3 Fun and Unique Ways to do Christmas School

Christmas is such a fun time of year! Unfortunately for homeschool moms, it can also be incredibly hectic. Through all of the hustle and bustle, school can be put on the back burner for far longer than intended, or the opposite can happen, we sacrifice the magic of Christmas in the name of education. 

If you’re new here, I’m Tonya Johnson, founder of Helping Hearts Homeschool where I specialize in working with parents and ministry leaders who are focused on building a solid foundation for the next generation. I believe that it’s important to stay ahead of the crowd when it comes to keeping the attention of our children. The world is fighting for their hearts; we need to fight harder. Like anything else, social media is just a tool. We simply focus on using it for positive vs negative.

Today we're going to talk about three ways to make homeschooling enjoyable and productive throughout the holiday season. 

This idea came about a couple years ago when we adopted three families for Christmas. Between buying and wrapping gifts, hosting each of those families at our house separately, and keeping up with our own Christmas traditions, I knew  I wouldn't have time for our normal homeschool routine. What I did instead allowed my daughter to still have an educational outlet without much involvement from me. We included plenty of crafts, lots of educational activities and pages that could be done independently, and a couple of Christmas themed books. You can click here to see what we put in last year's busy box. 

This something we started purely for fun, but it can be used as a way to make school magical during this time of year also. Basically you make up 12 Christmas themed school packets (or buy them on TPT) and put them in envelopes. You can get extra festive and decorate these envelopes with Christmas stickers, or you can keep them plain. For the 12 days leading up to Christmas, let you child pick an envelope containing that day's school. What I include in each packet is math, English/reading, history, science, and either a craft or a science project. Check out this blog post for more on the 12 days of christmas for an unconventional way to make it educational without it actually including school work. 

This Christmas pack will give you a head start for both options above. Don't want to do either option, but want some fun, themed activity pages for your kids? Awesome! Enjoy! 

This is the one we're doing this year, and I can't wait! We have 13 special school days planned, each one revolving around a specific Christmas movie. This year we won't be traveling for the holidays and Thanksgiving falls a full month before Christmas, so we have plenty of time to add a little extra magic to our schedule. We'll be starting this the day after thanksgiving and 3-4 times per week swapping a normal school day for a movie day. Each "movie school day" will basically be a mini unit study complete with themed snacks and crafts, games, and of course, school work! My plan is to put everything we need in a box and wrap it before putting it under the tree. If you accessed this training through my VIP link, I've included a free "Christmas Movie School Pack" for you to use in your own homeschool.  Everything is outlined for you. I've also included free downloadable sheets with each pack and a corresponding blog post for each movie themed day with links to extra activities and food/decoration ideas. If you purchased your VIP ticket through another creator, you can still access the pack by clicking on the button below. 

If you like anything you see, simply click on the picture for more information.