It is completely possible to fill your homeschool with Christmas joy!

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Christmas and the holidays are so much fun! My kids love to decorate the house and the tree! We all love to ski and play outside in the new-fallen snow! We love to make each other homemade Christmas gifts and decorate cookies and put together treat plates for all of our neighbors!

There are delightful Christmas books to read, funny Christmas movies to watch and Christmas festivals galore to attend.

Who wants to practice times tables when the first snowfall of the year is coming down? And who wants to work on spelling and grammar when gifts are waiting to be wrapped?

There are so many wonderful things to do that it’s a great time to relax your regular homeschool routine and incorporate some fun, Christmasy learning and activities.

You can totally use school time to cross a few ‘educational’ things off your holiday to-do list, like making and writing Christmas cards, and baking up special holiday treats. Write out your Christmas bucket list and see how many of your activities could be considered educational and incorporated into your homeschool.

If you need some more helpful ideas, here are some fun things you can do to incorporate Christmas into your homeschooling days:

1. We have a tradition (I am a piano teacher and teach my own kids as part of my piano studio) of learning about Handel’s Messiah every December, so over the years I’ve created this Handel’s Messiah Unit Study. We learn about George Friedric Handel, the story behind the Messiah‘s composition, history, geography, literature, writing and create some art of our own. Be sure to follow up your study of the Messiah by attending a sing-along performance!
2. Cross off music, art, penmanship and service in one fell swoop as you learn the history of a couple of Christmas Hymns (I highly recommend Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas) then practice singing them and go caroling at a nursing home. Create cards, writing poems inside as penmanship study and decorating the outside as your art study, to deliver to the residents while you carol.
3. Create an annual family newsletter where each person shares a paragraph of their highlights for the year. Once everyone has their final draft of their paragraph, just add them together to create a fun family newsletter to send family and friends. Don’t tell the kids that they’re working on their writing skills!
4. Would you like to cross off literature, too? Here is a list of our favorite, Christ-centered, Christmas books. If you have time, you can add a fun twist to it and wrap up each individual book and then let your child unwrap a book each day, as sort of an advent!
5. Leave your Little People Nativity set on the bottom shelf so your little people can reach it and play with it all month long during December. Even your older kids will enjoy acting out the nativity story while you read it from the Bible.
6. Create a nativity manger, using craft sticks and these instructions. Your children will add pieces of straw to the manger during December each time they serve someone, creating a soft bed for baby Jesus to lie in. Add the baby Jesus near Christmas, or once the manger is full of soft straw. Read this story while creating your manger.
7. Organize a winter clothing drive. Start by sorting through your own extra clothing, then ask your neighbors and church members to donate theirs. There are many organizations that take donations for those in need.
8. Check out this gigantic list of Christmas STEM Activities from the Proverbial Homemaker!
9. And look at this fun list of Christmas Science Activities from Little Bins for Little Hands!
10. Fulfill your language arts, handwriting, visual arts and drama requirements with this Nativity Unit Study from Intoxicated on Life. I love that it is all about celebrating the birth of our Savior!
11. Learn history with this beautiful and meaningful Unit Study about WWII Christmas from 123 Homeschool 4 Me.
12. Because I love the idea of worldschooling and we’ve done a bit of traveling ourselves, I love to do a Christmas Around the World Unit Study kind of like this one from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
13. Some Christmas Copywork would be easy to implement because it’s so low-prep. You just print it, and it knocks out handwriting, grammar, and language mechanics in one assignment. Here are a few scriptures, Christmas lyrics and quotes for you to choose from: Nativity Scripture Copywork (Luke) from My Joy Filled Life, Christmas Carol Copywork Pack from Frugal Homeschool Family, Christmas Copywork (Matthew and Luke) from In All You Do and The Christmas Story FREE Copywork for Notebooking by Mom’s Mustard Seeds.
14. Have fun and build family relationships with small, random acts of kindness, using this Light the World Advent Calendar.
15. Have a Christmas movie marathon in your pajamas. (I love that these Christmas movies are all family friendly!) Everyone deserves a day off!

 

 

Pin these fun ideas for later!

 

 

I hope you have the most wonderful Christmas imaginable with your sweet kiddos!
 

Do you have some good last-minute homeschool Christmas ideas to share? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!