I love everything about the holiday season from the hot cider and pumpkin pie to the warm fireplaces and cozy blankets! Thanksgiving and Christmas don’t have to be a reason to bring learning to a screeching halt, though.
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In fact, this time of year provides an opportunity to take advantage of the excitement and engage our children with games and activities that are not only fun – but can teach something wonderful about our history and the birth of our Savior, too!
Thanksgiving Holiday Fun & Learning
- Our Thankful Tree – I love working on this large visual reminder with my children of all we have to be thankful for. ~ Heidi
- Thanksgiving Craft ideas – A collection of ideas & fun around the web. ~ Kendra
- 30 Days Of Thanks & Giving for the month of November – A free resource with crafts, games & educational resources for an entire 30 days as we give thanks during the month of November.
- Eating the Plates: A Pilgrim Book of Food and Manners – One of my favorite ways to teach is to take a book and put it into action. Last Thanksgiving our family read Eating The Plates: A Pilgrim Book of Food and Manners by Lucille Recht Penner. This book offers so many opportunities for learning. ~ Jennifer
- A Thanksgiving Book List for Your Fall Homeschool Studies – As the leaves begin to change color and prepare to fall, we are looking ahead to the upcoming holidays. Many homeschoolers take the time to include holiday themed studies into their days. Thanksgiving is a big one. I have curated a Thanksgiving book list of some of the very best to help you do just that. Or maybe you just want to have some of them around to read at bedtime or during times when your kids free read. ~ Heidi Ciravola
- Thanksgiving Homeschool Celebration – A captive audience. That’s what you have in family and friends on Thanksgiving. Each year at this time we share what we call a unit celebration of our homeschool. Basically, we show off the best of our school work and projects while the side dishes are still warming in the oven. This four-year tradition is rooted in our Tapestry of Grace studies. But, we not only share what we have learned about history, our children also might share an upcoming Christmas piano recital song they are practicing. Maybe a short skit they have put together. Big brother makes a video of it all. ~Tricia Hodges
- November Homeschool Celebrations – Celebrate November with some of the zany November Homeschool Celebrations below and create a few unique family ones, too. ~ Julie Lavender
- The Ultimate Guide to Fun Thanksgiving Activities for Your Homeschool – This ultimate guide to fun Thanksgiving activities for your homeschool includes wonderful homeschool tools for celebrating Thanksgiving and teaching gratitude. Includes art activities, history, Thanksgiving recipes and more! ~ Tricia Hodges
- The Thanksgiving Homeschool – Think about including Thanksgiving Homeschool activities in your homeschool day. Whether you are teaching about Christopher Columbus or the First Thanksgiving, learning to bake pies or cook a turkey, there are so many fun activities you can include in your Thanksgiving Homeschool. You can even include poetry and art that is Thanksgiving related! ~ Heidi Ciravola
Christmas Holiday Fun
Whatever route you choose for your homeschool, there are many enjoyable opportunities for learning through the Christmas season. The following are some simple activities that have become cherished holiday traditions in the homes of some of our authors.
Christmas Fun
- Christmas Video Art Lessons – Celebrate the Christmas season with art! Christmas video art lessons. Invite a Master Artist to teach the joy of art to all grades and ages using this one video course. Enjoy from the comfort of your home at your convenience and on your schedule. ~ Tricia Hodges
- 5 Days of DIY Christmas Ornaments for Kids – For each day of crafting we have chosen a different theme for our DIY Christmas Ornaments for Kids. With most of them we have created two different ornaments with the supply theme. Besides the ones we created ourselves, I also linked to many other easy to do DIY Christmas Ornaments for Kids that fit the supply theme of that day! ~ Heidi Ciravola
- FREE Christmas Light Scavenger Hunt Eye Spy Printables – One thing many families love to do during the holiday seasons is drive around and look at Christmas lights. You might even go to a place where you can drive or walk through many light displays. You can add some extra fun in with this FREE Printable Christmas Light Scavenger Hunt. There are two Christmas Light Scavenger Hunt Printables in this pack. One for older participants and one for the younger ones! ~ Heidi Ciravola
- Scented Homemade Ornaments – a tradition we’ve been doing for the past 12 years. Handprint ornaments make lovely gifts, or gift toppers & grandparents tend to make sure you’re planning to make them each year for them. ~ Kendra
- Edible Nativity – A fun tradition our family started when our children were very young. We’ve dubbed it the Nativity Box which is stuffed full f homemade cookies and sweets, each representing a part in the Nativity Story. Complete with Free printable. ~ Kendra
Christmas Learning
- Christmas Activities – Add Some Holiday Fun to Your Homeschool! A collection of printables, books, movies, baking, activities, crafts and more! ~ Heidi Ciravola
- Learning While Celebrating the Christmas Season – Even when we put aside our regular schoolwork the learning never stops! ~ Heidi
- Christmas Lessons – It’s that “most wonderful time of the year” again! Many homeschool families take the entire month of December off while others continue on with their regular school routine. In years past we have taken a break from our regular studies – even the 3R’s – to focus on some type of Christmas unit. This year, however, because of some unexpected changes in our schedule, we will be sticking with our regular schooling until the week before Christmas. ~ Shannon
- Do You Homeschool in December? What does Christmas look like at Hodgepodge? In our homeschool? I invite you to come and sit by the fire, enjoy a warm cup of coffee, hot chocolate or tea and put your feet up – for about five minutes. Just five minutes because in December things are changing moment to moment. Like most families, it’s so very busy. Time to head to this practice, get your dress shoes for this performance. Which is precisely why in the last several years I’ve shared how we take December off from homeschool. Well, in reality we don’t completely take the month off. We just change up our learning. Our focus is on all the celebratory things leading up to Christmas. ~ Tricia Hodges
- The Ultimate Guide to Lovely Christmas Activities for Your Homeschool – In the last several years I’ve shared how we take December off from homeschool. Well, in reality we don’t completely take the month off. We just change up our learning. Our focus is on all the celebratory things leading up to Christmas. This guide to lovely Christmas activities for your homeschool is designed to be filled with ideas to simplify and enjoy the season. So, fix a steamy cup of hot chocolate and settle into your favorite chair by the twinkling holiday lights. ~ Tricia Hodges
- Free Christmas Lapbook – A lapbook that goes alongside the Amanda Bennet Christmas Unit Study, another lovely way to keep our focus on Jesus through the busy holiday season ahead. ~ Kendra
- Fun Holidays Around The Year – An idea created as a way to keep in touch with my niece from afar one year. Resources for well known, & obscure holidays, year round complete with craft ideas, book choices, & a whole lot of links! ~ Kendra
Advent Activities
- Nature Study Through the Holidays: Advent – “Advent is a weekly focus on various parts of the Christmas story during the month leading up to Christmas. For each of these weeks, we have provided you with Scripture references, nature study activities and full-color notebooking pages. Through nature study, our hope is that you will grow closer to the Lord and His perfect gift, Jesus, this Christmas season.” ~ Cindy West
- Counting Down the Days – We savor the season and count down the days until Christmas using an advent calendar filled not with gifts but with activities to do together. In this post I share some of the ways I fill the drawers with ideas for family memories. ~ Heidi
- A Christmas Adventure – Scripture Adventures Review – With inviting shelves tempting our children and the networks screening one fantasy Christmas movie after the next, I feel an overwhelming urge to counteract this consumer mentality with a purposeful and thought out Advent. I want and need Christ to be in this modern aged Christmas. Scripture Adventures has been an answer to this heartfelt desire. ~ Shirley
- 30 Fun ideas to fill an advent calendar – with as you keep the focus on giving and loving through the holiday season. ~ Kendra
- Christmas Advent Calendar – How to make your own Advent Calendar stuffed with Legos, jokes, & Bible readings for the month ahead. Includes links to free printables! ~ Kendra
Gift Giving
- TONS of Gift Giving Guides – This is a collection of gift giving guides broken into categories like: Educational Toys, Gifts for Teen Girls, Gifts for Teen Boys, Battery Free Games and more! ~ Heidi Ciravola
- Last Minute Gift Ideas – Here’s a round-up of last minute ideas and resources I put together a year ago. It includes ‘The Perfect Gift for Little Girls’, some freebies, and a some reviews of inspiring books about the holidays. Why this focus on getting the gifts out of the way? Because not stressing about the gifts means you will have more peace and time to focus on the true meaning of Christmas, our Lord Jesus. ~ Annie Kate
- Three Gifts for Christmas – Since early in our parenting, we have given three gifts to each of our children, just as the wise men brought three gifts to Jesus. Still, I could get overwhelmed with all the gift lists, the “I wants”. That is until I read about two simple solutions. Guidelines we adopted to keep the focus on Christ and the bank account from going bust. ~ Tricia Hodges
What are YOUR favorite resources for celebrating learning through the holidays?
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