Homeschool Lite

How's your homeschooling going as we come into the Christmas-New Year stretch? The last week of November and first week of December are always incredibly busy for me. During the week of Thanksgiving, I worked 50% more hours than usual at my church job, and that was with the holiday. The following week was the same. At least now I have enough homeschooling years under my belt to know how to adapt by implementing "Homeschool Lite."

So what exactly does this entail? We do a limited number of activities every day: math, reading, practicing instruments, and my kids each have some light independent work they can do without my help.

You know what we don't do? We don't do a complicated unit study. We don't go on field trips (other than an outing to the library now and then). We don't do arts and crafts. I don't do formal studies in history and science, which some may find shocking. Instead, I make sure we have a wide variety of books and art supplies available for my kids to read and create on their own.

The next couple weeks will still be busy for us, but not quite as bad as the previous two. As time opens up, we'll still keep doing Homeschool Lite, but add some Christmas activities. We'll read some Christmas picture books, make gingerbread houses (from kits, because, no, I will not be making them from scratch), decorate some ornaments, and cut out snowflakes.

We'll probably wrap up Friday, December 17, and then have the whole following week to bake and do other fun Christmas stuff.

You may be in an opposite situation. If your December is open, maybe you feel like adding more special activities, and that's great! As it always is in homeschooling, the point is to do what works best for your family's situation and don't compare to what everyone else is doing.

I hope you have a great week!