Homeschooling Through the Holidays: Tips for a Joyful and Productive Season
The holiday season is here, and with it comes all the excitement and chaos that can make homeschooling feel like an uphill sleigh ride. Whether you’re baking cookies, decorating for a holiday, or binge-watching seasonal movies, it might seem impossible to keep up with your homeschool routine and enjoy the magic of the holidays. But here’s the good news: you don’t have to pick one over the other! With a little planning (and maybe an extra cup of a beverage of your liking), you can make any holiday season both fun and productive.
Adapt to Your Family’s Holiday Excitement
Every family approaches holidays differently. Some dive headfirst into every festive activity possible, while others prefer to keep things simple. What’s your family’s vibe? Are you all about extravagant celebrations, or do you prefer a more laid-back approach? Once you know, you can adjust your homeschool plans to match. Whether it’s sprinkling a bit of holiday cheer into your lessons or dedicating extra time to your family’s favourite traditions, flexibility is your best friend this season.
Our family is not one to overly celebrate holidays. If your family puts great importance on holidays, know that you can adapt these suggestions to fit your family’s needs. Take some of it, take all of it, take none of it…. That’s up to you 😊
1. Wrap-Up Those Lingering Projects
Before you dive into festive fun, try to finish up any ongoing projects. Not only will it give your children a satisfying sense of completion, but it will also free up your mental load. Because let’s face it, when you get back to your unfinished projects, you’re going to spend the day trying to remember where you left off. Your future, tired, unfocused self will thank you.
2. Pick Your Holiday Priorities
The holiday season is packed with things to do. From seasonal movies and unit studies to baking treats and decorating the house. But let’s be real: you can’t do it all without turning into a stressed-out holiday monster. Instead, decide what really matters to your family. Do you want to focus on crafts, storytelling, or exploring cultural traditions? Pick your priorities and let the rest go. Trust me, no one will notice if you skip making those fancy handmade decorations this year.
3. Turn Regular Activities Into Sneaky Learning Opportunities
Holidays are basically a goldmine for homeschooling families. You can take any of the ideas from the previous section and incorporate learning moments in them. Here are a few ideas to have fun while learning without anyone catching on:
- Baking treats: When they’re measuring the ingredients, they’re doing math. When they’re witnessing baking reactions, that’s pretty much science. Have them read and understand the recipes, boom… reading comprehension. Plus, the treats are a bonus.
- Watching holiday movies: You can discuss the structure of a story with your children (the plot, the characters, the problem, the solution, etc). They can write summaries of the movie or give you an oral summary. If you want to go deeper, you can learn about the cultural origins of certain traditions found in the movie (social studies).
- Decorating: Here’s where you can bring in arts class. Patterns, symmetry, colour combinations and creativity all come into play when you’re decorating. If you’re setting up the Christmas tree, have your child express themselves by deciding where the ornaments will go. At first, you may end up with all decor on one area of the tree, but then you can help them spread them out.
4. Embrace Downtime (or Don’t Be the Holiday Drill Sergeant)
Let’s be honest, the holidays can wear everyone out. Be flexible with your plans and make room for downtime. If your children are tired or overwhelmed, give them (and yourself) permission to take a break. Sometimes, a day spent in comfy clothes, watching movies with your favourite beverage in hand is the most productive thing you can do. And that’s totally OK.
Keep a Light Routine Instead of Taking the Whole Holiday Season Off
I know it’s tempting to hit pause on homeschooling for an entire month, but here’s the thing: getting back into a groove when the holiday is over will feel like dragging a sleigh through mud. When we take almost 2 weeks off, the first day back is sooooooooooooo hard.
Instead, aim for a light but consistent routine. Include some reading time, build a Lego set, download a few educational apps, prepare some colouring sheets,etc. This way, learning keeps flowing, and you’ll save yourself the headache of a rocky restart.
Add Wellness Foundations to Your Holiday Mix
Looking for activities that are festive and educational? You can try the salty potato science experiment that introduces your children to osmosis. You can find this experiment and other activities in the Wellness Foundations Audio Series. It’s an easy way to keep the learning going while still enjoying the holiday season.
What Happens When Your Children Check-out Early?
There may be times where you realize that your children are checked-out a lot sooner than anticipated. You might have had an activity planned and they are just not focused. Or you are doing school work but they simply aren’t into it. You’ll want to have a plan ready to get everyone focused again. You can find 5 tips that I suggest to help your children focus in this blog post. Don’t miss it!
Homeschooling through the holidays doesn’t have to feel like a juggling act. By adapting to your family’s needs, prioritizing what matters most, and sneaking in some learning along the way, you can create a season that’s both joyful and productive. Happy homeschooling and happy holidays!
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Check out the entire video to learn how we homeschool through the holidays.
The topics covered in this video are:
0:00 Homeschooling through the holidays
1:51 Wrap-Up The Current Lesson
2:29 Choose What Activities You WANT To Do
3:41 Incorporate Learning In The Chosen Acitvity
5:00 Plan To Take A Break
5:59 Don’t Take A Long Break!
6:40 Additional Festive and Educational Activities or Ressources
7:41 5 Ways to Help Your Children Focus
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