In our last blog post we were talking all about the stages of homeschooling and how to meet your homeschool goals. If you have never written out goals with your children, it is always a great way to start the new year! 2020 not only brings a new year but a new decade. Sit and think for just a moment how much life will change in 10 years. Will your children still be at home or off to college? They might even be married with children by then! Now is the time to make a fresh start and build your hope for the future. The only limitations are your own thoughts and breaking those barriers might just be the key to having the best year yet with your children!

We have a beautiful older woman in our church congregation that is full of wisdom that she has gained over the years. She has taught many women in her time and one thing that she always emphasizes is how to set goals based on the scripture in Luke 2:52. That verse says,

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."

Although God’s Word is complete, she did add one thing to her goal list that isn't listed in this specific verse, financial. We feel like that is fitting because the bible does talk alot about our financial lives as well. (Dave Ramsey is the expert here!)

If this method of living was good enough for Jesus, it is definitely good enough for us! Keeping Jesus in our mind as we set goals for the new year gives us a sense of purpose and power to accomplish great things with the days He has given us! We want to give you a head start to easily create goals with your children based on this verse so please feel free to download this pdf and print one for each of your children.

As you can see, this goal setting outline doesn’t just want you to blindly write your goal and then file it away to never be thought of again. Take the goal and break it down into actionable steps. This helps fit the overwhelm and gives your children the confidence that they need to actually accomplish their dreams! Don’t forget to add their reason why. On the days that we don’t want to work on our goals, because lets face it, it isn’t always fun to grow when we are smack dab in the process, they will keep working at it because they can look up and think to themselves, “Oh yeah, that is WHY I want to accomplish this goal.” Now, let’s get going and make this year spectacular!

Our next post will be all about making goal setting fun….stay tuned for that! If you don’t want to miss out on any blog posts, Cedar Hill news or upcoming events, click here to join our email list.

As we start to settle in for the winter, it is a good time to take a few quiet moments to sit down and really look at our homeschool routines, ideas, and accomplishments for the first part of this school year. It is always best to focus on the positives but as you look back, we also need to take the time to review the things that might not be working the way you had planned.

Now, before we get much deeper, know that there are going to be periods, hopefully just a day or two but they can last longer, where your child (or yourself) are disgruntled or overwhelmed about learning in general. Take these times to either push them beyond their comfort zone to growth in a fun way or let them just sit on cruise control for a short time to help them rejuvenate. We all need brain breaks every once in a while!

One word of caution , there is so much chatter about the “kind” of homeschooler we identify with. Are you involved in CC (Classical Conversations), unchoolers, part of the wild and free movement, school at home, ect.? As you sit back at ponder (hopefully with a steaming cup of coffee or tea), all that really matters is if you and your children love the way YOUR family is choosing to learn. Are you satisfied with their growth? Are you encouraged by the way they are excited to learn? If the answer to these questions is a resounding yes, keep up the good work mama! If not, then it might be time to take a look at how you are choosing to go about your days.

Traditionally, homeschooling goes through stages along with your children's development. In the early years we get to play with lots of paint, sounds, construction paper, glue, and glitter. The laminator is your best friend during this period but the pieces of cut laminate sheets are more like your worst enemy. Then you transition into the upper elementary age to middle school. Your kids still want to paint and do art but the projects get more involved and the mess is a little more manageable because hopefully, they are learning to clean up after themselves just a bit. It is during this stage that you may start to question, as your child's primary educator, if you have what it takes to finish out the next stage.. high school. As you transition into high school age, you move into transcripts, testing, upper-level math, and lab sciences. Some families will choose to completely stay their own course for all of the high school learning and might even decide to never take the SAT or pursue higher formal education in the form of college. That is totally ok! Trades are on a comeback and our children will be able to support themselves just as well, if not better, by learning a trade than if they become a degreed professional. For those families that do decide that college is the best path for their child/ren, the reality is that they will need to know how to take notes, study for tests, handle the nerves of testing, write formal essays, do higher-level math and so on.

You can be prepared for both high school options at any age by asking yourself these questions:

Are the decisions I am making today helping or hindering our goals for our homeschool journey?

Are we growing closer as a family and to God through our homeschool journey?

Can I see growth, even incremental, in my children’s abilities mentally, spiritually and physically?

There are undoubtedly many more questions you can ask yourself but these will give you a good indicator as to what path you are currently on and if you need to just stay the course or look to alter your direction.

Just as you are looking at your family’s routines, priorities, strengths and weaknesses, we are also looking at ours at Cedar Hill Academy. We feel like our true gift to our families is having learning options for upper elementary to high school students that engage, teach and encourage them to love learning. Yes, even what some feel are harder subjects like math and science. Experiment days are definitely a favorite with the students and who knew a game of faction spoons could draw so many laughs! We are loving our Saplings class and feel like it is going beyond the classroom teaching skills and abilities that you can only get with a personalized education. During our first semester, the sapling students have built life-size teepees, a longhouse for the winter, fires (with of course s’mores), dioramas, scale models of the early Lewis and Clark forts, gone on nature hikes collect local plants, identifying and drying them and so much more. The students are also loving the read alouds and outside free time that we take each learning period. Growing a family or a business are both works in progress, but if we keep our ultimate goal in mind, we know we will succeed together in both.

Over the next few weeks, we want to give you tools to help set your homeschool goals that are based on scripture that really work! We have said it before and will say it again, progress over perfection conquers the homeschool day. We would love to hear from you. What are some struggles and some wins you have had this year?