10 New Year’s Resolutions for My Homeschool

I love the New Year for homeschoolers! It gives me a chance to reevaluate our school year and see if any changes need to be made.
Every year comes with it’s challenges. With different grades and ages to homeschool, a homeschool Senior in dual enrollment at our local college,  new homeschool classes and extra curricular activities for the kids, I have just found myself so busy! With all that busyness, our best intentions for our homeschool can sometimes get thrown to the wayside when other things get in the way!

I have never been a huge resolution person. Some people either love resolutions or they hate them! I’ve always just sat down and made tweaks to a new schedule in an informal way, I’ve never really formally announced what I was planning to do. This year I have decided to have some purpose and to actually write down and document the changes that I want to make for my homeschool for this New Year. 

I challenge you to take some time yourself, to pray about your homeschool and prepare yourself for the new year ahead. In the time I have spent praying and evaluating, I have come up with 10 things that I personally want to work on this year. 

Here are 10 resolutions for my homeschool:

1. Create a doable routine and be consistent to stick with it! 
This resolution is the cornerstone of all of my homeschool resolutions for the new year. I am working on writing out a routine that encompasses all of these things to make sure that they get done!

2. Start school at the same time every day that we are home.
This one is huge for me as I am not a morning person. I can be honest with you all and say that I tend to oversleep, which puts me in a grumpy mood and we end up starting school later than I want, or I end up letting the kids play too long and we don’t start on time. I think consistency is the key to a smooth day and that is something I want to work harder on this year.

3. Start our day with the Bible together.
We did well with this in the beginning of this year, and then it started to fall to the wayside. I think this was partly due to not starting school at the same time everyday! Once we are done with breakfast, I want to sit down at the table and have morning Bible time before we get out our school notebooks and start anything else. Bible Studies are a great thing to start with.
I plan on using this one with my kids since they seem to fight way too often:
My Brother’s Keeper: Learning to Love Your Sibling’s God’s Way 

4. Work on my relationship with God and have the kids see me reading my Bible.
I usually read my Bible at night before I go to bed, but I have been feeling like I need to start my day by spending time with God. It will give me a better grip on my day and the strength I need. I am planning on doing this in the living room with my morning cup of coffee so the kids can see my studying. I recently bought THIS Journaling Bible and am excited to add Bible Journaling to my morning routine. 
If you are curious about Bible Journaling check out this post:
Bible Journaling FREE Printables and Ideas

If you are looking for a Bible reading plan here is a 100 Day Printable Bible Reading Plan from His Mercy is New.

5. Have a set quiet reading time every day.
This one is really important to me. It’s easy for us to tackle all of our subjects and then the kids are done and we are in a hurry to be free for the rest of the day. I always forget to incorporate reading time. I think I am going to put this right into Language Arts. As soon as they are finished with their grammar lessons, they will grab the book they are working on and start reading it.

6. Read one chapter a day from a read aloud book.
This is another one that falls to the wayside. We have been reading The Little House on the Prairie Series, but it is taking us a little longer than I wanted it to, because we just pick it up and read it periodically or when I remember! We really need to have a better schedule for this. My goal is to do our read aloud right after lunch each day.

7. Pick one day a week to run errands/grocery shop.
Do you always find yourself trying to figure out when you are going to fit in grocery shopping? I always have so much going on. If we aren’t out doing our extra curricular activities we are at home trying to get school done. I always get so stressed when I don’t have a plan and then I realize I need to figure out how in the world I am going to fit in grocery shopping or any other errand I need to run. This year, I am sitting down with my calendar and I am planning a specific day and time to use just for running errands and shopping!

8. Continue to be consistent with a weekly calendar planning and meal planning meeting with my husband.
My husband and I have a weekly meeting time every Sunday afternoon or evening. I have to say I am very proud that we have been pretty consistent with this. When we miss this meeting our week is utter chaos. I am going to make sure we continue this. During this meeting we quickly chat about what we have to accomplish this week. What is on the calendar for the week, as well as projects we want to tackle around the house or phone calls or things that need to get made. We also create a dinner meal plan during this time and we make sure to create it around our schedule. If we have church or American Heritage Girls one evening, then we need to make sure to have a quick and simple meal. This weekly planning time also helps us to connect during the week.

9. Have an afternoon family snack time.
Every day when we are done with school and we are “free”, I tend to go my own way and work on things that I need to do around the house, or take a computer break. It is during this time that my kids are immediately rummaging through the cabinets wanting to eat something. This can go on all afternoon up until dinner if I’m not paying attention. If they eat too close to dinner then they aren’t hungry! I think the way to eliminate this is to have a scheduled snack time. I am even considering adding an afternoon snack to our meal planning each week. I think this would be a good time to just unwind and be present with my kids. The older ones can take turns getting the snack together as well.

 10. Create a set time for exercise.
I have mentioned multiple times that I am not a morning person. So this means that it is very difficult for me to find time to exercise if I don’t do it in the mornings. I have tried to be consistent with exercise multiple times last year, and whenever I tried to fit it, I found that afternoons worked best for me. So this year, I am going to schedule in exercise time for the afternoons when we are done with school and before it’s time to make dinner. I think this could pair well with the afternoon snack time and exercise before the snack.

So there you have it! My 10 resolutions for the new year for our homeschool. I think they are pretty doable, as long as we can be consistent to stick with them! So what are some of your resolutions for the new year?