Lifeskilling Through the Holidays
Life skills matter and this holiday season instead of worrying about homeschooling through the holidays, focus on the life skills that your kids may be missing. Let 's spend the month "life schooling" through the holidays and cultivate some memories with our kids!
Christmas break is here for most of us! If your kids are in school, they are home, and if you homeschool the books are closed for a few weeks. I have been counting down the days until break because we are in need of some downtime!
But, I recently had a fellow homeschool mom ask me a question that got my mind wandering. She wanted to know if I ever felt so behind that I could not take a Christmas break.
The answer? YES! But, now I ask myself why would anyone homeschool through the holidays? I tried this one year and quickly realized I was insane. It was a few years ago and my middle had needed a tonsillectomy. My son was a baby and I felt like we had missed SO much school. So… we planned to take just 2 days off for Thanksgiving and 3 days off for Christmas.
It was a disaster. Really. I don't know what I was thinking but I definitely wasn't thinking logistically. Homeschooling through the holidays CAN be done. I'm sure. People blog about it. But, really no one NEEDS to do it. And that includes YOU.
The world will not end if you say no to those fun crafts, baking treats, or other things that Pinterest says you NEED to do on Christmas break. We don’t need an advent study, a holidays around the world printable pack or anything else remotely related to “school” during the holidays. We need family. We need togetherness. We need REST.
The truth of the matter is our kids are learning all the time. And you can count those days between Thanksgiving and Christmas even if you never open a book. It’s called life skills. Here are some ways we plan on life skilling through the holidays!
In the Kitchen
- Baking
- Grocery shopping
- Menu creation
Family Relationships
- Teaching kids to enjoy each other
- Strengthening sibling relationships
Character Matters
- Manners
- Being a nice guest
- Table manners
- Volunteer work
Social skills
- Active listening
- Talking politely
- Not responding with one word answers
Homemaking
- Decorating
- Budgeting
- Gift giving
- Laundry
- Purging
Many of these life skills are ones that kids in our society today are severely lacking. We can fill in those gaps and focus on these important life skills throughout the holidays.
Author Bio: Misty Bailey is the blogger behind Joy in the Journey and the podcaster behind Joyfully Homeschooling. Her goal in this online space is to encourage and inspire you on your homeschool journey by providing practical tips for real life homeschooling. Through real stories, real struggles, and real life, Misty encourages her blog readers and podcast listeners to embrace imperfection and strive for a more joyful homeschool.
