Homeschooling through the Holidays

All of life is education, so that means homeschooling through the holidays! Here are tons of tips for keeping the holidays meaningful and fun and still logging homeschool hours.

Homeschooling through the Holidays

Homeschooling through the Holidays

One of the best things about homeschooling is realizing that all of life is education! This means that even during the holidays, we can be giving our homeschoolers lots of fun and inspirational educational experiences. Not only that, but many of these educational moments do not need to have anything to do with textbooks.

How to handle homeschooling all the way through January 1

Remember, there’s not ONE right way to homeschool! Let’s talk about some ways to handle homeschooling during the holidays.

First, you want to define your priorities for this holiday season and do a little planning so you do not start feeling lost. Ask yourself:

  • What does your family need this year? Big holiday, small holiday?
  • How much structure, scheduling and routine does your family need?
  • Does your family shift into holiday rhythm well or need lots of warning about change?
  • What demands will be on your family this holiday season?

Now that you have a little clarity, here are some ideas.

All of life is education!

Have your homeschool high schoolers follow their syllabi

Many high schoolers are following a syllabus that will carry them up to their Christmas break. When teens follow their syllabi, it keeps their educational rhythms going and helps them stay up to date with their core courses.

So, if your teens are following along on their syllabi (or have co-op, online or umbrella-school classes) that they need to stay on top of, have them stick to the plan.

It is good, whenever possible, to take some time off from homeschooling during the holidays. Young people need a break from routine and hard academic work. That way, when they start again after Christmas break, they will feel more refreshed and ready to learn.

OR adjust the syllabus and work, instead, on family projects and hands-on learning

It is totally okay to rewrite your homeschool high schooler’s syllabi so that they take a few weeks off from homeschooling during the holidays. Instead, they can:

  • Add a couple of weeks to the end of the school year so they have time to finish their core courses OR
  • Consolidate some lessons before or after Christmas so that no additional time is needed OR
  • Drop some repetitive lessons or activities that will not negatively affect your teens’ desired educational outcomes
  • Our friend, Lisa, at A Rup Life, gives more practical tips for managing homeschooling schedules through the holidays.

Remember, for your homeschool high schoolers, you will want to log hours for their educational experiences. (If you are new to homeschooling high school, logging hours for Carnegie unit credits is one way to level up credits or earn credits.)

If you are homeschooling middle school or younger, you can log hours or simply keep samples of things you have been doing. Then keep those things in your records or portfolio.

Here are some ideas for family learning and projects

We love pulling fun and meaningful educational activities. That’s why we pulled together some of our favorites to share with our 7th Sisters. (Did you know that there are six of us 7Sisters? So, who is the 7th Sister? YOU are!)

7Sisters Twas the Week Before Christmas Learning Bundle: Hands on learning for the whole family!

Twas the week before Christmas homeschool curriculum bundle
Click image for full description.
  • This bundle contain meaningful activities for teens:
    • Writing a Holiday Family Narrative project
    • A Christmas Carol: Cinema Studies for Literature Learning Guide
  • For the younger homeschoolers:
    • Literature Activity Guide for a favorite book: Just in Time for Christmas by Louise Borden
  • For the whole family:
    • Holiday Science projects
    • Holiday Arts and Crafts
    • Geography project: Christmas carols in languages from around the world
    • Short play script for the family or co-op: The Christmas Carol War
  • For Mom:
    • Christmas with the 7Sisters: Real Christmas for Real People
    • 7Sisters Favorite Christmas Recipes
    • Guide to Making Great Use of Family Gatherings in Your Homeschool
    • A Prayer Journal

Here some other ideas for homeschooling for the holidays in this post from our friends at FundaFunda Academy. Plus lots of hands-on holiday learning and gift activities for the whole family in this post from our friend, Betsy, at BJ’s Homeschool.

Here are some ideas for no-cost holiday family unit studies

Unit studies are delightful! Especially if they are based on favorite Christmas movies, don’t you think?!

Here are some of our favorite posts with no-cost movie unit study ideas:

Here is a post that tells you how to make unit studies from 7Sisters elementary-aged activity guides. Here are our Christmas story activity guides for favorite and classic book for young readers:

Do a family unit study for Geography and Social Studies

Read-alouds are great education.

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

Try a readers theatre party for your homeschool high schoolers and friends or co-op

Readers theatre events are so much fun. It’s like a party with a purpose. Here is a post that tells how to have a readers theatre party.

Start building a Life Skills credit or add to the Health credit hours

High school health for the whole person
Click image for full description.

There’s nothing like family gatherings to emphasize the need for grace and self-control, am I right? Therefore, help your teens build social skills and emotional skills for the holidays while earning some credit for their transcripts.

Gather family history stories

While the family is gathered around, you can log the time that Grandma tells family stories. Give her some prompts to get her sharing the stories of her childhood…or your childhood! Then record that time as American history or culture.

Later, you can have your high schoolers create a short written family narrative. It’s a fun writing project and helps fulfill the years paper-writing requirements.

Have Grandma tell stories, then have the kids write them down later on.

Have a blast (well, not literally) with Holiday STEM activities

Have your homeschool high schoolers log some computer or craft hours by making their own gifts

Here are some gift ideas from our friends:

Take a little time for your own encouragement, Homeschool 7th Sisters!

So, get creative, relax and have a little fun homeschooling during the holidays!

BTW- Give your teens some wonderful Christmas books to enliven their booklist and  keep up some of the homeschooling during the holidays, check this post.

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Vicki Tillman

Blogger, curriculum developer at 7SistersHomeschool.com, counselor, life and career coach, SYMBIS guide, speaker, prayer person. 20+year veteran homeschool mom.

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