The Dos and Don’ts of Homeschool Objectives

Knowing the dos and don’ts of homeschool objectives boosts your teaching ability. Also, look at my page The Dynamics of How to Homeschool Easily and Smarter for more tips.

Homeschooling objectives for me have never really been about meeting the legalities of homeschooling but it has been about plotting a course.

Today, in the dos and don’ts of homeschooling objectives, I am using my homeschool objectives for fourth grade writing to show you what I did one year.

Before I do that though, I want you to understand that unlike the pressure the educational world puts on public school teachers, we do not have to use complicated language or try to mimic some fancy formula.

You need breathing room to plan for your own unique family and not some institution.

Too, arming you with details are important in helping you to move forward.

Key to understanding objectives is knowing how they relate to goals.

Goals and objectives are two different things though similar in purpose. They both chart a course.

Goals are general plans.  However, objectives are clear steps to reaching a goal and are more specific when you need them.

Look at my copy of my objectives for Mr. Senior 2013 when he was in fourth grade.

First, I didn’t have my 7 step homeschool planner that I do now with useful forms so I kept a black hardbound book and wrote my specific objectives in it.

Too, I wrote a few personal notes on it about my oldest son’s writing and because I am not looking to embarrass my son when showing you my work, I whited out a few spots.

Look at my dos of homeschool objectives:

• Do list your overall goal.  My goal was to have him write 3 paragraphs by the end of the year.
• Do be specific to list the time allowed.  I would allow 40 minutes for writing each day.
• Do list the specific outline or steps to accomplish the objective. I noted what I knew then as the 4 stage process of writing.
• Do list things to remind you of what not to do. I wanted to strengthen his writing skills and hone in on changing his sentence variety that year by encouraging him to not always use “I” to start a sentence.  Varying topic sentences was another point to focus on for the year.
• Do list what will be new that year.  I was going to try out a planner or graphic organizer that year.
• Do list your resources or curriculum help. I was using several resources at the time, but there were some writing examples in Rod and Staff that were more significant to me to follow that year. This was part of my action plan to getting my objective accomplished.
• Do list other helps you will create or find to accomplish the objective. I created a checklist for him to check his writing.
• Do individualize the objectives for your kids and for the year.

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• The Dos and Don’ts of Homeschool Objectives – fourth grade writing objectives

Look at my don’ts of homeschool objectives:

• Don’t try to follow public school by using educationalese.
• Don’t worry about it being right or wrong from a public school point of view, grade or age. It is right because it is the road map for your child.
• Don’t try to be too specific if you don’t need to be.  I only used my 4th grade writing objectives because I was very specific and wanted to show you a detailed list.

Goals and objectives can quickly become intertwined in homeschooling and that is okay.

Sometimes, you just don’t need such a specific plan.

Just remember the main difference between general goals and homeschool objectives is that objectives have 2 parts to them to make them more specific.

The first part is explaining what will be accomplished for that term, which could be a semester or year and the second part is explaining how it will be done.

If you were writing objectives, for example, about history and wanted to keep them general, look at this one.

• To introduce and become familiar with the world of Ancient Civilization. This will be done through hands-on activities, role playing, timelines, making time period recipes, lapbooking and living books.

Again, noting what I was going to do and how I will accomplish it was all that I needed that one year.

Even simple objectives are meaningful and significant.

The dos and don’ts of homeschooling objectives are making them fit your use for whatever school term you need.

Do you find drafting homeschool objectives an easy part of homeschool planning?

Also, look at how homeschool objectives can easily be made for unit studies too.