 Hi you guys my name is Brittany and welcome back to my YouTube channel. You guys in today's video I am going to be talking about my homeschooling goals and my homeschool vision for the 2021 2022 school year. So if you guys are interested in hearing about my goals and my vision for this upcoming school year then go ahead and stay tuned for today's video. So if any of you guys are new here again to my channel I have a nine three and a one year old and here on my channel I typically do make motherhood and lifestyle content however I decided to add in some homeschooling content into my channel because homeschooling has become a bigger part of my life and I do want to share it and add that content to my channel. So if any of you guys are returning or new subscribers I hope you are enjoying this content that I'm adding on to my YouTube channel. So you guys honestly I really have to just chat with you and just start off from the beginning and how our homeschooling journey began and I know our homeschooling journey and how it began is not unique and it's not unusual especially because of the circumstances of last year. A lot of you guys and I know me of course was thrust into this homeschooling journey and honestly I just went into this blindly. I really didn't know what to expect and what what come of it or come from it. I just knew that homeschooling was my only option last year when it came to schooling my daughter. So last year two weeks before Brielle was about to start virtual learning I decided to pull the plug and sign the declaration of intent to pull Brielle out of the public school system. At the time I had a six month old and I had a two year old and I knew that the vigorous virtual learning schedule was not going to be able to work out especially with me and in a season of life that I was in and honestly I was really nervous to pull that plug. I really didn't know where to start. I really didn't know where to begin but you guys I went ahead and did it. I did it with my hands shaking. I was so nervous but honestly I knew in my heart that I was making the best decision for me and for my family. So you guys I started off our upcoming or our last year homeschooling with a little bit of curriculum and I just went I just went on the ground. I just started running. I really didn't have a vision or a plan for our school year. I feel like I was literally taking it week by week month by month and I was just praying and hoping that I wasn't going to ruin my daughter's education. I was just praying that we would just stay apart. I was just praying that I can get us through to the next year and then honestly my goal at that point was just to put Brielle back into public school and I was like okay we survived and just closed that chapter in my life. I did not realize that once I opened up that book to homeschooling that I was going to love it and that it was really going to bring about a peace and a joy in my home and it really was going to change not only my life but my whole family's life. So I am so happy to be continuing with this homeschooling journey. However this year you guys I did want to go ahead and set out some intentional goals and a vision for our upcoming school year. Now last year I did write down a few goals and I'm going to go ahead and share them with you guys because I feel like I can't move on to the next level unless I look back and see where I started. So in 2020 I went ahead and I wrote a few goals into my phone and the first goal that I wrote was to focus and learn more about the Bible and God. I wrote that I wanted Brielle to excel in our areas of academics. I wanted us to focus on having fun and I also wanted to learn Brielle's learning style. So you guys I really set out some simple homeschooling goals just because again that season of my life I was just in survival mode. So I wanted to keep things a lot simple and a lot easy for you know me and for our household. I really didn't want to add to the chaos that was already there. So honestly when I look back at my phone and I look back at these goals that I wrote I really do feel like we have met we met all of these goals. However this year I want to elevate it and I want to take us to another level in our homeschooling journey. So this homeschooling year I picked out three words that I want to focus on as my homeschooling vision for throughout the home homeschooling year and my daughter Brielle I asked her to pick two words and she picked out two words that she wants our homeschooling vision to be and I feel like all together these five words really blend well together and I really hope that I can bring about this vision alive. So my three words that I wrote was inspiring, engaging, and present and Brielle's two words was interactive and fun. So I really think we have a good vision going so we want it we want our homeschooling year to be inspiring, engaging. I want to be more present as a homeschooling mom because I feel like last year in the midst of us doing our homeschool I was always stopping to research to look up things. I really feel like I wasn't present in the moment and this upcoming school year I want to put aside all distractions. I'm actually going to leave my phone upstairs because I don't want to get distracted by any phone calls or anything when we are having our homeschooling session. I just want to be able to focus on what we are focusing on especially during those times that I block out for us to do school. Another thing is I do want to focus on us having more fun and going outside more. I feel like again last year I was in survival mode and it was a really tough season for me and honestly we really didn't get a chance to get out as much as I wanted to to go out just on simple walks and things like that I was really working around a breastfeeding and a nursing schedule with Alana and also I was working around her nap schedule. So a lot of things that we were doing was really catered to Alana's schedule but now Alana is she's one years old and she is up and she's a part of the whole family and I really feel like in the mornings we can go ahead and carve out that extra time for us to be able to go outside and just really explore in nature. You know I really feel like because of the pandemic I really have taken it literally and in some points because my kids they were really in the house a lot and honestly that is a big thing I do want to change. Another thing that I do want to change this upcoming school year and which is a big goal of mine is really like I said before to have fun and to really be intentional and to slow down. I feel like I was just following the curriculum like if I didn't follow this guide something was going to go wrong you know this train was not going to keep on moving and I really took the curriculum too hard. I really was a slave to my curriculum and I think this is not the first time that I said it before but this upcoming year I really want to simplify things and I don't want to be a slave to my curriculum. I want to feel the confidence and knowing that when Brielle has mastered concept or she has gotten it that we can just continue to move on and I really want to be able to follow that gut instincts to be able to slow down when we need to slow down and when my daughter is ready to learn the next concept just to kind of like go along with the flow. Now something else and another goal that I do have for this upcoming school year is that I definitely want to go ahead and continue some of the things that I did do that did work out for us and something that really worked out for me and a goal that we had was just to only do one subject at a time so when it came to our regular schedule which was our math and our language arts and our reading and writing we did those things every day but when it came to science and history I blocked those off so I would spend only one quarter doing just science the next quarter doing history and it really just allowed me that freedom and flexibility to know that hey this is all the things that I set for us to do and when I was able to check those things off of the list I felt less overwhelmed so my goal like I said before is just to take it day by day and really to keep things a lot simple. So another goal that I had was I want us to do more arts and crafts. We really didn't get a chance to do a lot of arts and crafts last year until we took our break for Christmas and that was when we really had a lot of fun. I mean by the end of Thanksgiving Brielle she finished her whole semester's work of math and language arts and she really was ahead so I really felt like that was a good time for us to stop and pause and I did not know by putting down the curriculum all of the other things that we were going to get into. Brielle started baking and we started cooking together and we started doing more arts and crafts and things like that so when we did that through the month of December it really just made me want to be more intentional and adding in that art into our regular homeschool flow and our regular homeschool life. Another thing too is that Brielle is really into cooking and I want to continue to allow Brielle to go into kitchen and help us cook. My goal for Brielle for this upcoming school year is for her to be able to go in the kitchen and really start to cook and be confident in serving us as our family especially simple things like eggs and she already knows how like bake the muffins like the packaged muffin mix. She knows how to do things like that and I really want to continue to flourish that I guess her cooking and things like that because she definitely has an interest in being in the kitchen. And another thing I do want to do more is I want to read more in our home this year as you guys know I am going to be taking more of a literature based learning when it comes to our history and honestly I really hope that by me doing this is going to allow us to be able to get through a lot of subjects just by simply reading again I feel like I am not like over this hurdle of this toddler and baby the life. I mean I'm still going to have a one and a three year old in the mix of our homeschool and I really feel like being able to just read through our subjects and doing a literature based learning is really going to be able to help me tackle a lot of these things. Now another one of my homeschooling goals is really for me just to enjoy it and I know that sounds so simple but I want to sit back and I want to enjoy it. I feel like I didn't start enjoying our homeschooling year last year until it was almost over when I was able to look back at all the things Brielle did and I was looking back at all of her work and when I was following everything away was really when I started to say oh my gosh we did have fun I can't believe we did this oh that was a fun documentary we watched on sea turtles it was just so crazy how I didn't really start to enjoy it until the end of that second semester and this year I just want to kick back and I just want to enjoy it I want to enjoy each season each little hurdle that we have done and I really want to just celebrate each little milestone that we have made. Now my daughter Brielle she actually is a goal maker too and she wrote some goals down and I have them in my phone and I don't want to forget and I'm going to go ahead and share some of the goals that she has for herself which is she wants to do more type in. Brielle also says she wants to find more ways to do creative writing. Now creative writing was definitely a big part of our homeschooling year last year I mean honestly I gave Brielle a plain composition book at the beginning of the year it was really just something for her to do to write down her thoughts and I really didn't know just what I was giving my daughter just by giving her a pen to paper. You guys she created so many stories and she just created so many beautiful pictures in her journal and she really found a love for creative writing and this year she definitely wants to continue on with it and hopefully I am able to continue to feed that curiosity especially when it comes to Brielle's creative writing. Another thing Brielle says she wants to do more of is field trips I definitely want to do more field trips I'm going to try my best I know for the most part we're probably going to have to do most of our field trips on the weekend because honestly I'm not that confident in taking all three of my kids out really really far places. I live in the outskirts of Atlanta and most of the things and the fun things to do is in the city so I don't feel comfortable just going out with three all three of my kids by myself just yet when I get a little bit older I definitely know I will have the confidence but as of now our field trips we will schedule them on the weekend so my husband or my mom or my sister can come along with us so that's definitely something we are going to do more of. Brielle also said she wanted to do more hands-on learning now we didn't do as much hands-on learning last year we started doing a lot more towards the end of our semester and she definitely enjoyed it and I think she wants to continue that and I think that's something I definitely can do. Another thing that Brielle asked and I was really surprised was she asked to do nature study I mean I never even told her about nature studies but she asked me specifically she wants to go outside she wants to do more things in nature she wants to learn about more things in nature and I really think what sparked that interest honestly was when we started our body unit from the good and the beautiful she actually enjoyed learning about plants and that just really sparked that interest and she said like I said she wants to do a nature study and hopefully I will be able to help her do that I know nature studies can be really really complicated and it can be really really simple and I think by keeping a nature or our nature study really simple I think that's probably going to be able to allow me to be successful in that area so yeah. So you guys I really hope you enjoyed hearing about my homeschooling vision and my homeschooling goals I really hope you guys enjoyed today's video and I hope you guys set time aside for you to go ahead and plan out your homeschool vision and your homeschooling goals you guys I know a lot of you are nervous just like me about this upcoming homeschool year but we can do it we're all going to have good homeschooling years this doesn't mean that we're not going to have bad days or rainy days but I'm really hoping that everybody will have a great upcoming school year that everyone will be inspired and it will be a awesome engaging interactive fun school year so as always you guys please don't forget to comment like and subscribe and I hope to see everyone in my next video bye