Have you ever stopped and thought about 5 things that you must teach your children before they leave home? I say "must" because these 5 things will probably be so important to you that you couldn't imagine NOT teaching them to your children.
One of the beauties of homeschooling is being able to look back over everything you were taught, not taught, and life experiences and compile a list of "must-knows".
Einstein and I discussed some of the waste of time topics we were taught in every school we attended (middle school, high school, undergrad and doctorate!). How about the Kreb's Cycle? Ya, I've referred back to that a whole bunch in life.
Or how about the fact that every stinkin' math teacher in response to "when will we ever use this?" reduntantly repeated "oh, you'll use it every day." True, I use math in some form everyday but it's never the way they taught it. It's in the form of fractions (cooking) or the basic skills (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).
I don't often (all though I have) solve for some unknown variable or compute the area of a nonagon.
Knowing what it is that you want you children to be equipped with as they leave the nest is hugely important. Perhaps I may sound like I have had this list filled out for a while now...no. Last night Einstein asked me and I was forced to thoughtfully come up with an answer.
Here are the 5 topics my children will learn from me before they graduate:
1) How to persuasively write.
2) How to defend their position on anything (debate).
3) How to create a healthy, balanced menu and cook those items with little effort. (girls)
4) Reasons why our family makes the choices we do: homebirths, breastfeeding, chiropractic, awareness of environmental toxins, ... Teaching them these things is probably my #1. They not only affect them but their children and so on.
5) How to budget. We follow Dave Ramsey and they are already familiar with him.
Einstein's list is similar, here is his:
1. About God. This includes prayer, what the Scriptures teach us, the Gospel, theology, and NT Greek to read the original NT language.
2. Love for learning through books.
3. How to start, grow and run a business successfully. (Preferably a home-based business.)
4. True health. How the body works and heals, and what can be used naturally to assist it's healing.
5. How to write and speak persuasively. (The better one is at this, the easier it will be to accomplish #3 above.)
6. Family Values. Includes marriage, kids, modesty, etc. (basically a subsection of #1 above.)
I didn't include a thorough working knowledge and understanding of the Bible in mine because I thought it was too obvious. But it is the #1 priority we work towards every day. ;)
I encourage you to prayerfully create your own list. It's never too early to start working towards those goals. Actually it makes them much easier to accomplish the earlier you start.