My Secret for Holiday/Homeschool Success

Hello friends!

It seems appropriate and seasonal now to discuss the balance school work with all the extra demands on a mom‘s time around the holidays… And I’m gonna share my secret with you!

Many of you probably know that I love Christmas. It’s possible that I have gone a little bit overboard in displaying that love in past years but I think I found a pretty good balance now in our home— although when I share my “minimal“ plans, I still get blank stares so I think perhaps it’s only minimal compared to what I know it could be, ha ha!

Point being, with all the cooking and the gift wrapping and the decorating and then all the usual ongoing things, not to mention change in weather which means our usual outdoor energy-burning activities are changed or canceled (or significantly more labor-intensive, seeing as how it takes more time to get dressed appropriately to go out and play than they want to spend outside playing!) so how in the world do all those things happen...AND SCHOOL?

I’ve talked a lot about rhythm, planning the rhythm of your days, and that’s no different for this time of year – the rhythm of your days has to change and therefore your school plans have to adjust with them. My secret, personally, is that I start school earlier in the summer with a few easy days a week by starting in July, so that I have finished up my required days for the semester before December. That’s right, I literally don’t have to do school for the last month of the year. And this year, we added on a few weekends of school with field trips or just bonus school days to  make sure we finished everything up, because I really wanted that pressure OFF for December!

Let’s be honest—this year was HARD, and if I’m brave, I’ll tell you that next year isn’t looking to be much easier. So I felt that taking this month to rest, focus on addressing heart issues, character concerns, and just...CHRISTMAS, was extra important and healthy.

Generally, we take a week or two to just rest after Thanksgiving, prep a bit for the holidays, and at least try and get all the decorating done with plenty of treats and special time with my littles (without school stress hanging over us!) Then, guess what? We still do some school; but it is never our typical routine. I’d call it more of a school-lite—if there’s any subject in which we’re lagging, we can hone in on that and let everything else rest. If one kid is struggling, this is a time when we can snuggle down together and spend some solid time practicing those skills, memorizing facts, or tutoring out some bad habits or tendencies. Or if there’s a unit that never quite fits into our usual school days, we can do it now! (Although this year I’m seriously considering taking a “J-term” in January to do a one-subject blitz for a month. But we’ll talk about that another time). 

This year—miraculously!—we stayed surprisingly on-track with our studies, so I have plans for some special STEM projects through this season as weather allows, some art projects (that can double as gifts for the kids to give!) and I’m going to try to teach my kiddos more Christmas carols , especially some of the old-fashioned ones; because someday we’ll be allowed to go Christmas caroling again and there’s a couple of retirement homes we particularly want to visit! We also have some fun new historical biography storybooks that we can dig into—not to mention our current big read aloud (The Hobbit) that I want to finish up!

The bottom line is, my husband and I realized we only get 18 Christmases, really, for sure with our kiddos – if you can call anything in life for sure! Eighteen Christmases, Lord willing, shall we say? And I want to fill their hearts and minds with Christmas season memories of joy and peace and God’s gift of His Son—not more of a continuous grind... 

So the rhythm shifts again. And I get a little spare time to reflect, correct, and plan for resuming in January!

The original version of this article appeared on the Homeschool Corner of cbcwm.blogspot.com.