Today we have five New Year resolutions for homeschoolers. People have a love-hate relationship with resolutions, but I like them because it’s an opportunity to evaluate what I’ve been doing and make course corrections. Many times resolutions are hard to implement in the long-term because they’re too strict or limiting. What if your resolutions were easy to do and easy to maintain? Would you be more likely to make them? Give these a try and see if they don’t change your mind about making resolutions!

Progress Over Perfection

We homeschoolers tend to be our own harshest critics. We’re always striving for perfection and can feel that we’ve failed when we don’t achieve it. What if we celebrate progress, no matter how small that progress is? Incremental progress is still progress and should be noted and appreciated. This year, forget about trying to hit goals that make you end up burning out if you don’t reach them. Focus on what is being accomplished and use that positive momentum to stay the course.

Less is More

As homeschoolers, we tend to think that we need more materials, more curriculum, and to do more activities to educate our children than we actually do. We put our trust in these things rather than trusting that our children are naturally predisposed to learn. One year, when I was expecting my fifth child, I wasn’t able to get to all of the subjects that were included in our curriculum. We weren’t able to join a co-op either. Out of necessity I pulled back and focused on our basic subjects of math, reading, spelling, penmanship, and Bible. Imagine my surprise when, after my older students took a standardized test, that they did very well on subjects that I had not taught them. I realized then that all of their learning was not on me and that they were learning all of the time from a variety of sources. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by trying to get all of the lesson plans done each day, try pulling back to basics. Taking the pressure off of yourself and your students by doing less will actually result in more learning.

Use What You Already Have

When homeschoolers get together, they love to talk about curriculum. And this time of the year, we may find ourselves struggling to find motivation to get back to school after a lengthy break. We may start to think that new curriculum is the answer. I’d like to encourage you to use what you already have so you can get going again. You don’t have to use the curriculum exactly the way they tell you to use it if it isn’t working. You can modify it to make it more fun or more interesting. The end of the school year is not that far away and starting a new curriculum now could make it more difficult to finish school in late May or June.

Get Outside Daily

That sluggishness we all feel in the winter can make us want to stay curled up indoors until spring arrives. Getting out in nature every day is just the antidote we need to improve our mental and physical well being. Are the kids grumpy and inattentive? Go outside. Are you tired and lethargic? Go outside! If you need ideas and motivation for getting outside, check out 1000 Hours Outside and see how getting outside daily can change your life.

Try Something New

Most of us have a bucket list of something we want to learn or try. Now is as good a time as any! I’m seeing a lot of people online talking about wanting to learn to garden, sew, crochet, learn a foreign language, or learn to cook or to improve their cooking skills. If you have an Internet connection or belong to a library, you have resources literally at your fingertips to get started. Ask your kids what they want to learn too.

Make this part of your school day so it gets accomplished. If I wait until my son goes to bed to work on my projects or activities, not much gets done because by then I’m too tired to do anything. I want to do more reading this year, so I’m scheduling 20 minutes of each school day for my son and me to spend time reading.

These five New Year resolutions for homeschoolers are easy to start, easy to continue, and easy on the wallet! Happy New Year and Happy Homeschooling!