Preparing for a Long Homeschooling Break

When I was doing school with Emma yesterday, and looking ahead to next week, I realized that next week is Thanksgiving!  Now, I know I have been talking about the holidays…well…since last years holidays ended, but it definitely arrived faster than I was prepared for.  Does anyone else feel that way?

We are planning on taking quite a large break, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, this year.  I have talked before about schooling year round, and I am happy that we have the option to take a long break when we want it.  But, that doesn’t mean that we will stop learning as soon as the turkey is put in the oven.  We still will be learning, but it will be concentrated in different areas.

I plan to continue my series on the first Thanksgiving, which we have been working on last week and this week.  Emma has really enjoyed seeing the fact vs. the myth of the first Thanksgiving or harvest celebration.  Learning that the foods they probably ate are not what we associate with Thanksgiving today.  All of it is extremely interesting to me, I love history, so any time when we can concentrate on a specific piece of history is enjoyable for me.

After Thanksgiving, we will move into the Christmas season.  I will have a lot of Christmas books on hand.  In fact, Emma has been asking me for Christmas books and movies the past couple of weeks, and I think she has already watched Rudolph on netflix.  I blame the fact that Christmas decorations are up at Target already 🙂  We will also be spending a lot of time in the kitchen.  I let the kids be fully immersed in the cooking experience.  It definitely does not make it easier to have them right there with me, but I feel like I am teaching them valuable life skills (making fudge and cookies count as life skills, right?!).

Because I do so much baking and cooking already, it is common place for them to be in the kitchen.  But, we will be doing a lot more baking…baking with recipes, something I rarely do.  And that allows us to work on math, without knowing we are working on math.  Anything that takes the rigidity out of a subject makes me happy, and baking as math is my favorite way!

I also hope to have Emma help sign all of our Christmas cards this year, so that she can practice writing her name.  She is pretty good at it, but practice is always helpful, and if she wants to write a little note with mama’s help, all the better.

Even though we are officially taking a “break” from school between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, we won’t actually be taking a break.

Do you take a large break during the year?  How do you plan for that?  Do you still find learning opportunities to incorporate even if it isn’t from a curriculum?

Linking up at Hip Homeschool Hop and Titus 2sday