Setting Goals for the New Year

Setting Goals
By Tasha Chinnock

Every support group, convention speaker and home school book or blog I have ever gleaned from has emphasized the need to set goals for yourself. There are handy tools all over the internet to help you graph out your objectives and how you will achieve them. It is important not only to set new goals for each new school year, but to reinforce your goals and reasons for homeschooling every year. This way, when you get weary or frustrated, you have something to look back on and remember that you truly are achieving the things you set out to do from the very beginning. So, with that intent, I present to you our goals.

My Reasons for Teaching at Home:
· God’s word makes teaching these children my responsibility above anyone else’s.
· I want my kids to look at life from a Biblical perspective.
· I want them to have the benefits of one-on-one teaching.
· I love spending time with my kids and watching them learn new things.

My Goals for This Year:
· Have a well-organized school area
· Develop a realistic schedule
· Get the kids excited about reading
· By the end of their year, Ardara and Huyler should be reading easy readers on their own
· By the end of the year they should be adding, subtracting, telling place value, time, and counting money easily.
· Ardara and Huyler will be journaling regularly
· They will learn to understand and apply Biblical principles in their own lives.
· Augie should be saying his alphabet, recognizing letters and numbers 0-10.
· All three kids should have improved drawing skills.
· All three kids will be able to recognize different musical instruments.

My Most Important Goal:
· Spending lots of time with my kids, having lots of fun learning about the history of the world, the phenomenon of the Bible, the beauty of creation, the wonder of God’s grace and the potential they each have to become something great.

Augie's Preschool

Although he did a lot of school stuff with us last year, Augie is officially starting school this year. I have an advantage with Augie, because I kept records of everything I did with Huyler and Ardara in preschool, so I am ready to do much of the same things with him. The other really cool thing about My Father’s World is that the people who wrote the curriculums, Marie and David Hazel, have six kids of their own and homeschooled all of them at the same time. So, they know how difficult it can be to teach several different age groups from several unique curriculums. And this is especially true with a preschooler, who needs so much attention from mommy. So, a lot of the
activities in the First Grade curriculum are things that Augie can join us in. During the times when the bigger kids are doing reading and writing and math practice, I will have letter and number coloring or crafts for him to do, games for him to play, and some big floor puzzles for him to work on. He was really great last year about doing his work while I helped the older kids. The only thing that bothered him was not having his OWN workbook. So, this year I will make him his own bound workbook out of all the fun sheets I found online.
Augie will also get to join us for Hebrew lessons. I’m actually devising my own beginning Hebrew curriculum based on the concept that children learn to speak before they learn letters. So, I am making vocabulary flashcards and we will be learning nursery rhymes and counting and other early phrases in Hebrew before we start learning to read Hebrew, which is where other curriculums usually begin. I am encouraged in this by an Israeli man who goes to church with us, Ofer. He has agreed to spend some time helping the kids with
Hebrew!

Huyler and Ardara in 1st Grade

The First grade curriculum from My Father’s World is entitled “The Complete Bible Curriculum”, and it will take us through the whole Bible by the end of the year. The kids will have their own Bible Reader full of Bible stories they will read themselves, they will also learn about the history of the Bible through lots of great activities. Some of these include making their own scroll using their most careful “scroll writing” as well as a clay pot to keep it in, drawing a Bible Lands map, making a Bible times costume, measuring Noah’s ark in cubits, and keeping a timeline all year of every historical event we learn about, from creation to Christ’s return, including our own births.
Our math curriculum involves using shape pattern blocks, sorting, comparing greater and lesser, and of course addition and subtraction.
Our art program is Teaching Children to Draw using the Monart method, by Mona Brookes. The children begin by learning the 5 main shapes used in all images. Once they know this “code” they will learn to draw things more realistically. They will get plenty of practice, as they will be drawing pictures of every Bible story they read in a special Bible Notebook. They will also have sessions of art appreciation. Using a book designed for children, we will look at artistic masterpieces and discuss the details and style of the paintings. I’m excited about art because I may take on an additional pupil. Dane’s cousin Kim has asked me to tutor her son Matt in art!
Each Wednesday we will have Exploration Day, where we spend part of the day outside and try a new science experiment. On these days there will be no reading or math lessons.
We will also spend time regularly learning about music. We have a CD with Peter and the Wolf, Carnival of Animals, and a Child’s Guide to the Orchestra. We will color pictures of instruments as we listen.
It will be an adventure!

School Starts September 4th

I’m so excited for school to start! It has been
constantly occupying my thoughts for weeks. I was really blessed to find the 1st grade curriculum for My Father’s World on a home school classifieds web page for less than half the price. Last year, I was unable to afford the deluxe set with all the extra curricular activities, so I ended up trying to do them my self with only marginal luck (If you remember, our caterpillars never made a cocoon and we couldn’t find any ants in December). But this year, because I saved on the curriculum, I was able to find all the extra parts for the deluxe curriculum on Amazon.com. This is going to be a really fun year.
Most of the schools in our area are starting in early August, but we are giving ourselves a full 4 months of summer. It works out well, because, just like last year, our curriculum is only 160 days. That gives us plenty of time to finish by May including holidays. We’ve used our 4 months of summer well, though. Besides the Reading Reflex, which has been a super fun and easy way for the kids to learn phonograms, we have also gone to several movies in the park, cultivated an ant farm (successfully!), hiked and caught frogs at Willow Lake, hiked and done more bird watching (we saw a bald eagle!) at Lynx Lake, hiked up the trail at Humphrey’s Peak while Daddy got his surgery, took care of Daddy while he was incapacitated, attended Vacation Bible School at Robert Road Baptist Church where the theme was “Outrigger
Island”. They even taught us some Hawaiian — wiki wiki means quickly. And that is how we should choose to follow Jesus — wiki wiki! We took swimming lessons, read over 100 books from the library, got to know cousin Emmy, and added regularly to our blogs. Ardara and Huyler’s artistic talents continued to blossom. Huyler has completely conquered his articulation problem. And finally, all of us were able to say goodbye to Grandpa John before he moved to Heaven. It has been a full summer and we are thankful for all of it. Now, lets get schooling!