Here are some simple, fun homeschooling projects for holidays.
Fun Homeschooling Projects for Holidays
Ready to toss the books but want to get a LITTLE homeschooling in during the holidays? With homeschool high schoolers, especially, it is nice to keep SOME logging hours over the holidays.
However, we want educational hours to be fun and inspiring- you are NOT out to Scrooge the holiday spirit!
So, here are some holiday projects that the high schoolers can enjoy
There are SOOOO many simple, fun and valuable activities your teens can do. Try out some of these! (Some of them include activities for the the younger learners, too.)
Use your favorite Christmas classics as a unit study
Here are our three favorite unit studies (freebie posts!):
- How to Make It’s a Wonderful Life into a Quick Unit Study
- 5 Ways to Turn Muppets Christmas Carol into a Unit Study
- 6 Ways to Turn White Christmas into a Unit Study
For the youngers, here is a post that tells you how to make unit studies from 7Sisters elementary-aged activity guides. These a low-cost, quick activities that the elementary kids love:
- The Christmas Miracle for Jonathan Toomey
- Just in Time for Christmas
- You are Special (not actually Christmas themed, but a freebie!)
Do a family unit study for Geography and Social Studies
This is a free unit study on Christmas around the world from our Cousin Sarah May at Freedom Homeschooling
- Here are lots of freebie ideas from Sarah May
Try some family read-alouds with favorite Christmas stories:
No one outgrows family read-alouds, so choose a book and spend some holiday family time together. (Even my homeschool graduates, when they come home for Christmas, love to be part of the family read-alouds.)
- Homeschool high schoolers can add the books to their book list for their Language Arts credits.
- Here’s a post with our favorite Christmas read-alouds
- Our friend, Thaleia at Something 2 Offer has a huge read-aloud Christmas booklist
Try a readers theatre party for your homeschool high schoolers and friends or co-op
One of our homeschool co-op families used to invite all the teens over for a readers theatre party each year. These events are out of the box, but so much fun! It’s like a party with a purpose. Here is a post that tells how to have a readers theatre party.
- Here is a popular script by 7Sister Sabrina: The Christmas Carol Wars
- Or another popular script with favorite scenes from Little Women
Add to their Life Skills or Health credit hours
These are the easiest hours to log over the holidays. After all, family events, church specials and community gatherings sometimes require a higher-level of patience and savviness. Here are some posts for how to build the life skills credit over the holidays.
And, check out these posts for helping teens build their holiday social and emotional skills for the holidays while earning some credit for their transcripts.
- Holiday Social Skills for Teens on Homeschool Highschool Podcast
- Handling Difficult People during the Holidays on Homeschool Highschool Podcast
- Teens and Complicated Christmas on Homeschool Highschool Podcast
- Homeschooling, Holidays and Covid (because Covid keeps going on and on and on…)
- 5 Ideas for Handling Family during the Holidays
- More ideas for out-of-the-box courses for your teens with special needs.
Fun, inspiring writing project: Holiday Family Short Story
I cannot tell how valuable this activity is. You might want to save it for the week AFTER Christmas, because by then your teens will have heard a gazillion family stories. Holiday Family Narrative helps your teen capture this story as one of their annual required papers for English/Language Arts credit.
Have them think about fun or poignant stories
- the time Aunt Sue’s pies where burnt or “mystery deserts”?
- when the Christmas tree fell off the car driving home from the tree farm- a story of resilience for the whole family!
- or their first part in the church Christmas pageant?
Your teens will actually enjoy this writing project!
Sentimental Creative Writing Project: Creative Chronicling
For your more artsy teen, Creative Chronicling Writing Guide gives homeschool high schoolers a chance to blend creativity and writing into a beautiful writing project.
Creative Chronicling helps teens capture holiday memories with a meaningful short-story writing project that includes photography and photo editing, formatting, and creative presentation that results in a true keepsake book.
This is a larger project than the Holiday Family Narrative mentioned above. It includes guidance how to plan a project and then walks teens through a multi-step process:
- decide on a purpose for the chronicle
- select the number of stories to include
- choose whether or not to work collaboratively with other writers
- develop a timeline to ensure that deadlines are met
- delegate duties if working with a group
- plan a visual look for the finished book
- edit photos, graphics and text for a professional appearance
- and designate a printing and binding style for powerful presentation
This is a marvelous holiday project for teens who are confident in their writing or have an adult at hand to guide them if they need encouragement.
Create a family pedigree with this science project from our friend, Kristin Moon
This is a fun science project and fits well with writing a family narrative! Create a “genogram:, log some interesting science (or health) hours and have lots of good discussion. This is a freebie blog post, btw. (Also, we are not affiliates, we just like Kristin’s resources!)
Cover Writing, Science, History, Art and More: Twas the Week Before Christmas Bundle
7Sisters pulled together a week’s worth of delightful and inspiring activities that we have loved (not just for teens but the all the siblings) in the Twas the Week Before Christmas Bundle.
This bundle of downloadable curriculum, links and activities includes:
- Writing a Holiday Family Narrative Short Story Writing Guide (5 fun lessons for a week of creative writing) for middle and high school students (mentioned above)
- Cinema Studies for Literature Learning Study Guide for A Christmas Carol (1984) starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge for high school students
- Literature Activity Guide for Just in Time for Christmas by Louise Borden for elementary students
- Holiday Science Experiences for all ages
- Holiday Fine Arts and Crafts for all ages
PLUS…
- Literature Study Guide Hymns and Creeds (including study of lyrics to traditional Christmas carols) for high school students
- The Christmas Carol War script for a fun taste of Readers Theater for your family or co-op
- Christmas Carols in languages from around the world
AND…
Encouragement for MOM as the calendar year draws to a close!
- Christmas with 7Sisters: Real Christmas for Real People (including personal stories from your “big sisters” and tips for handling the holidays when things are harder than usual…after the death of a loved one, when finances are especially tight, when your family is broken or blended, etc.)
- Making Great Use of Holiday Family Gatherings in Your Homeschool (a 3-page article to help you blend learning and celebration)
- A collection of favorite Christmas recipes from each of us at 7Sisters
- A Prayer Journal to encourage you to spend the time you NEED with God as a new year is about to begin
You can keep education going during the holidays, but make it fun. (While your teens are busy, you can check out our Creative Christmas episode of the Homeschool Highschool Podcast.)
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our 7th Siblings!
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