Every November, the same thing happens. I open my carefully built homeschool schedule, glance at the calendar, and realize the calendar has plans of its own.
Now that my kids are older, things look different but it is no less full of Things We Have to Do and Places We Must Go for it to really feel like the holiday season.
There’s shopping. There are Christmas lights to drive around and admire at the park. There are guests who show up unexpectedly (the good kind of unexpected), and a general feeling that the entire house is leaning toward December.
Not to mention decorating, gift wrapping, food planning, movie watching, and cookie baking!
If you’re looking for a homeschool schedule for the holidays, here’s the short version: you don’t have to fight the season. You can build with it.
I’ve homeschooled for more than fifteen years, and the holidays have taught me more about flexibility than any curriculum ever has.
In this post, I’ll walk through how to fold the season into your lessons, how to lighten the load, when to pause and restart in January, and why making memories gets top billing.
Weave the Season Into Your Homeschool Schedule
The easiest way to homeschool through the holidays is to let the holidays do some of the teaching. Your kids are going to be thinking about pumpkins, cookies, and Christmas trees anyway. You may as well point all that energy at something useful.
Start in the kitchen. Doubling a recipe is fractions with a reward at the end. Following a three-page family recipe is reading comprehension. A pie that collapses is a chemistry lesson, a humility lesson, and (if you’re lucky) still delicious.
🍪Raising Arrows has some fabulous Christmas cookie unit studies!!
Then head to the pumpkin patch. Pumpkins grow on vines, which gives you botany. Guessing a pumpkin’s weight before you haul it to the scale is estimation and math. Coming home with far too many leads to roasted seeds, puree, and a long family conversation about what to do with the rest. (If your patch has already closed for the year, file this under next fall.)
🍂Treehouse School House has some wonderful (and very Charlotte Mason) pumpkin unit study ideas.
Christmas trees make a surprisingly good lesson, too. Why do evergreens stay green? How does a tree farm work? Where did the tradition of hauling a tree indoors come from? One good question and one library trip can fill a week.
The trick is to let the learning ride along with the activities that you are already going to do instead of turning every outing into a worksheet. Ask good questions in the car, then let the rest of the day be fun. The season is already full of material. You just have to notice it.
Speaking of driving, Classics for Kids has some super-fun Christmas-themed podcasts for those long drives to Grandma’s!
Lighten Your Homeschool Schedule With Holiday Morning Time
Here’s the permission slip you may need: you are allowed to take a break from your regular curriculum. Things can be lighter and less focused for a few weeks, and the world will keep turning.
You have time to get back to things when everyone is ready. It’s easier to take a break and go back than stress over the holidays.
That doesn’t mean your kids stop learning. It means you swap the heavy lifting for something warmer.
My favorite swap is a holiday morning time, in the style of Pam Barnhill’s morning time.
If you’ve never tried it, morning time is a shared block at the start of the day where you gather for a few quiet, rich things together – a poem, a Scripture passage, a song, a read-aloud, maybe a bit of art. For the holidays, you simply give it a seasonal theme: carols, Advent readings, Christmas poetry, a few chapters of a winter classic.
Check out Pam’s amazing morning times!! They have given us such happy memories through the years! This link is for a free morning time from her called Christmas Celebration, but she has lots of other options as well as Advent plans.
Then set out the holiday books. Stack them on the coffee table, tuck a basket by the couch, line a few up on the kitchen counter. Books that are visible get opened. A Christmas stack sitting in plain view invites a read-aloud without a single lesson plan. (Try reading A Christmas Carol and then watch the Muppet version and compare. That is basically a free literature unit in and of itself!)
The result is a school day that looks suspiciously like a cozy morning. That’s the point. You’re still reading, still talking, still learning. You’re just doing it in slippers, with something warm to drink. Hopefully with marshmallows. (I like Dandies vegan ones best!)
Keep it small. Fifteen to thirty minutes of holiday morning time, a stack of good books within arm’s reach, and a relaxed attitude will do more for your homeschool schedule in December than an overstuffed plan you resent by the second week.
Put Gift-Giving on Your Homeschool Schedule as a Budgeting Lesson
Shopping is going to happen. You might as well put it on the schedule and call it math.
Gift-giving is a real-life budgeting lesson, and real life is a better teacher than most textbook pages. Hand each kid a budget and a list of people. Let them price things, compare stores, and figure out what they can actually afford. When the total comes in over budget (it will), they get to practice the very adult skill of deciding what stays and what goes.
Older kids can take it further. Have them track what they spend, add in sales tax, and hunt for a better price on the same item. A handmade gift is a legitimate budget solution, too, and it comes with a built-in craft project.
This also opens up a natural conversation about why we give at all. A store aisle is a surprisingly good place to talk about what makes a gift meaningful – the thought behind it, the cost to the giver, the person on the receiving end.
The lesson also happens at the checkout, over the receipt, and in the car on the way home. Put one shopping trip on your homeschool schedule as an official budgeting field trip and you’ve covered math, life skills, and a little character formation in a single afternoon.
After writing this, I found a homeschool lesson plan for teaching Christmas gift budgeting! Yay the Internet strikes again! You think you have an original idea, lol… And, it’s free!
Pause Your Homeschool Schedule and Pick a January Restart Date
You have two sensible options for the holiday stretch, and neither one involves guilt.
Option one: wrap up before the holidays begin. Look at what’s left in your curriculum and decide what truly needs to be finished. Aim for a clean stopping point, even if that means trimming a few lessons. Ending a unit feels better than abandoning one halfway through.
Option two: pause, then review and resume. Stop where you are, take your time off, and start again on a day you choose in January. Pick that date now. Write it on the calendar. Tell your kids. A restart date turns ‘we’ve fallen off the wagon’ into ‘we’re on a planned break,’ and that’s a big psychological difference.
When you do come back, spend the first few days reviewing before pushing forward. Brains need a ramp, not a cliff.
Whichever option you choose, don’t be afraid to take a significant amount of time off. Hobbits are experts at a well-organized day (breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses – you know the drill), and they also understand that a good rhythm includes plenty of rest and feasting. Your homeschool schedule can, too.
If you want a head start, my free Hobbit Homeschool Schedule gives you a weekly rhythm with a bit of Shire charm, and the free HWJ Planner has calendar pages to mark your break and your restart date.
Let Memories Come First (Your Homeschool Schedule Can Bend a Little)
Here’s how it works in our house: we don’t take off in the summer, but we take off more in the holidays. Unexpected grandparent visits, shopping, Christmas lights, and fun activities all show up at once, and they come first. Making happy memories is the priority, and academics can ride in the back seat for a few weeks.
Academics will always catch up. A short season of lighter learning won’t undo years of reading, writing, and curiosity. Your kids are not going to fall off a cliff because they spent a week at the kitchen counter with flour on their elbows.
And there are plenty of chances to do fun things that are also educational. A drive to see the Christmas lights is a free evening out. A visit with grandparents is oral history waiting to happen – ask them what Christmas looked like when they were growing up, then sit back and listen. A day of shopping is budgeting practice. You don’t have to label any of it as school. It counts anyway.
The Secret Present Problem
Of course, there’s the matter of keeping everyone busy while you handle the festive stuff, like wrapping presents in secret. A little planning helps. Keep a stash of quiet activities within reach: an audiobook and a pile of blankets, a jigsaw puzzle on the table, hand-lettered cards for relatives, a baking project for the older kids, or a Christmas movie. Rotate them so there’s always something to grab, and you can wrap in peace.
I especially love Usborne holiday sticker books for this!!
Here are some of my favorites. Click the picture to see them in my Homeschool with Joy Amazon Storefront.
In Closing…
Here’s what I keep coming back to: a schedule is a tool, not a verdict.
In the holidays, the tool gets to flex a little bit.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us there is a season for everything under heaven. This is the season for lights, grandparents, flour on the counter, and books stacked where anyone can grab them. Take the time off. Pick your restart date. Let the learning sneak in sideways. Whatever you decide, the goal isn’t a perfect homeschool schedule. It’s a family that still likes being in the same house come January.
Ready to plan it? Grab the free Hobbit Homeschool Schedule for a weekly rhythm with some Shire charm, and the free HWJ Planner to map your break and your January restart. And, if you’d like a post like this in your inbox every Friday, join the email list.
