Our Homeschool Goals for 2019 Plus a FREE Printable Goal Setting Worksheet for You!

Happy New Year!

As we put up a new calendar and think about all of our personal goals and resolutions for 2019, this is also a great time to set some fresh goals for your homeschool.

This point in the school year, whether you follow a traditional calendar or homeschool year-round, is a perfect spot to stop and reevaluate. Ask yourself what is currently working in your homeschool and what needs to change. Clarify your vision, declutter your time and your space, and set some priorities.

I want to encourage you to pray and ponder the direction your homeschool needs to go in 2019, and then write down some specific goals. This doesn't have to be a long list. Perhaps narrow down your goals to 5 top priorities. But writing them down helps make them real to you. To help you with this process, I am offering you a free goal setting printable!

Once you have those goals written down and prayed over, you can start setting up systems and making plans for success in meeting those goals.

I am going to share with you my top 5 goals for our homeschool (Shield of Faith Homeschool) for 2019 in just a minute, but I want to remind you that your goals and my goals may not be anywhere near the same. And that is just as it should be! You should be focused on your own family and the unique needs of your own children.

Here are my Top 5 Goals for Our Homeschool in 2019:

1. Read Aloud Consistently

We all love reading, we all love books, and reading aloud as a family is so beneficial. So whether it be a work of classic literature, a fun character building story, or a book related to a topic we are currently studying, I want to make reading aloud daily with my children a bigger priority this year in our homeschool.

2. Scripture Memory

Building a strong shield of faith in my children is the ultimate goal of our homeschool, so getting them into the Word and getting the Word into them is a big priority for us. We have done a lot of Scripture memory work, but I really want to challenge us all a bit more in this area in 2019.

3. Big Discussions

It can be so easy to get busy checking off assignments and completing tasks that we don't take the time to talk about what we are learning. As homeschoolers, we have such a golden opportunity to create meaningful relationships with our children by slowing down long enough to just talk with them. So  facilitating more big discussions in our homeschool is a goal for us in 2019.

4. Sing Together Daily

My husband and I are both very musical people. We both love to sing and enjoy listening to Gospel music. And although we have sung a little bit here and there with our children, I definitely feel like we could do a better job of passing on songs and hymns of the faith to them. So I am setting a goal of singing together daily for our homeschool this year.

5. Play More Games!

All work and no play makes any homeschool dull. Again, it can be all too easy to get into a rut of just checking off boxes that we forget to keep learning fun and exciting for ourselves and our children. So many key educational concepts can be effectively taught and reviewed with fun games, and I want to include more games in our homeschool in 2019.

Now that I have clarified my goals for our homeschool this year, I can really get to work setting up helpful systems and making plans for meeting them.

Do you need help thinking through your homeschool goals for 2019? I have created a helpful goal-setting worksheet for you! Just click here and enter your email address to download it and get started making 2019 your best homeschool year yet!

Check out the fun homeschool apparel and gifts available now in our Shield of Faith Homeschool Gift Shop!

5 Reasons I Am So Glad I Was Homeschooled

Being a homeschool mom who was homeschooled myself gives me a unique perspective on private home education.

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Homeschooling so much more to me than just some cause that I am passionate about.

When you talk about homeschooling, you are talking about me.

I hear many new homeschooling parents expressing their fears, concerns, and insecurities about whether or not they are truly capable of teaching their own children. The fear of somehow "messing up" your children or of having them grow up to resent homeschooling is very real for many people.

So I thought I would take a moment here to hopefully ease some of those concerns and offer you a bit of my perspective as someone who has been both the child and the parent along this journey called homeschooling.

I am thankful for so many reasons that my parents made the choice to educate my brother and I at home. They made this decision on faith and it was deeply rooted in their Christian convictions. It was not a popular choice at the time (Hey. I was a homeschooler before it was "cool", y'all!).

And today, I want to share just 5 of the biggest reasons I am personally so glad I was homeschooled.

#1 - Homeschooling made me an original, not a carbon copy.

My parents set an important example when they went against the "norm" and chose private home education for my brother and me. I learned young that it was OK to follow God's leading and to make choices that others might consider peculiar.

As a homeschooler, I didn't have to worry much about "fitting in" with the crowd. Instead, I was free to "stand out" and to be comfortable making choices that might go against the flow. I learned how to think for myself rather than letting peers, state sponsored curriculum, or popular fads think for me.

I see this same independent spirit in so many fellow homeschool graduates who are now out there running their own businesses, serving in unique ministries, raising strong families, and turning the world upside-down as they reach for their full God-given potential.

I am a unique individual, custom-made by God, and my home education reflected that. I was raised to be original, not a carbon-copy of everybody else out there.

#2 - Homeschooling built strong family ties.

Every family has its squabbles, and homeschooling families are no different. We certainly had our share growing up!

But because we spent years living, working, serving, and learning side by side 24/7, our family built strong bonds that have stood firm through some pretty big storms.

My only sibling is my brother who is 8 years younger than I am. If we had been a public school family, I would barely know my brother. We would have never attended the same school at the same time, much less shared any educational experiences together. He would have had his set of little friends in his age group and I would have had my set of big friends in my age group. And we would both be totally different people than we are today because of it.

As it was, though, my brother and I grew up best friends and influenced each other significantly.

In so many ways we are as different as day and night - he likes the spotlight and I prefer the background, he craves noise and I crave quietness, he's a lefty and I'm a righty, he has brown eyes and mine are blue, he has a sense of fashion and I couldn't care less about style - BUT my brother and I have shared everything from read alouds, field trips, and science projects to friends, hobbies, and service projects.

We both have strong interests in music, and for years we even traveled together in a Gospel music group.

Growing up, whatever my family did: we did it together. And THAT made us a strong family.

I see this same thing happening in my own little family, too, and it is a blessing. Our three children have some pretty significant age gaps, but because we live and learn together they are so close!

Family life is priority for us, and that lifestyle comes so naturally for me. Homeschooling helps build stronger family ties, no doubt about it.

#3 - Homeschooling provided me with the best education possible.

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Face it, homeschooling is the absolute best way to educate children.

Loving parents who take the education of their own children seriously and pursue excellence with strong conviction have no equal as educators. Public school classrooms with one teacher to 30 students just can't possibly provide the same level of quality.

And the research speaks for itself: we consistently outscore our public schooled peers.

I attended public school through the 4th grade. I remember that I was often bored and felt so stifled due to having to work at the pace of the slowest student in my class.

But when we started homeschooling, I was free to work at my own level, to advance at my own pace, to fully pursue topics that were interesting and meaningful to me, and to enjoy a lifestyle that embraced my natural love for learning. That simply cannot be duplicated in any classroom environment.

#4 - Homeschooling gave me a Biblical worldview.

This one is HUGE.

If I appreciate nothing else about my education as a homeschooler, I definitely appreciate this reason right here.

Because my parents were free to choose their own curricula, they were careful to choose resources that were of the best quality while always pointing us back to the Word of God as the ultimate source of knowledge and wisdom. 

My parents took Deuteronomy 6:4-9 seriously and applied it to our education. 

 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

And I am so thankful, because my parents taught me to see life and the world around me from a Biblical perspective. 

There's not an area of my life that this has not blessed.

#5 - I received the best possible preparation for my role as a homeschool mom.

I can't think of a better way to be prepared for something than to spend your childhood immersed in it!

Being a second generation homeschooler definitely has its perks. 

Sure, I have had to find my own groove and get to know the unique needs of my own children, but I started homeschooling with so much more knowledge about the resources and curricula that were available than most first year homeschool moms. 

I already knew what homeschooling looked like in everyday life (the good, the bad, and the ugly), so there was no big lifestyle shock. 

I was already well-versed in legal requirements for my state, and I had no real doubts that by God's grace I could do this.

Not to mention, I have a built-in support system in my parents. Not only can they take over as "substitute teachers" in a pinch, but they support all our homeschooling efforts 100% because they get it. So many homeschool moms do not have that level of family support, and I count it as a big blessing indeed.

I can not imagine NOT homeschooling! 

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