So, on instagram stories I was sharing some ideas for family conversations at the end of year. Then I said that although you can do them verbally, I will likely make these into a homemade worksheet because homemade worksheets are one of my favorite parts of homeschool and, or motherhood. Then there was messages and inquiries related to this and about how I make homemade worksheets and if I would share ours if I ended up making one and now we are here, sharing the information in an expanded form on the blog since it is the more stationary home base and archive for referencing.
The other good thing about a worksheet is that for younger children it helps them organize their thoughts a little beforehand. Maybe this isn’t just for younger children actually, but people of all ages are helped by thinking about their answers in advance! THEN AGAIN I love something about on the fly conversations more casually too, sans worksheet.
I think a fun tradition to do every year before reflective convos is a little slideshow to look together at our photos from the year. You could just gather around a phone, sling it on to a screen if you know how to do that, OR use this cute $25 smartphone projector with a nice vintage feel from amazon that now that I think of it might have a lot of life uses.
Now I will say what I had in mind when I first made said homemade worksheet is the VERY easy making your worksheet handwritten on a piece of paper with permanent marker and then simply doing copies on a home printer for your number of people. This is nice for doing something quickly and easily, making it look just how you’d like without having to try to get it to format right in word or pages or something. And you can include which ever questions you like best.
I had bit of fun putting together a quick one of the question ideas I included in stories so you can download that here if desired and print it. I hope it works; I don’t really know how to do this! Let me know if there’s a problem.
- something you loved reading in the bible this year
- favorite art project
- new movie or show you liked watching
- your song of the year
- way someone showed you kindness that impacted you
- favorite time someone visited you or you visited someone
- new place you liked traveling to
- a gift you loved
- favorite restaurant experience of the year
- a moment you felt loved
- something you finished even when it was hard
- a family memory from this year that is special to you
- someone you liked getting to know more this year
- something you are thankful for
- a way God showed his faithfulness to you
- a habit you want to leave behind in the coming year
The other conversation we got into in stories was, do you do more homemaking planning at the beginning of the calendar year or back to school? I do it about equally. I welcome both as a time to course correct or freshen things up. Do you like to plan in seasons, months, or whole year?
I’ve previously been seasons but this year I may try whole year in a by months way. Sometimes it’s easier to think about it all zoomed out instead of when you’re in the minutia.
Lastly, it’s 2022, so do we consider 22 by taylor swift a new year’s eve song this year? Also do you love fresh flowers on new year’s day?