Hope, Generosity, Faith
We ground ourselves in these three themes throughout the holidays. It’s a time to slow down and spend small moments of time together, to intentionally step into a space that is focused on these themes. This year we used stories during our morning time that sparked wonderful ideas and conversations!
There’s nothing like a good Chicken Soup for the Soul book! We used Chicken Soup for the Soup, Christmas Treasury for Kids this year from our local library. An Amazon search lead me to several others to use in the future, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Christmas Cheer: Stories about the Love, Inspiration, and Joy of Christmas, Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Book of Christmas Miracles: 101 Stories of Holiday Hope and Happiness, Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Book of Christmas Miracles: 101 Stories of Holiday Hope and Happiness. We used other stories that centered around team work, giving, and kindness as well.
This year the holiday season gave us an opportunity to volunteer and serve our community! I organized a winter market for our town Christmas Tree lighting, and the whole family volunteered to put lights up at the park. We gave our time during a widespread power outage, which lasted almost a week for some, to help a local business serve food to those in need. This isn’t the only time of year that we look for ways to support our community. However, these special opportunities felt pretty magical and brought some love and light during a cold December.
Holidays around the world
You can’t beat a good holidays around the world unit! Learning about different places and how they celebrate at this time of year is an easy win! When you do this type of unit study with all of your kiddos expect that, like with any unit study done all together, each child will take in and absorb different things. Using this type of unit study you can cover history, social studies, geography, art, music and so much more! It really is priceless!
We used this Holidays Around the World Unit Study from Teacherspayteachers.com (TPT) a few years ago and loved it! I added in some YouTube videos showing some of the traditions and foods that were mentioned. We pulled in wonderful shared experiences such as cooking and baking too! This unit has hands on components which inspired our creative minds for weeks! It was also super easy to use with my kiddos who are all about 2 years apart. It says it’s good for 2nd-4th grade but I used it with pre-K through 2nd graders at the time. I feel like older kids would enjoy some of it too maybe with some minor adjustments.
Holidays Homeschooling With Gingerbread Houses
STEM + Cookies = Amazing!
Building gingerbread houses is a fun physics experiment in disguise. While building with your kiddos you can apply engineering concepts like structural integrity, friction, and load distribution. You can talk about using royal icing as strong “glue,” making wide bases for stability (overcoming gravity’s pull), understanding how sloping roofs impact snow load, and so much more! You could even have a contest to see who’s house is the strongest! Need more ideas? Check out these search results from TPT!
Easing Back Into “Normal” School
After the holidays it can be hard to dive back into a normal school routine. We ease back in with unit studies and longer morning times, which tends to include more music and art than normal. After New Years Eve we have a day of rest then start back up with math, spelling, games, and a fun read aloud. Our current book series for morning time that we are loving is, “The Land of Stories!” It’s quite the adventure and it takes us out of holiday mode which helps too! The following week we will be back up to our normal pace with a full array of assignments and activities.
Since we only take a couple days off at Christmas and New Years we never fully get out of the school zone. This means easing back into our normal routine isn’t a big shock to our systems. The break we do take is needed and gives us time to connect in different ways. However, not taking big breaks at any time of year keeps everyone’s brains engaged and hearts in the game! There’s many ways to enjoy the holidays through homeschooling! Find what works for your family and treasure it.
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