick with the subject at some point and do it!
She really hated physical science last year (it was a very dry text) so we are doing Biology at her request and have joined a coop lab so that she gets more hands on. (I just don't have the science background or the ability to do a good job here). We hope the text we've chosen will have lots of experiments, illustrations and it does have a internet helpline, so hopefully this will help. If she needs a physical science background before tackling chemistry and physics, we'll do that in 10th grade (not the usual order, but she said she was absolutely sick of physical science and she doesn't even remember much from last year). If we finish chemistry and she is sick of science still, then we will have had 2 lab sciences (possibly 3) and we would consider dropping the 4th science or substituting a nature study, astronomy, logic or anything else she is interested in. We just think she needs to have enough background to be balanced and to really know if she really doesn't like science or whether it is just lack of background and good experiences with it. If dad sneaks in some fun experiments based on the physical science book without her realizing it, fine - we may not need physical science next year. But if we don't get to it, we'll just find a different way to do it next year so she has a background before tackling Chemisty (a science that I think she will enjoy as she really likes math).
She wanted to do Latin, so we found a Latin tutor and a group of people to join us to share the expense.
She told me she didn't think there was too much planned. I still did, so I let her know my priorities. If she feels like time is crunching, she can skip any vocabulary work as I felt she will get plenty of that between Latin and reading. I am also not planning a formal grammar because whatever she hasn't gotten up to now, she'll have to figure out for Latin. I just asked her to come to me if she is getting bogged down in Latin grammar and we'll review the necessary components of English grammar from what we have around the house. I don't think she'll need much, but if she does, she knows to come to me. She also knows that I want her to have time for her self created projects related to history (her favorite subject and the way she learns this best)and if she doesn't have the time, we need to talk and re-look at our goals and try to find a more efficient way to do it. I know that if we don't get to every book in history and literature, I'm not worried about it. This child is very strong in these subjects and really does like writing (one of my few), so if she does a few papers well and I see that she knows how to pull together a logical arguement for a history content paper, then we'll do only what we need to do for her to engage the information to remember the important people, places and events. This may very well be all kinds of arts and crafts, notebook/ lapbook type things, maps, timelines, etc. She knows that we will finish Biology just because we cannot keep putting off science - but I'm willing to come up with all kinds of ways to try and make it understandable, etc. This child can procrastinate and avoid the "distasteful" but we're at the point that we cannot let this happen again in science. She is looking forward to the Salvation History study (glad to move away from Faith and Life as that was getting old for her) and is excited about our plans here. I think she is really looking forward to real books (the Bible, encyclicals) and this will tie in and cross over with her history study of ancient civilizations.
Each time I feel bogged down, the children seems stymied, or we are feeling behind, we pull our goals back out and sit with the child and figure out what is and is not working. Sometimes it is the best reassurance because even though we may not be doing what is on my plans, or finishing books, etc., we find that we are actually achieving our goals quite well. If not, the child often has an idea of what is or is not working for them - and we make adjustments before we've wasted too much time.
Janet
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jackiemomof7
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| Posted: July 24 2006 at 1:22pm | IP Logged
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Janet,
I wanted to thank you for sharing what you do. It has set a better picture in my mind now. Sounds like you are doing a terrific job at keeping on top of things and making sure you are following your goals. I also like how you talked these over with your children.
I think it is good to look over these goals when we are feeling behind or overwhelm. At the end of school year when I am sorting things away I realize "Wow, we did do a lot of stuff,it wasn't as bad as I thought." Now I just need to do this every few weeks so that I can see through out the year that we are making progress.
Again thanks for sharing I have lots to think over now!
__________________
Jackie wife to Jim for 27!! years, proud army mom of Chris(25),Chef Matthew(24) and Sister Grace of Benedectines (21),Joshua(19),Nicholas(17),Jaymee(15), Elizabeth(13) and 2 in Heaven.Grandma to 3!
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Meredith
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| Posted: July 24 2006 at 1:31pm | IP Logged
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I have to agree with Jackie and everyone else that contributed here, it is so nice to *SEE* how others think about school with their dc and the big picture. I have lots to think about here too, thanks so much for all the thoughtful input
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Meredith
Mom of 4 Sweeties
Sweetness and Light
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Goals for the year
