Homeschooling During the Craziness of the Holiday Season

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It’s here!  Time for the final day of the 5 Day Preparing for the Holiday Themed Blog Hop with the Schoolhouse Review Crew…

 

 

Today’s focus is on homeschooling. 

 

 

What’s that you say?  Homeschooling and the holidays can’t possibly go together??

 

My response is that they CAN go together. You just might need to be a bit flexible with things.

 

 

Drop the Regular and Do Fun School

When the boys were younger, I would often just ‘take off’ the last few weeks before Christmas from our regular work and do fun, holiday related things.  There are so many great holiday books to read, music to hear, and shows to view.  We even learned about other holidays that occur in December through those avenues.

 

The first holiday season in Maryland, the boys and I did a How the Grinch Stole Christmas unit study which included a lapbook from Live and Learn Press.

 

 

We’ve also enjoyed group activities that focused on our faith over the years. 

 

A Catholic homeschool group back in Ohio had a gathering in one family’s house and did a combination of crafts, Biblical stories with a felt board and then the older kids did an impromptu production about Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

 

 

And, we had annual celebrations for that same feast day in Delaware that included piñata fun outside after having said the Rosary while walking through the town.

Keep on Schedule

This year, for my older boys we have to keep on schedule.  However, I still want to add some ‘fun’ holiday themed activities into the mix.

 

I’m planning to do a daily group ‘study’ for Advent, which might entail a daily reading from a countdown book.

 

For my younger boys, we’ll most likely do a unit study this year about Christmas Around the World. 

I already own the lapbook from In the Hands of a Child for it and think we can really have some fun by making dishes from around the world.  We had the opportunity to sample that kind of ‘event’ last year at the base library.  However, it would be a lot of fun to make some of the dishes ourselves and share the experience with Mr. O.

 

How to you handle homeschooling in your house for the holidays?