Our Christmas School Tradition – How We Homeschool During the Christmas Season

Every December in our homeschool we press pause on all of our traditional curriculum. We start what I like to call Christmas School. For us Christmas School normally consists of more relaxed, fun learning together as a family.

Each year my plan changes a bit but for the most part Christmas School consists of five main components. Those components are Morning Basket, Hands-On Activities, Holiday Fun Around the World, Fun Family Fridays, and a Dramatic/Pretend Play Area.

Morning Basket

We do our Christmas themed morning basket every day (Monday through Friday) because we truly enjoy it so much. It sets the tone of our day and if we miss it our day just does not seem to flow well.

See ALL of our Christmas Themed Morning Baskets:

Hands-On Activities

I normally collect a good handful of  math and literacy centers from a few different places. I print and prep them all and store them in a gift box under our Christmas Tree. After we finish our Morning Basket Emily gets to choose at least one center to do each day. She is free to do as many as she would like but is only ever “asked” not required, to do one a day (Monday through Thursday).

Most of the activites I use come from:

Holiday Fun Around the World: Homeschool Christmas Lessons

After lunch we normally dive into some around the world holiday fun. We will love to learn about different cultures, their holidays, and how they celebrate. So each day we read, play, and explore more about them.

Our favorite ways to do this include:

Fun Family Fridays

We have Fun Fridays each and every week. During the day we either read a stack of picture books or play games together all day.

While I am sure we will be watching Christmas movies every night in December, we will have a larger family movie night every Friday night. The ones I normally have planned are Elf, The Grinch, and The Polar Express (using my Polar Express Movie Night Pack). I share more about these on my social media pages: Instagram and Facebook pages so be sure you are following me there to see al the details.

Pretend Play

I normally turn our homeschool room into the North Pole. Emily loves pretend play so much and I love that it provides her the opportunity for things like meaningful writing and life skills such as wrapping presents. I have a pretend play bundle pack that includes the North Pole and many more so you can incorporate pretend play into your homeschool too.

Christmasa School Pretend Play

My main goal with Christms School each year is not really learning, although tons of that happens, it is connecting. Spending intenntional time together, slowing down, and embracing the holiday season.

If you would like to see what this all looks like in practice, check out our Christmas School Day in the Life video.

Our 2021 Christmas School Plans