New Year's Resolutions

Yep. You read that correctly. And yes, I looked at a calendar before I posted this. Even if I hadn't, the 113 degree heat index certainly would have alerted me to the fact that it cannot possibly be January 1.

However, since I am a teacher, and since all of my children are students, August 1 feels like another New Year's Day. I take stock, plan for the next nine months, decide what I am going to do better or differently and resolve to be that "together" adult that other people seem to be but somehow keeps eluding me.

So here are my resolutions for this 2010-11 school year:

1. Maintain a sense of calm and order in my home. (Anyone want to borrow some fighting siblings for nine months, or come clean my house every day? :o))

2. Teach my children every day. I can hear you all saying "Are you SERIOUS??? You have to make a RESOLUTION to do that? What kind of home schooling mother ARE you?" I mean that I want to purposefully TEACH my children every day this year. I don't want to just "do school." I don't want to just have my kids filling out workbook pages and completing lessons so that we can check them off of our "to do" list. I don't want school just to be one more thing in a too long list of things that has to be done every day. I want it to be the thing that we WANT to do every day. And as my scholars this year will be thirteen, eleven, and nine, that might be a challenging undertaking.

3. Do everything in my power to help my 20 3rd and 4th grade students improve their skills in reading and math this year. And hopefully they will see that learning can be fun in the process.

So for the next nine months, I am going to try very hard to measure everything that I do...all of the opportunities that come my way...against these three resolutions. If it helps me achieve one of these goals, great! Sign me up.

If not, then I can't wait to get started on it on May 27, 2011!