Creating a Family Mission Statement

Hatch Family Mission Statement

It's important to have a clear vision of what you are trying to accomplish so when life gets messy you can refocus on what is MOST important to you and sometimes just cut back all the busy that seems to infiltrate our lives to the essential things that will help you reach that goal.

When my husband and I set out to write our first mission statement we were pregnant with our first and decided to:

1. List the key values we wanted to teach our son. 
2. Narrow the list to the MOST important values and carefully chose words that would incorporate more than one concept that was important to us. 
3. We then listed these values and expanded on why they are important to us then looked at this
   explanation of values.
4. Finally came up with a more concise goal that would be easy to remember and post on our walls. 

Then a few years later after attending a homeschooling conference I was inspired to create a vision statement as a "end goal" for what I was trying to accomplish through homeschooling which is really just an extension of our family life. By then we had decided that our guiding scripture was "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" Philippians 4:13 and that ideally when we are done we are going to have sons that are ambitious and creative to reach their goals yet at their core display Christian virtues. We hope to encourage these innate values in our boys through cultivating their gifts instead of coercing them into ours.

As time goes on our mission/vision for our family evolves to be more clear/less wordy but over the last 4 years I've been surprised by how little has changed with the substance. I think this is because we really took the time to dig deep, know ourselves, and pray for God's hand in our lives when we created it. I hope you have just as much inspiration and success as you decide what is important for your family too and find the process/ set up of our mission (what we work on day to day) and vision (how we see our family's future) statements helpful.

Vision Statement:

Cultivating Drive and Virtue

Mission Statement:

We live with Intention, seeking wisdom, showing love, and expressing gratitude.

Explanation of values:

Hatch Family Explanation of Values

Motto:

“I can do hard things”

Our Home School Philosophy

Every Homeschooler develops their own philosophy that usually evolves with their family over time. It starts with learning about the popular philosophies and deciding which ones fit your family. Over time you create a vision for what you are trying to accomplish and how to take pieces of the popular methods and curriculums to meet that need. Every family is different, so their vision statement and philosophy will be too. Here you can find ours to help you see where I am coming from in my recommendations, values and thought process. Yours will definitely be made to suit your goals and family dynamic but if it helps you get a starting point on framing your child's education then go for it! Feel free to use this as a template.

Our Vision Statement: 
Cultivating Driven Disciples of Christ

Our Mission Statement:
We insight creative problem solving and curiosity while instilling good character.

Statement of Values:

We value Liberty to study what is interesting in a way that works best for you.

We value Work and self regulation to accomplish what needs to be done for a quality well rounded education.

We value Character, the most important thing you can be in this life is kind. The more you love God and yourself the more you can love others and see them the way He does. If you learn nothing else but to be be a honest, kind, hard working person then that is enough.

Our favorite popular philosophies:

• Montessori for when they are young since children learn best through play and self discovery. 
• Unit Studies as a way to see how different subjects are interconnected and get a through understanding of what sparks our passion and what shapes our world. 
• Classical Education for the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Learning the rules so you can learn how to think and then express those ideas is a dying art. I also love Latin because it is the base of so much of our language that knowing it is a great tool for decoding the world of science and literature.
• Go Schooling. As a home school family we are in a unique position to go and experience things hands on (like field trips) as often as we plan it. The best way to learn is to do and these are the experiences that will leave a lasting impression the rest of their lives.
• TJED in the sense that we see great value in being self motivated, having personal responsibility, and cultivating leadership.

Each philosophy has its place and its age range in our home. Montessori for Pre-K to 1st grade as we focus on learning the foundations of reading, writing, and math in an active physical way. Unit studies, Go School and Classical education 2nd-7th grade, and Classical education for 8-10th grade with all the tracking they may need for college applications. Ultimately I hope to be done with their high school education by 10th grade, so that they can focus the last two years on getting a leg up over their competition by either working their trade under a mentor/ going to trade school, preparing for or attending college, or running and hopefully failing at several small businesses (since one of our parenting philosophies is to let them make mistakes while the price tags are small). This is the age where the TJED self led meets the rhetoric stage to create articulate adults who master their field and teach/ inspire others.

We also decided to come up with home school name and mascot for field trips, friendly competitions, and in the silly cases where you need to sound like a legitimate school in order to get the educator discounts.

Our Home School Name:

Oak River Academy
We came up with this name because we like the duality of  the hard wood tree that can not only withstand strong winds but is strengthened by them and has deep reaching roots. Against the flowing river that changes things in its path through persistence and see's the world as it journeys bringing life wherever it wanders.

Our Mascot:
A Bull Moose
This is just fun because 1. Bull Moose are beautiful majestic delicious creatures and 2. With a House full of boys coming from parents that grew up in the mountains of Utah and the wilderness of Alaska it seemed like the only logical option.