The holiday season is overwhelming on its own, but when you add homeschooling to the schedule it reaches a whole new level of crazy. At least, that’s how I’ve felt for much of our homeschooling journey. Thankfully just as my children have been growing and learning, so have I.
Using the words ‘holiday’ and ‘homeschooling’ in the same sentence no longer makes my heart race. Nor does it make me want to toss homeschooling to the side as we celebrate the holidays. Instead, I’ve come to look forward to and even love holiday homeschooling!
Before you jump on board with holiday homeschooling, I’d like to give you a few tips, encourage you to focus on the right things and share our favorite holiday homeschooling subjects with you!
4 Tips for Holiday Homeschooling
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Breathe
The holidays should be a more relaxed season for your homeschool year. Instead of pushing through and getting the lessons done, embrace the season and center your homeschool days around the holidays.
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Slow Down
Do not make formal homeschool plans or schedules, aside from Math and English. The holidays are a time for you and your family to rest and refresh. Holiday homeschooling should fit seamlessly with your daily schedule.
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Fewer Textbooks
The only textbooks that I recommend continuing to use throughout the holidays are your Mathematics and English courses. Prior to the holidays I encourage you to find a good stopping point in all of your other textbooks and put them away until after the New Year.
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More Activities
The holidays provide countless opportunities to incorporate fun activities into your homeschool! You also will find that you have plenty of time for more activities when you put the textbooks away during the holidays.
3 Focuses for Holiday Homeschooling
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Peace
Peace should be a part of each and every home, but it is especially needed throughout the holiday season. You can not truly focus on the reasons for the seasons without peace. You can focus on peace by developing patience, being attentive and using praise.
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Joy
Our lives and homes should be A Season of Joy during the holidays! We need to ensure that we remain joyful as we celebrate the birth of Christ and count the gifts He’s given to us! Cultivating joy in your home can be done through laughter and obedience.
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Love
They say that love keeps us together and that is definitely true with regard to the holidays! After all, it is the love of God that gifted us the Savior of the world! Love can be nurtured and grown when you make it a priority to create a loving home while being a loving family.
Our Favorite Holiday Homeschooling Subjects
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Music
Some of our favorite music to listen to throughout the holidays is from The Nutcracker. From the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies to the Waltz of the Snowflakes, the music is as beautiful as it is peaceful.
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Fine Arts
The holidays provide countless opportunities for your family to actually experience fine arts through the beauty of ballet or the theater. Visit your local symphony for an evening of classical Christmas music or the ballet for a performance of the Nutcracker.
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History
There is always history to be studied and the holidays are no exception. Whether you’re looking to study the history of Christmas, Thanksgiving or a specific theme, like the Christmas Tree, history waits to be discovered.
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Bible
Our holidays have the Bible as their backbone. From The Christmas Story to Thanksgiving and learning to be thankful as God’s word calls us to be, the Bible should be the biggest part of your holiday homeschooling.
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Penmanship
Penmanship can be more fun to complete during the holidays when your homeschool days aren’t filled to the brim. This Christmas Penmanship is perfect for your preschool through middle schoolers.
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Literature
This is probably our favorite part of holiday homeschooling! There are so many great works of literature for the Christmas season! We have several literature traditions in our home including The Christmas Carol, The Nutcracker and of course, our favorite books to keep Christmas focused on Christ. I’m also looking to add to our collection some of these Christmas Tree books.
There is a lot of prep work required for the holiday season, not to mention the clean-up as well. All of the cooking, decorating, cleaning and storage that you do during the holidays are life skills that your children need to know, so be sure to include them in these activities. The best part? You’ll be creating special holiday memories together as a family!
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Art
Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade both have beautiful works of heart that feature the holidays. You could complete a simple art study featuring these artists and their work or have your children complete a holiday-themed art project of their own.
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Unit Studies
While we love making up our holiday homeschooling as we go through each day, unit studies are a great option as well. Whether you’d like to learn about the Christmas Tree or Christmas Around the World, there are many options for holiday homeschooling with unit studies.
Holiday homeschooling should be a fun, joyful experience for everyone in the family. It shouldn’t take weeks to plan nor should each day’s “lessons” take hours to complete. Create a holiday homeschooling journey that fits your family’s beliefs, schedule and interests.
Most of all, make this year’s holiday season full of memories that will last a lifetime! This is more important than anything you can teach through a textbook.
