Almost Back to School: Starting With God

I don’t know about you, but I’m in high gear prep-for-school mode around the bee hive. My sweet mama whisked my teens and five-year-old away to her house over the weekend and let me spend some much needed time with Daddy and the 3 year old getting rest, and enjoying a little quiet mama time to plan for this year. My oldest two really needed a break, too. They were ready to get their goals down on paper when they came home.

{ Note: This post is part of my Almost Back to School Series – follow along with the links at the bottom. }

As promised, here’s Post #1 of 5…

One of the biggest ways we went astray in our homeschool last year is not starting with God every day like we have in past years. I felt a little like I was flailing – trying to keep plates in the air – with all of the distractions and obstacles we faced. I know that hard times and illness throw a wrench in to the lesson planner and pretty much everything else, but if we had stuck to our guns and put our prayer time first EVERY SINGLE DAY, I’m pretty sure we could have felt like we accomplished a lot more – and felt the peace that only He brings to a school year (and each day in it).

My overarching goal for this year: PRAY HARD, PUT GOD FIRST (I want to be a prayer warrior.)

And so… I started this year with a prayer over our goals, our game-plan, our hopes, our needs, our schedule, our behaviors, our relationships, our finances, our time management, or priorities, our attitudes, our spiritual lives – pretty much anything and everything related to our school year, our family, our health – it was included in this prayer. I asked for blessing over this year. In particular. I prayed for REFRESHING and VICTORY.

I reminded myself of the ULTIMATE GOAL of homeschooling my children: to raise up kids that love God and others, and want to serve Him. Period. I don’t care if they flip burgers as long as they are doing it in the joy of the Lord and praising His name as they serve other people. Honestly, I just want them to have His peace, a real purpose, and to make a difference in the world for Him (even if that means doing something society thinks is small-change).

First we started with a discussion about last year’s homeschool experience. We talked about what we hated and loved about this past school year. I got out my calendar and we went over some of the highs and lows. We discovered, unfortunately, that we had more obstacles thrown at us last year than almost any other school year I can think of. It is hard to feel like your year was a failure when you see how many hurdles there were to jump.

We had months of respiratory illnesses (including a bout with bronchitis so severe that a couple of us were on breathing machine treatments and mama went through four bags of Ricola cough drops). We had months of ringworm from a new kitten that my youngest still is battling. We had our A/C replaced. There were endless voids on my calendar created by doctor, orthodontist, gynecologist, chiropractor and other health professionals. We had a month off for Grandma’s broken hip and subsequent care. Oh, and there was that diet change (you know – the one where our entire family got off wheat, sugar and almost all processed foods for good). Cooking from scratch takes a little chunk out of the schedule each day, but it gets easier and faster with time.

There were lost glasses and retainers, extra curricular activities, service projects, stomach bugs, ER trips, financial difficulties, unfinished classes for my daughter, and frustrating mood swings for us all (even mama). It’s no wonder we had to do summer school.

In all honesty, we each felt pretty negative about this school year. That’s why this exercise was so good. Going through the calendar helped to go over some of the events that were GOOD – the happy memories – the fun we had this year.

Here are a few that were my favorites:
Kaden finishing Apologia Chemistry, Both teens completing a college level Spanish II course, Getting to know friends better, Volunteering, Going to Renfest, Meeting a Penguin and seeing Christmas Lights at Moody Gardens, celebrating Hanukkah, Finishing our History Curriculum, Both teens getting their braces off, Changes in our health after starting our new diet, Learning about natural medicine, My teens writing skills blossoming, My oldest working as a clerk for the elections, Being part of the Pro-Life rally at the Texas Capitol, Lobbying at the Capitol with THSC (along with my kids volunteering in their teen program), Kaden, my 17 year-old starting driver’s ed… etc.

Yes, this is the same Kaden that was only 13 ten seconds ago.

I asked my two big kiddos what their favorite part of last year was out of all the big list of notes they took for the year, and I was surprised to find that their list was nothing like mine. Finding my art style and becoming more accepting were my 15 year old daughter’s. Sometimes the lessons we are learning aren’t just things we get out of books, or mama’s best laid plans. This is precisely why my favorite school verse is:

“All your children will be taught by the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children.” ~ Isaiah 54:13

A good thing to remember after surviving a really HARD homeschool year is:

“All effort – even failed effort – produces muscle.” ~ Alex & Brett Harris (Do Hard Things)

Maybe your kids, like mine, need to see that you aren’t a quitter – even when the chips are down. Just think… what if Edison had quit trying to figure out how to get an electric light to work? What if Albert Einstein’s parents had given up on him because he didn’t speak until he was 4 and didn’t read until he was 7? What if Van Gogh had quit painting because he only sold one painting in HIS LIFETIME?

There’s no success without failure. 

Next I made a kid-specific list of goals I have for each of my children. You know what each of your own children need to work on. Maybe a behavior they are displaying needs correcting. Maybe a relationship in the family needs attention. Maybe a toddler needs to be potty-trained. These are simple things like:

Keep room and closet clean
Potty-train the 3yo by Christmas
Finish driver’s ed and get license by Thanksgiving
Work on intrinsic motivation for getting school-work and chores done
Work on not wasting time
Learn to tie shoes
Remember to wear retainer
Take PSAT

Just depends on what age and stage your kid is at, and where their heart is. Mama knows.

I also made a general over-arching school goal list for the teens (10 goals) and asked them to create 10 more of their own personal goals.

Here were my goals for the teens this year:

1. Start every day with God (obviously)
2. Get chores done in timely manner without prodding or reminders
3. Get in bed before 11 pm every night, and kids wake by 7:30 am (mom up at 7)
4. Have a positive attitude
5. Review goals every 6 weeks/keep up w/ weekly assignment lists in high school planner
6. Fight distraction
7. Use free time constructively (under 50% on screen time activities)
8. Keep room and closet clean, put away what you get out, and keep schoolwork & supplies organized
9. Keep bathrooms, bed sheets, & bodies clean (anyone else have boys in their house?)
10. Do your best – focus on excellence, honor, and discipline

We shall see what 10 goals each of my eldest add to this list. Can’t wait to read them!

I also made a list of what curricula and teaching plans I have for each subject – for the teenagers and the little guys. I still have some fleshing out to do on those. There are a few holes that need to be filled in, lists that need to be made, and research that needs to be done before I’m finished planning the fine details out.

It is so much easier to make goals for the little guys who are just starting Kindergarten (and continuing with preschool) this year. I’m almost giddy about teaching Kinder again. I’m drooling over my KONOS volumes and imagining how fun the field trips will be. I also love the excitement the little ones have for “doing school”. I think I’ll not make the same mistake again by calling it that. Maybe we’ll just say “learning time” or just use phrases like “let’s read together”, or “counting time”, “arts and crafts”, etc. The word “school” tends to box things in when all of life is learning of one sort or another.

So… that’s our latest Almost Back to School Update. What we have left for this section (Putting God First/The Direction of Our Year) is to pray with the kids for their school year and see what ten goals they made for themselves. I have already been letting them use their high school planners to write assignments and keep their calendars over the summer during our summer schooling, so they are good to go there.

Join me as I cover our planning and preparing phase for 2014-15 back to school in this post series…

Here are the posts, linking up as I write them…

Almost Back to School Series Intro
Post 1: Starting with God
Post 2: Getting Organized
Post 3: Planning, Scheduling & Preparing (including printables)
Post 4: Homemaking Mostly Grain and Sugar Free Lunch Ideas
Post 5: 2014-15 School Year

Are you gearing up? Already started? I’m aiming for September 15th!