Making goals for your homeschool questions?

[mom2agang]

Do you make them per kid? Or for family? Last night I sat down and wrote out my 12 year plan for English, spelling/vocabulary, reading/literature, math and writing. I wrote down what curriculum I would like to use for each grade and what level at that grade. Science and history is still undecided and that will be a decided yearly. I understand years might change. I'm flexible. But do i write a goal list for each kid? Because I would like them to do that subject at that level at that grade( like Saxon 7/6 in 5th). And how do you add in career choices? Or do you give them the best college prep.? Do you factor in life skills by grade or as needed?

[....]

Do you make them per kid? Or for family? Last night I sat down and wrote out my 12 year plan for English, spelling/vocabulary, reading/literature, math and writing. I wrote down what curriculum I would like to use for each grade and what level at that grade. Science and history is still undecided and that will be a decided yearly. I understand years might change. I'm flexible. But do i write a goal list for each kid? Because I would like them to do that subject at that level at that grade( like Saxon 7/6 in 5th). And how do you add in career choices? Or do you give them the best college prep.? Do you factor in life skills by grade or as needed?

 

I am a big planner. I write out goals for the year per kid. I also break down each semester and write out what material I want to cover with each student in each subject. I also do "report cards" at the end of each semester which state what the student has accomplished.

 

And, yes, your curriculum choices will probably change every year :tongue_smilie:, so don't map out too far ahead. :lol:

 

As far as college prep, I assume that every one of my kids is going to college. So, I will put their path in that direction. However...da dum dum...like you mentioned...life skills are very important and I'm trying to add some more of that into our week. I'm thinking about having my oldest 2 do carpentry over the summer. Also, when my husband works on his truck, I have the oldest 2 go out and "help".

 

Doesn't The Well-Trained Mind say to start college planning in 5th grade?

[....]

mom2agang, I'm getting the impression that you and I are on these forums at 4:45 am every morning! :D:D:D

 

With little kids, this is the only time I can get on here, too! :lol:

[mammaofbean]

dh and i set out some goals when he agreed to this homeschool thing, but nothing so specific as "7/6 in fifth grade". for those sorts of curriculum and skills related goals i don't think i'll be able to go more than a year out and i think they will be child specific. i can't predict how long it is going to take for skills mastery. i can say that by then end of high school my kids will be have completed at least one year of calculus, etc. content areas i think are the easiest to plan in advance. i know i want to cover world, american and state history completely by the end of 5th grade. sciences by the end of 7th.

[patchfire]

I have a set of minimum goals for each subject that must be completed by twelfth grade. Depending on a kid's strengths and interests, it may very well be that they complete my minimum years ahead of time. It may also be that they are still meeting that minimum in another area when they are in twelfth grade! Those minimum goals are for all of my kids.

 

I do have a very tentative "through graduation" plan for each kid, and those are different for each one. A lot of it gets very tentative by the time I get more than three or four years away from the present. It's actually easier for me to predict high school curricula and subjects for my now-5 yo than my now-10 yo :lol: My overall goal is a strong college-prep course of study.

 

As far as life skills, I generally don't include that as part of school, per se. I will make the kids do some nutrition, CPR, first aid, etc. for part of their high school physical education credits, but the other life skills I sort of keep in a separate part of brain (hey, it keeps me sane!).

[AnnaM]

Im a planner so I could easily sit down and write out our long term goals, but I know without a doubt they would change so I decided that it was probably not worth the time it would take. However, I do write out short term goals. What we would like to do each week, month, semester. I dont really take the time to go beyond that. I am also kind of afraid that looking that far ahead may stress me out if I was to get off track.

[MorganClassicalPrep]

I have very general long term goals, but these are flexible. I have an idea of what I'm doing for history for the next 12 years, except the one year that I'm going to let DD pick what to do. I have an foreign language plan in place, but this may change depending on DD's proficiency, plus she gets to choose her own language in high school. I have a plan for math, but this may change depending on the curriculums available.

 

Pretty much every subject is like that. I have "goals", but these are definitely not set in stone. I'm assuming for now that DD will go to college, and so I will be educating her with that in mind, but if that changes at some point (if she decides to go to the military for example), we will readjust.

 

I am more specific in my goals for the next few years. I know what I'd like to complete. I only have one child, but seeing as how my goals for DD are made based on her abilities, I can't imagine making similar goals for an entire family (unless it was something very general, like provide a well rounded education, or something like that).

 

Life skills are just.... well, part of life! :D DD cooks and cleans with me. Eventually I'll teach her to knit, and hopefully sew. (I need to learn how to sew first.... :tongue_smilie:) I include DD in pretty much everything I do, so she'll have at least the basics down without any extra effort.

[mom2agang]

Yeah I understand goals aren't set in stone. I made a general plan for the family. I want to use Saxon math in my homeschool. I understand if I have to slow down with a kid and we don't get through a book as fast as I hope. I want my kids to go through FLL and what years I would like to cover those. In the older grades I want to do Analytical Grammar. So I want to be prepared to do it in 7-9th grades. I also would like to cover writing strands 6th-11th grades. It's more of an outline of what I want to cover in what grades. I'm open to change if need be. But from here after reading post I'm going to just write short term goals(like goals for this year for each kid kinda asking " did this work?" " Are we ready to move to the next level?") so my main goal is this year.

Thanks everyone!

 

Starrbuck 12. Yeah I'm an early morning person. I enjoy the peace and quiet:D

[momto2Cs]

I have general long-term goals - you can see them here - they apply to both my children. I also set down, on paper, loose goals for each year, for each child.

[RoundAbout]

My son is young, but I do have goals. Very broad and flexible ones like "be a proficient and enthusiastic reader" or "capable of entering a good college math, science, or engineering program without requiring remediation."

 

I keep a running list by grade level of programs/curriculum that interest me, things I read about here, etc. but I never want to get into a mindset of finishing X program in Y amount of time. So much depends on the kid and you can encounter road blocks at any time.