Stress Free Holiday Learning
My first year of homeschooling came with its apparent set of challenges. Navigating a new world of teaching multiple children in my home was a difficult adjustment. When we first began our homeschooling journey, I had the best mentor I could ever have for this new phase of life and I can never thank her enough for her guidance during our first few months of homeschooling, which has now shaped how my children will learn forever.
Let me help set the scene for you, it is November, three months into our first year of homeschooling. I am not going to sugar coat this, I was OVERWHELEMED! I had way too many expectations of creating “school” in our home, and although it was picture perfect, it didn’t feel right.
Each night I would go to bed, evaluate the day, see all that I didn’t accomplish with the kids and feel like a failure. Day in and day out, I would feel the same way and repeat this in my head, “but at least we got our math and writing done, that’s what matters.”
The funny thing is that checking boxes doesn’t matter and my mentor helped me see this! Homeschooling was not about checking boxes, she told me, it was about engagement and relationship building with your children. Through that engagement of learning with them, their trust in you will grow and together their learning will soar.
She told me to put all the textbooks away for the next month and choose four picture books to read and focus on learning each week. Apprehensively, I put my trust in her wise guidance, closed my homeschool room doors and went to my bookshelf. It was late at night, my house was quiet, and after a silent prayer, I began pulling books.
I decided on four holiday themed books, placed them on the couch downstairs and went to bed. The next morning, I gathered my children on the couch, and we read one of the books I had selected for the week. It was the week before Thanksgiving, and we had read the Story of the Pilgrims, by Katharine Ross.
We sat on the couch for almost an hour, talking about the Pilgrims, the Mayflower, the journey to America and how difficult it was. We talked about why the Pilgrims came to America, what happened when they got here, and how they survived. On the couch that morning, we had read a book, reviewed words they did not know, learned about history, had meaningful, lasting, thoughtful discussions about how this historical event shaped our country today.
On an impulse, I gathered them at the table, we wrote about the pilgrims, drew the Mayflower and created cartoon strips for the journey to America. We spent hours around the table, we had no formal plan, I was relaxed, I saw what my children needed and with that direction I was able to create an AMAZING homeschool morning, a morning that went well into the day, and even into discussion at dinner with my husband.
The following day, I had an older child read the same book aloud to everyone as we snuggled on the couch. The rest of the week was perfect! It was stress free! We made boats out of paper and floated them in the sink, made thankful trees with our hands, made Pilgrim and Indian hats, the kids created a role play of the first Thanksgiving. We painted with corn, made turkeys with our hands and feet, made thankful art posters, and so much more.
All of this from one single book!
We did the same for the first three weeks in December, (which I will share the books and ideas this week on my blog), and this permanently changed how I teach my children, and the change is for the better! Our home over that month became a place where my children could trust and learn with me together. It was magical!
If you are stressed out this holiday season, '“close the homeschool doors” and grab some books! You will be amazed at what your children can learn and what an amazing relationship you can build over this next month with your children.
I have created a free mini unit study for you with some printed mini books and ideas of things we did in our home that first year, for a fun Thanksgiving week of learning. You can download it here now.
(If you are asking, we did pick up our math after the new year, but in a whole new way!)
