Is Your Homeschool Ready for the Holidays?
The holidays are coming. Is your homeschool ready?
The turkey, the traveling, the everything busy, bright and burning (if you’re in my kitchen) are weeks away; is your homeschool ready for this action? ‘Tis the season for squeezing in the math during cooking and the reading on the road; and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re nervous about fitting it all in though, here are some tips and thoughts to remember that will hopefully make this time of year a little more jolly for us all.
First up, make a plan or a schedule that factors in crazy days.
We run a pretty tight ship in our homeschool just because we’ve found that’s the best way the kids can stay on track, comfortable, and ready to learn. So what’s a mom to do when that schedule is busted because of all things holiday? This year the hopeful solution will be a ‘crazy day schedule’. It’s planned the night before to the best of my ability and shared at breakfast the next morning. They already know ‘crazy days’ are coming, and my hope is that these days help all of us work on being more flexible too and able to handle off days with ease.
Next, teach to the season.
Let’s learn why we celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m not a big planner kind of person. I’m the one that pins all of your wonderful craft, cooking, and notebooking ideas to my Pinterest board and then doesn’t do them. However, I am a big library fan. At our library, they usually put out books that feature each season or holiday, so we go get those and use them for our social studies, reading, and sometimes even math lessons. I’ll ask questions as we go through each book to make sure we all get what’s going on and take the time to look up what we don’t.
Of course take some time off, but not too much.
This may be one just for our homeschool, but I learned quickly that taking three to four entire weeks off as a holiday break was just enough time for all of my children to forget any kind of expectation, schedule, math fact, or phonics skill that we had going up until that point. While I want to personally stretch the holidays out as long as possible, trust me, it’s so not worth it when you start back up after that much time off! It’s also brutal to take time off and then start back cold turkey. We gradually work our way back into our schedule and curriculum. We’ll start with two days and then build up until we’re back in full action.
Don’t feel bad about taking that time off. Before homeschooling, I taught first grade and elementary special education in the public school system, so trust me when I tell you there’s not a lot happening in school this time of year either. Your kids at home are avoiding all the wasted time it takes to corral and focus wound-up, sugar-coated, vacation-ready kids, so technically I’d say you’re really ahead of the education game anyway.
Most importantly, don’t forget the reason for the season.
It’s time to thank God for all He’s given us and praise Him for coming to this earth to save us. Can I get an amen, Homeschool Moms?
Now it’s your turn. Do you keep your curriculum and schedule going throughout the holidays? What do your holidays look like?
