Hi, I'm Heidi and I homeschool my two sweet kids. I want them to know that learning is an exciting lifelong adventure! We love great books, unit studies, notebooking, lapbooking, and hands-on learning.Holiday Homeschooling: Learning While Celebrating the Christmas Season
I’ve mentioned that most of our formal schoolwork takes a backseat to the many wonderful activities of the Christmas season, but do we take a whole month off from school? Not exactly. First of all, I’ve come to realize that we’re never really “off” because we never stop learning. We school year round with some periods of the year more relaxed than others. The time from Thanksgiving to Christmas is one of those times I let our formal curriculum sit on the shelves and capitalize on the learning opportunities of the season. This particular week illustrates what I mean perfectly.
Making and Baking
Any time of year I enjoy creating with my kids. It’s fun, it’s a great bonding time, and there is a lot to be learned. You can find real-world math in measuring, counting, and fractions, not to mention reading comprehension, following directions, and pride in your final product.
These are the things we created together this week:
- We made self-portrait ornaments, which may be one of my favorite homemade ornaments to date. What a fun way to capture their personality and ability at the moment!
- A Pinterest find: reindeer cookies. Ours didn’t turn out half as beautiful as the Pinterest photo, didn’t taste as good as I’d hoped, and both my kids burned themselves on the pan (despite repeated warnings from me) while trying to put the antlers on. But we had music playing and were all wearing antlers and ended up laughing over the whole process in the end.
- I had to spend half a day finishing up my Christmas shopping. To keep them from asking their Dad (who was working at home) what to do, I left them a list of some chores and more fun tasks. One was to build a Christmas decoration from Legos that I would have to find when I returned. In our Christmas village I found the Grinch and Santa’s new motorized vehicle (you didn’t know he upgraded?).
- A yearly tradition is making cinnamon ornaments. As they dry the whole house smells wonderful! It’s all the fun of rolling and cutting out cookies but easier because the dough has only two ingredients and there aren’t clouds of flour all over the place.
Performances
During the holiday season there are countless opportunities to watch and participate in performances. We’re doing both and they provide wonderful experiences. This week we attended an amazing performance of Annie, and weeks of hard work culminated in a piano recital for my daughter and church Christmas pageant for both my children.
Reading
Reading is the homeschool activity that never stops. Both independent reading and reading aloud are the backbone of not just our homeschool but our life. We have a collection of very special Christmas picture books, plus I check out an armload more from the library. Even as my kids get older the artwork and endearing stories of quality picture books are worthwhile.
The Christmas season is a great time to take advantage of one of my favorite tools: audio books. My hands can be busy making or wrapping gifts or tidying up after a baking session, or we can keep our minds engaged while in the car running errands or driving to visit friends and relatives. Right now we’re listening to The Long Winter from the Little House series and Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.
Writing
Opportunities abound to work on writing in a fun and relaxed way. This year my daughter is writing a holiday newsletter to send out with our Christmas card. Both kids write messages in cards and letters to Santa.
Music
Christmas music is the soundtrack of the season. This year we’re adding a study of the carols using the book Christmas Carols for a Kid’s Heart. And you can’t think about holiday music without thinking of Tchaicovsky’s Nutcracker. We did a unit study last year and attended the ballet. This year we’re enjoying the music at home, watched a production on Youtube, and used some of the ideas from the free Nutcracker Unit Study from Mary at Homegrown Learners. It was my favorite resource this week because time seems extra tight this year and her unit study had great free and easy-to-implement resources that we could use for enrichment.
Unit Studies
If we have the time and desire for something a little more formal there are some great holiday topics to be studied. We’ve enjoyed units on The Nutcracker, The Christmas Day Kitten, and the Symbols of Christmas. Homeschool Share has more than a dozen free Christmas-themed units. This year with other activities we haven’t had time to devote to a full unit study, but that’s okay!
It’s also great fun to choose another time period or country and recreate those holiday traditions. Last year we were studying colonial times in history, so it was a perfect time to focus on an Early American Christmas. There were wonderful storybooks available and countless crafts and recipes to add to our Christmas season. This year for our homeschool geography club meeting in December the country was Sweden so we learned about St. Lucia Day. My daughter brought her American Girl Doll dressed in a St. Lucia costume. (Easy to make from items we had: a t-shirt of my daughter’s pinned in the back, a pirate costume belt, mini pine garland, pipe cleaner and felt candles.)
Traditions
And though it may not help with spelling words and math facts, Christmas traditions strengthen our family bonds. Our favorite this week was our Christmas lights tour. I packed a bag with surprise snacks (printable ticket thanks to Confessions of a Homeschooler–back this year by special request from my kids), we brought hot cocoa in travel mugs, and the kids wore pajamas and slippers. It’s a magical night each and every year.
So that’s how we homeschool through the holidays. We have the flexibility to enjoy the Christmas season, but the learning never really stops!
I’m linking up with these terrific hostesses:
Our Homeschool Journal: Holiday Busyness and a Visit to our State Capitol Building
My, don’t these days in December fly by? Most of the formal schoolwork falls by the wayside and our days fill with practicing for pageants and recitals, handmade goodness, and enjoying the wonder of the Christmas season.
In our homeschool this week…
- Our house is filled with Christmas songs, some of it being played by my daughter on piano. She has been working on a difficult song for her Christmas recital. It takes roughly 2 1/2 minutes to play, so I’m practicing holding my breath that long. I usually can’t breathe when she’s performing.
- As I said in my post about remembering the reason for the season, we are reading Jotham’s Journey as a devotional when we light our advent candles. I switched to reading it in the morning today even though the ambiance of the candles is diminished. Each reading tends to leave you on the edge of your seat and it was a little too much for my sensitive kids at bedtime.
- Another way we’re remembering Christ at Christmas time is with a Jesse Tree (details here).
- Our hands are busy–here my daughter is making a Christmas tree for her dollhouse…
- …and here she’s making gifts for people she loves.
- One way we enjoy counting down the days is with crafts, and here it’s a simple wooden tree decorated with paint. I joined the fun!
Places we went and people we saw…
Both kids had Christmas parties for their Scout troops. Other than that we had our church pageant rehearsal, piano practice, a homeschool playtime at our town’s recreation center, and a big field trip to the Maine State House! We were invited by a friend who was being sworn in as a state senator. It was a great experience after all we’d learned in our government and elections study. The building was beautiful and the formality was fascinating.
A funny story for you: after the official swearing-in there were other speeches and business to attend to, so we slipped out and wandered the building. The governor and his entourage of half a dozen people were moving back and forth between the House and Senate. We were coming down a set of stairs and my husband says, “Oh, here comes the governor!”
Here is where our personalities diverge. My reaction is to immediately try and hustle the kids out of the way and blend into the wall. My husband’s reaction is the opposite:
“Governor, do you mind if I take a picture?”
I hear this and can’t believe he said it. My face flushes crimson–did I mention the governor is moving back and forth between chambers? That everyone is waiting for him to appear to swear in the president of the senate? Did I mention there is a whole crew in full suits with him and they weren’t just sauntering by shaking hands?
The governor flashes a big smile, stops in his tracks and says, “Sure! Bring the kids in here!” I have one second to tuck in my son’s dangling shirt tail and still try to pretend I don’t exist while my husband snaps a great photo of my kids and the governor, all smiling ear to ear. We relived that moment all day. Thank goodness my husband isn’t just like me!
Thank you to the wonderful hostesses with fun link-ups on Fridays. Be sure to join the fun and see what other homeschoolers are up to!
Holiday Homeschooling: Remembering the Reason for the Season
I shared last week how we count down the days until Christmas. This year I added two daily activities to our Advent plans to remind my kids of the real reason for all this celebrating. I wanted a daily reminder to balance out visits with Santa and thoughts of gifts.
Jotham’s Journey
There are three books in this series of advent devotionals by Arnold Ytreeide: Jotham’s Journey, Bartholomew’s Passage, and Tabitha’s Travels. The author describes them as an ADVENTure story that will help your family appreciate the true meaning of Christmas. This is our first year so we’re starting with Jotham’s Journey. You begin daily readings on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, so we began this past Sunday, December 2nd. So far my kids are on the edge of their seats and begged me not to stop after last night’s reading.
We didn’t have our own set of advent candles until this year, and this devotional prompted me that it was about time. It adds special ambiance and symbolism as we read the book by the light of the advent candles.
Jesse Tree
I had read about Jesse Tree devotionals that trace events of the Bible beginning with Creation and leading up to Jesus. Though it was a wonderful idea I didn’t think I would add it in since I’d already purchased supplies and planned for Jotham’s Journey. Then I saw that Ann Voskamp was offering a free download of a Jesse Tree Study with printable ornaments. How could I resist?
She includes the ornaments in color and black and white for coloring yourself. I used the black and white option to trace the designs onto shrink film. (Never heard of shrink film? Remember Shrinky Dinks? Thin plastic sheets that shrink, becoming thicker, after heating.) My kids colored them and I shrunk them so we have a nice, durable set of ornaments we can use year after year.
*In the photo the two on the left are full size, the two on the right have been shrunk.*
How do I schedule two devotionals? We do the Jesse Tree reading and hang the ornament in the morning, and in the evening after dinner we read Jotham’s Journey by the light of our Advent candles. I’m so glad we’re doing both because we start and end our days during this wonderful season with a Christmas activity that focuses on Christ.
I hope you’re having a delightful Christmas season, and will come back when I share how we keep learning all month while celebrating!
Hi, I'm Heidi and I homeschool my two sweet kids. I want them to know that learning is an exciting lifelong adventure! We love great books, unit studies, notebooking, lapbooking, and hands-on learning.
