education goals

I have so many education related goals.  Goals for me, for my kids, for us as a family.  I think that is because I read so much, I feel like I am constantly on the learning path.  At least I like to think that 🙂  Without further ado:

For me:

Read one book per week


I actually don’t think this will be a difficult one.  I read a lot of books, I read books fast, and usually have several going at once.  Maybe I should revise this to read 52 non-fiction books.  Now that seems like a much loftier goal.  I am going to keep it at 52 books period though.  I like to have a bit of fiction in my life, especially with all the doom and gloom I tend to pick up at the book store.  global warming, check; CAFO farming, check; climate change, check; end of the world, check 🙂  Perhaps I should try a couple uplifting books in there…if you have any book suggestions, please leave a comment on my 2012 book list page.

Nutrition/Vegan/Vegetarian


This will definitely coincide with some of my food and health related goals, which I will write about on Friday.  I want to take this year and really learn about nutrition.  I love food, and creating new dishes for my family to eat is fun for me.  I also want to eat healthy.  There are so many different theories out there.  Last year I read a lot about the health benefits of vegan eating, and even gave being vegan for 30 days a shot.  While I enjoyed the workshop, I realized that I was eating more grains/beans/pasta than I liked, and started gaining weight.  I want to do more research on a plant based diet, see the health benefits and then also what may not be so great about it.

Learn more about HTML


I really do not know much about HTML at all, but I would like to.  I have all kinds of dreams for this blog, but not the money to support those dreams.  I do enjoy all the little coding pieces I have done, and hope that I can expand on that this year.  Maybe I will read an HTML book, and knock out two goals at once 🙂

For the kiddos:

Teach Emma to read


We have been working on this for several months now.  She knows all her letters upper and lower case, she knows all the sounds, and we spend a lot of time with her identifying the letters and sounding out the word.  I have no idea how to teach a babe to read, and maybe when we start her new curriculum in February I will have a better idea.

Teach Jack the alphabet


Jack kind of gets a pass on education goals this year.  He will be two in August, so I hope that he will learn the alphabet by the end of the year, which is about the age when Emma had the letters down.  If not, I hope he continues to have a lot of fun playing with his big sister, and listening to stories 🙂

Read more classics with the kids


When I had Emma I went through about 6 weeks of reading her fairy tales and classic children’s stories non-stop.  And then when she turned about 2 months old, I had enough of the children’s books and started to read my books to her.  By her first birthday I had read her Harry Potter 1-7, all the Narnia books, the Little House series and Pride and Prejudice.  OK, I may have become a little selfish with our story time, but when she would lay there for hours and listen to me, why not?  I have gotten away from reading such long books to the kids since Jack was born.  It is hard to corral two for a long story time.  I want to read more of the classics with the kids this year.  Now, don’t think my kids are all prim and proper at the ripe old age of 3 and 1, they will play quietly (or not so quietly) and I will read to them…or follow them around while I read a book.  And also don’t think I only read chapter books to them.  We have a HUGE collection of children’s books, and I read those as well.

It seems that reading is a big goal for me.  I want to pass on my love of reading to the kids, and feel like reading aloud to them as well as them seeing me reading a lot will hopefully inspire them to love reading.  How else could I learn without reading something?

What about you?  What are your education/learning goals for 2012?