Are you ready to plan a great homeschool year?
The week between Christmas and the start of the New Year is a favorite time for me to reflect on what worked and didn't work about the previous year, and what dreams and goals I have for the coming year.
We base our plan for the year off of our family vision. If you haven't already taken time to define this, use the prompts in my book, Habits for a Sacred Home (Amazon link) to create a rule of life, or work through the guide in the Peaceful Life Workshop.
Before we even start making goals, we fill out a worksheet (available in our Peaceful Press planner) that asks a few simple questions;
Word or verse for the year?
Places I want to go?
Books I want to read?
Things I want to try?
Skills to learn?
Habits to work on?
Big dreams?
As we take time to reflect and brainstorm, we are better able to make sustainable goals for the year, and to divide them into manageable time frames.
In both our printed planner (available on Amazon) and the printable planner we include monthly planning sheets so that you can check in with your yearly goals and set monthly goals that work.
Once I've made these goals, I also take time to map out my weeks. Do I want to be in a nature group but also be homeschooling four days a week? I block out the time needed to do that.
Do I want to have groceries in the house, but also want to limit outings? I make plans for grocery delivery or offload that task to my husband.
It's important to plan systems that can help you implement your goals for the year.
I know that the toddler and baby years are hard years for reflection and goal setting.
However, if you can make it a practice, even of just setting a goal for a book to read, or to remember to drink water every day, your self care will improve, which will improve your capacity to homeschool your children and manage your days.
We only get one life, and we don't know how long that life will be.
Let's make the most of it, and model for our children the truth that their dreams matter. That relationships matter. That joy matters. We aren't just teaching our children so they can be educated for a job. We are empowering them to pursue the best God has for them, and we model it by discovering and pursuing that ourselves.
You can grab your printed homeschool planner here, or a printable planner here.
If you need more help with daily habits that lead to a more peaceful homeschool life, check out the Restoration Home Community.
Each month we tackle a new set of habit with weekly prompts, challenges and prizes to help us create better systems in our home and family.