We began Home Education Week looking back, today, for the final day, we will look forward.

What are your goals for home education? What do you hope to instill in your children? Are you planning any changes to how you educate your children?

Looking ahead, my first thoughts are about next year. One big change is that Little E will be the age at which he could enter the local kindergarten. With him showing so much interest in reading, writing, and numbers, I will definitely start some more formal work with him in the coming months and for the next school year.

That is going to change the entire dynamic around here.

Right now, Little E just plays by himself, uses the craft supplies, watches TV (I know, bad mom), or plays “Curious George” games on pbskids.org, while I work with the older two boys.

Next year, I really want the boys to work more independently. I am grooming them for that now by pulling back a little from the help I usually give them and offering them more independent assignments or assignments they can do together.

With the older boys working more independently, I will have time to work with Little E one on one.

I am also planning to tweak the curriculum a bit. I want to add Latin (which we are going to start soon, actually) and maybe another language. Spanish seems like the obvious one, with the number of Spanish-speaking people in the US, but since we live so close to Canada’s French-speaking province, Quebec, we might do French.

I am also going to change our Language Arts curriculum. We have been using Learning Language Arts through Literature, which I love, but they do not. I figured that after using it for two years, I should change to something they might like more.

Beyond the next school year, my long-term goals for the boys are to prepare them for life. We all want to continue homeschool through high school and I am excited at the opportunity it gives them to gain some sense of what they want to do with their lives before they head out into the world. I want to give them the freedom to explore their interests and develop their passions.

While my reasons for homeschooling were not religious, family and home are an inextricable part of homeschooling, and therefore our faith, as well. I want to give my boys a foundation of biblical knowledge and character that they can carry with them into adulthood. Even if they turn away from God when they get older, I want them to at least have the seeds planted in their hearts from the lessons, the time spent just talking, and from seeing my husband and I model it ourselves. (We are still working on that last part.)

Oh, yeah, and I want to have fun. I feel so serious with all this talk of developing godly character and developing their passions. Don’t get me wrong - those are very important things. But what is also important is to love these little guys while I can, before they are all grown and gone.

So my final goal for homeschooling is to play games together, read them stories, do crafts together, let them help me in the kitchen, and occasionally ditch the school work for the day and go outside and enjoy their childhood.

Be sure to head on over to Principled Discovery to find out what other homeschoolers see when they are looking forward.