Do you have a School Year's Resolution?
You know - just like one of those fancy New Year's Resolutions, but this one applies to your homeschool - the ONE THING you want to accomplish this year with your children?
I think we all might do better if we focused on JUST ONE THING this school year.
At the back to school time of year especially, there are a million ideas, curricula, and methods floating around the homeschool world. If we don't Stay in Our Own Lanes it can be frustrating and make us feel "less than" at the drop of a hat, know what I mean?
We can be confused with all of the choices and "supposed to" learn subjects out there.
Let me give you some advice I once heard -- STOP. BREATHE.
PRAY.
Focus on ONE THING this year.
That's right. One thing.
Let me give you an example.
Morning Time
Many years ago I felt that I wasn't connecting with my children intentionally each day. I felt like we were simply checking off boxes, completing assignments, and going through the motions. I didn't feel the sense of connection I had once felt with them through homeschooling - and I knew they didn't feel it with me (or each other), either.
That year I resolved we would focus on just ONE THING. That one thing would always get done first and get done well. I would always plan for it and we would never "skip it".
That one thing was Morning Time.
For one year we focused on having beautiful Morning Times together - devotions, art appreciation, music appreciation, read alouds, memory work, and current events took up the first hour of our day.
It was a CONSTANT.
At the end of that year we had truly accomplished something. We were connecting with each other and we had incorporated so much truth, beauty and goodness into our homeschool days.
Sure, we focused on other things that year, but Morning Time was our ONE THING.
Fast forward to the next year.
Math
I decided our one thing would be MATH.
That year (after our Morning Time, which we could not abandon since everyone loved it the year before), math was a priority. We played math games, challenged each other with math problems, and made completing a full Saxon lesson each day a priorit.
By the end of that year, I noticed that we all enjoyed math more and those pesky math facts came more automatically (especially to a 7th grader I had at the time that really needed work on them.)
Just Choose That ONE Thing.
May I encourage you this year to make a School Year's Resolution?
Choose just one thing for your focus.
That doesn't mean you push other things to the side, it just means you will master ONE THING this year. (Next year you can master something different.)
After several years just think of all of the "one things" you will have accomplished.
Now that we're in our senior year with our oldest (sniff!), those one things sure do add up!
What is your "School Year's Resolution"? Let me know in the comments below.
