I love starting a new year. I am a big fan of resolutions, goals and dreams as well. For me, the new year feels like a chance at a new beginning. By December, my world has gotten somewhat out of control, the house is disorganized, my school goals have lost focus, and I am just ready for a break. But when January 1st arrives, I feel like get a “do over.” I love Mondays for the same reason: A chance to start over each week.
Every year I spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day frantically trying to clean, reorganize and readjust my priorities. This year I felt like I needed a month or so between Christmas and the New Year to get this done. A week was just not enough time to sort through, clean out and finish off the old year. My office is a mess, the kitchen is a mess, and the Christmas decorations are still up, but now they are cluttering every room in the house. I need more time before I start over!
Rather than becoming overwhelmed, I have decided to make my personal “new year” start on January 12: By then I should be done with 2013. The first two weeks in January will be like a no man’s land, belonging neither to 2013 or 2014. For example, I was planning to start school again on the 6th, and I’m sure I will to some degree to keep Joel from getting too out of the groove, but I won’t officially start until the 13th. That is one of the beauties of homeschooling: flexible schedules.
All that being said, I am still very excited to start a new semester. Joel will be starting multiplication, and he is excited about it. We spent the last two weeks of this semester really pounding away to finish subtraction. I am also very happy with our Apologia Bible Worldview curriculum and Apologia Science, Land Animals of the Sixth Day — we can’t wait to continue with those. And we are getting to the really interesting (for me) part of the middle ages in our Story of the World curriculum. Horizons Math 3 and Life of Fred will keep Joel busy in math, combined with mastering multiplication. For English, we are continuing with All About Spelling and First Language Lessons 3.
Our goals for this semester are to:
- Master multiplication
- Write in cursive
- Spell well enough to start writing sentences
- Get into better hygiene habits in the morning and at bedtime
- Take responsibility for chores
How about you and your homeschool? What are your New Year’s goals? Are you ready to dive in, or taking time to get organized?
I love the idea of two weeks of “no mans’ land.”
Popping in from Family Fun Friday linky party! I’m with you, I always feel as though by the time December rolls around our schooling is all a mess, and I look forward to the fresh start after the break. I do the same with Monday’s as well–new week fresh start. And I can’t even tell you what our school room looks like at the end of the week–it’s always a wreck! My primary goal is the same, staying consistent every day with school. It’s gotten harder each year as my oldest gets older, and since he’s started school we’ve added two more babies in the house. Consistency has been a challenge. 🙂
Seriously loving the idea of not starting the new year for 2 weeks! After I’ve wrapped up Christmas and New Year’s I need a bit of time to get us organized and in the groove again. We’re officially starting school again tomorrow but much of it will be a Teacher Work Day as I try to figure out where we are in our curriculum and get us back on track. Thanks for sharing via Family Fun Friday.
Thanks for this positive and encouraging post. It is helpful to hear from other moms who step back and take a good look at how things are going, and are tweaking and focusing in on their goals. Love hearing the goals you have for your Joel – I have a boy working on very similar goals. Happy New Year to you!