The holidays are a great time for slowing things down a bit in your homeschool and enjoying the season. These tips and tricks will help you get rid of the overwhelm and really enjoy the holidays with your family.
In order to gather the best ideas for holiday homeschooling, I asked Allie, a friend and team member at Your Morning Basket Plus, to join me. These are our best tips for the season.
The Holiday Overwhelm
I usually get overwhelmed about the holidays. We have a lot of birthdays in our family in November and December, but honestly, I think this is something that homeschool moms everywhere can relate to. This is a season of cleaning, cooking, purchasing gifts and wrapping them. We also have a lot of events that come up at church. We have extra choir practice and extra performances. Then, on top of all of this, I need to keep my homeschool running, right?
The season of Advent though, reminds us that what we’re supposed to be doing is not being weighed down and distracted.
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Planning For Holiday Homeschooling
It helps to begin early to figure out how the Christmas Season can be a part of our homeschooling.
I’ve been doing this now for 12 years and it’s true – Christmas can be school.
It is however, something that I have to convince myself of each year. I need to plan for and be ready for it. I’ve started doing this using the free advent plans from Your Morning Basket. and I’ve been getting really excited about it. My kids are excited to have school just be just morning time, where we celebrate Advent and Christmas as part of our learning.
Get the free morning time advent plans HERE.
It’s okay that we’re not still doing the reading, the writing, the language arts, the history, the science – all of the more formal subjects – between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We simply lean into all of the Christmas-y kinds of things and we still learn so much.
Ideas For Christmas Learning In Your Homeschool
Our Advent Morning Time Plans include:
- Holiday math activities
- Art study and activities
- An extensive book list
- Nature Study
- Geography and Christmas around the world
There are many, less formal ways to incorporate Christmas activities into your homeschool learning as well. Baking cookies and even wrapping presents have components of math in addition to basic life skills.
Watch on YouTube:
Are We Doing Enough Learning In Our Homeschool During The Holidays?
Remember that even in traditional schools, this season usually looks a lot different. When I was teaching, we did a lot of Christmas related stuff between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There was a lot of preparing for a play or little events that the kids got out of class for. Then, they were doing Christmas crafts, Christmas art and reading Christmas stories.
If you’re still worried and and feel pressure when you think about setting aside your formal academic studies for the month, remember that there’s a lot of that going on in schools as well.
This approach allows you to focus on making memories and building family traditions that will last a lifetime for your children.
Camp Christmas For Holiday Homeschooling
Camp Christmas is something we offer to support families and their homeschools during the holiday season. My kids love the live events and I love the support all through the Christmas season. Camp Christmas includes a text message every morning with one prompt for the day. We plan the season for you and help you stay on track!
We take the activities from the plans and we send them, one a day, via text message to your phone. It’s a wonderful spirit of comradery that comes with the Camp Christmas, and it helps all of us thrive as we homeschool through the holidays.
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