 Abby, welcome to Flodokway. I'm Jessica. Today's video is a homeschool show and tell. The homeschool show and tell is an open collaboration hosted by Abby from Rooted and Rest and Myself. Our goal with the homeschool show and tell series was really just to show that there's not one right way to homeschool. There's numerous ways to do it and we can all get to the same place and doing it our own way. So we do that by picking a topic each and every month and bringing homeschoolers together from around the world to share their take on that topic. This month's topic is homeschool New Year's resolution. So here it is a new year. What resolutions are you going to make in your homeschool? Or maybe you don't make them at all. Either way, we can't wait to see what you all say. We hope you will follow along and participate or at least watch the people who are participating. So to watch all of the videos that are in the club, make sure you head to the description box where I will have a link for you. I am really excited about this because we actually do make New Year's resolutions on a personal basis, on a family basis and on a homeschool basis. So we kind of sit down and have like a family meeting and we go through and we make not really resolutions but more goals for the year. Like what are things we would like to see us do more of or maybe less of in 2023. And so today I'm gonna share the goals that we made for our homeschool for 2023. If you are interested in maybe some of our personal or family goals, let me know in the comments and I'll see about sharing those with you all. The first resolution or goal that we made for the coming year was to have more fun or at least keep having as much fun as we were. And the main reason that we picked that is because learning shouldn't be boring and I mean, I don't wanna learn in a boring kind of way. That's what I did most of my school career and I don't wanna have to do that anymore. So I like to make it fun friendly. So coming back from the holidays, the main way that we make homeschool fun is with a book and a game a day challenge which I shared more about that in this video about what books we're gonna be reading, what games we're gonna be playing, kind of the basis for it and how you can join us if you're interested in easing back into the homeschool year with a simple yet effective way to homeschool that's going to prioritize connection with your kids which is obviously my main goal in homeschooling in general. So I definitely like to make sure that we're doing it as often as possible. But also not just that. I wanna make sure that we're doing interest-led learning, that we're following her interests, that we're doing things that she likes to do, that we're having poetry tea times, that we're going for nature walks, that we're doing activities and hands-on things, things that makes learning come alive for her. And I wanna make sure that we're prioritizing that in our homeschool. Kevin and I both do. So that was like number one hands-down. We wanna keep having fun and have more of it. The second thing that we decided needed to be a resolution in our homeschool was to stay active and get outdoors. Now, we have participated in the thousand hours outside challenge for the past three years. We have never hit a thousand hours outside to date. We get close, like really close every year. This year we're over 900. Every year we get a little bit better at it about prioritizing being outside. One of these days we're actually going to hit the thousand but you know what? That is one of the goals or one of those challenges where we succeeded even in failing because we were getting outdoors more than we ever were. We were having more fun. We were meeting friends in state parks. It was worth the failure every step of the way. Like you don't really fail even if you don't get it, right? So staying active and staying outdoors is definitely up there. As a family recently we did a 5K and by did a 5K I mean we walked very quickly. We are not runners but we participated in a 5K and we had a blast. And leading up to that we were training so going for family walks every day and the benefits of walking every day that showed in our homeschool were amazing. I mean my attitude and mood, Emily's attitude and mood, our attention spans, the clarity that we had. Like our entire day but specifically our homeschool day went so much smoother on the days that we walked before we sat down to do homeschool. And so I was like this is something that needs to stay. Number one, because I'm on a fitness journey or a health journey of my own and I need to get in more steps and it was an easy way to get in more steps so that was a win-win for me. But also because it benefited our homeschool so much and so I'm like okay I wanna keep doing this. So we're going to make it a priority to stay active. It may not always be walks. We have a treadmill. We like to do Cosmic Kids Yoga together. We like to do some of the yoga on our Echo Dot. I just got a rebounder for Christmas so a mini trampoline that we can use in our homeschool. So tons of different ways for us to stay active indoors in the winter or in the bad weather. So that is definitely a goal. Staying active and getting outdoors as much as possible because the benefits have just, they've proven themselves and that's something we wanna make a priority to do more of. And then our last goal for our homeschool for 2023 was one that Emily was like hands down this is mine and it was to go on more field trips or have more experiences. She is definitely a kid who loves to learn like hands-on in real life so anytime she can go to the zoo and see the animal in person. And it doesn't even have to be anything extravagant. The last time we went to the zoo, she just watched and observed the cheetah for like an hour because she had learned all about it and she's like oh man this is so cool just to observe one. So it doesn't even have to be extravagant for her but she just wants to go and do and see an experience which is one of the main reasons why we homeschool and I feel like especially this time of year we've gotten so caught up in the are we behind? Are we halfway through? And it's hard not to just be like let's go not do any of the things and only do the workbook or this or that because we're behind and we need to get this lesson done. And so I find that that's something that I am always kind of internally battling and I don't want to become that mom or run that kind of homeschool. And so I was like yes hands down more field trips. Let's make it a priority. Let's make sure that we are going and like seeing and experiencing the things that we're learning about versus it just being out of a book. Not that there's anything wrong with that. So obviously we love reading but if we have the opportunity to go and see it or learn about it or take a tour or talk to somebody who experiences it or does it hands down I wanna make sure that we're doing that. That's one of the main reasons we homeschool. So we're going to try really really hard to make field trips or travel or experiences more of a priority in our homeschool in 2023. And of course we will still be including and trying to capitalize on our one thing for this homeschool year. Now if you're new here and you're not sure what I'm talking about every homeschool year so we chose this back in August we choose one thing that we wanna focus on in our homeschool that year. So in the past we've chosen things like read alouds, games, nature journaling, poetry, tea time and then we get really really good at them because that's kind of like the focus of our homeschool year we make sure we're doing it no matter what. Then by the end of the homeschool year we've come to incorporate them and it kind of comes to live in our homeschool and more naturally. So that makes it easier to continue to do it. Then the next year we add something else and those things just kind of start seamlessly happening and it doesn't feel like a chore anymore. And so our one thing for this homeschool year was critical thinking and logic. It was something that was very important to me and so we're really making that a priority. And the main way we're doing that is with single player logic games. Emily's an only child, having an only sometimes I need a break so I have been strewing a ton of single player logic games for her. I bought a ton at the beginning of the homeschool year in one of our halls and it's just been a great way to make sure that we're getting that in we're making it happen. Some days we'll even challenge each other because a lot of our logic games have cards that are numbered like well I can do a number 22 can you do a number 23 and we'll kind of go back and forth and challenge each other even if it is a single player game. So it's working on my logic and critical thinking skills too which I absolutely love. I love that even as an adult I never stop learning especially when I'm homeschooling. So that is our one thing for this year. If you're curious and you'd like to see some of our favorite single player logic games I will link them up here for you so you can check them out if you wanna add that to your homeschool maybe it's one of your resolutions but that will continue not for all of 2023 although technically once it's kind of in there we'll keep doing it but that's our focus for the homeschool year so that's kind of like an August through May kind of thing. Now like I said if you're interested in our personal or family resolutions just let me know down in the comments and I'll be happy to let you know. I do know that as a family one of ours is to do a 5K every month for 2023 that was kind of my personal help one as well as our family one because we enjoyed the 5K that we did last month so much and I guess that's also going to kind of crossover into our homeschool because we wanna stay active and so we will obviously be having to take lots of walks to train for those 5Ks. Now I would love it if you would tell me what your homeschool resolutions are. Do you make homeschool resolutions? And if so, what are they? Are you going to, what are you gonna do more of or maybe something you're going to do less of? Let me know down in the comments. I can't wait to read them.