Baby Steps in Planning

Well now that we are settling in to normalcy (somewhat), and I've unpacked most bags and set up a play/school room, my attention is turning yet again to homeschool planning and organization. Where in the world do I begin? What in the world am I doing?!? I have all sorts of ideas running around in my brain and I make notes of them on little papers here and there, but I am having quite a time of getting an actual plan down that I'm happy with implementing. Granted my oldest is only 4, but I still want to be purposeful in our play...

Well today I found some quiet time to just bite the bullet and get started at Baby Step #1: making a Mission Statement. And this is what I came up with:

To raise children with the desire to follow Christ and the tools to become whoever God wants them to be.

Baby Step #2: I came up with specific goals for each child that I'd like to work towards this spring: academic, physical, spiritual & social. In addition I added chores and money management to the goals list. Under each goal heading, I only put one or two specific goals to make it manageable (and doable) at this point.

Baby Step #3: Finally, under each specific goal listed, I listed specific tasks to help me keep on track with my goals. Here's an example:

Academic

1. Use & learn 20 new Spanish words/phrases (more would be great! We'll just see how this goes)

• Come up with "Word(s) of the Day/Week"  and use them regularly in speaking Spanish
• Display pictures of these words to remind us to use them
• Sing songs/read books that incorporate these words

Now I just have to transcribe my chicken-scratched paper to the computer and print it all out so I can feel ready to tackle the next phase in planning... which is???