Homeschooling During the Holidays

The holiday season is the perfect time to set aside our homeschool schedules and switch our focus to all of the extra holiday fun. When we first started homeschooling, I thought that we didn’t need the traditional 2 week school break during Christmas. Now, it seems like the whole month of December gets turned upside down! Instead of fighting it, I’ve embraced the crazy. I know when planning our school year that December is just going to be different than any other time of the year. Here’s a look at how we continue homeschooling during the holidays.

 

Fun Stuff

Usually extra fun stuff is the reason why this month gets so busy for us. We always seem to be on the go with holiday parties with homeschool friends, work parties, and charity events. It’s okay to say no to some of these extras if that will help you get through the holidays with less stress. It’s also perfectly fine to say yes to everything if you just love the parties! After all, the chaos will all settle down in January and then you can ease back into your usual homeschool routine.

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Interest Led Projects

I love interest-led projects for any age, but this is a great way to keep older kids engaged with learning while you take care of holiday preparations. Plan ahead to gather the tools and resources they may need and then turn them loose on their passion projects for a day.

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Take a planned break

Now that I know better, I pencil in an actual long break during December. Homeschool planning is always best done with pencil! The days we take off may change but we WILL be taking extra days off with no plans for those days.

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Toss Schedule

Even if you don’t plan on taking that many extra days off, it’s completely okay to toss the schedule on a whim. When life gets busy I like to focus on just a few subjects if I know not everything is going to get done. This year it happens to be math and language arts. I’m happy if we get those done most days during December. Even if you don’t plan it, feel free to toss the schedule on any particular day – just because. Sometimes that’s the best thing we can do for the day!

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Catch-up

A couple of times during the year, I’ll schedule a catch-up week. I hate using that term in relation to homeschooling because it implies that we’re behind. However, sometimes we do get behind on our goals for some subjects or projects throughout the year. When I need an “easy” week, I’ll set aside everything but a few tasks that haven’t gotten enough attention. For us, it’s usually science experiments.

 

Learning Life Skills

The holiday season is packed with opportunities to teach our kids important life skills. Sometimes I find myself too busy to slow down and involve my kids with day to day tasks that they really do need to learn. It’s just easier to do it myself. This is such a hard mindset to break! Here are some life skills perfect for homeschooling through the holidays.

• Bake holiday treats while teaching measurements and fractions. Then guide the kids in cleaning up the mess. Many families already do this, but I often rush through some baking days just to get it done. Counting it as a homeschool day helps me to slow down and include the kids in a meaningful way.
• Holiday cooking sometimes involves special shopping trips and unique ingredients. This is a great time to take the kids to the store to let them help with the shopping. How about trying a traditional holiday treat from a different culture? Read a book or two about their holiday traditions and head to a grocery store that specializes in that culture.
• Teach the kids how to use Excel by having them make a Christmas list including columns for prices and where to buy each item. Research skills, budgeting, and Excel come together as they make their Christmas wish list!
• Teach them about money management and budgeting by having them create a list of gifts they’d like to give. Have them type up a list in Excel and create formulas to keep track of the total needed for the gifts versus how much they have to spend.
• Involve your kids in your charitable giving plans this year. The holiday season is the time when most families give but consider making plans to give back to your community all year.
• Help them write thank you notes after Christmas. Include addressing the envelopes, adding stamps, and perhaps even a trip to the post office.

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Homeschooling during the holidays doesn’t have to be stressful. Give yourself permission to really change things up all month! December is going to be crazy for most of us. It’s okay to set aside our usual plans and make this month unique in our homeschooling.