Homeschooling Through the Holidays: How to Keep Learning JOYFUL (Not Stressful!)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Wallock Way. I'm Jessica. Today's video is going to be all about homeschooling through the holidays while specifically choosing joy instead of stress. Because we all know that the holidays can be super stressful. You have so many things to do. You have gifts to buy. You have things to wrap. You have things to cook and you have events to plan. and you have all of these probably extracurricular things you're going to do and places you're going to go and it can be stressful, especially for a mom. I feel like we're the ones that are juggling all of the holiday festivities and it can be a lot sometimes. So, I feel like our homeschool is the one place where we really have the freedom to choose joy instead of stress because that is the biggest perk of homeschooling is the freedom to do what is right for you and your family. For example, there are tons of advent studies that are out there. There are tons of cute crafts and all of this amazing stuff. And I've seen all of them on social media and thought, "Oh, that would be so much fun." But then I remember crafts are my literal nightmare. Glitter is something I am highly allergic to and will break out in hives if it's even brought into my house. So, while it is super cute and it sounds like so much fun, I promise you some sort of advent study where we are doing a craft every day for 25 days is my worst nightmare. Like, it would not be joyful. It would not be fun. I would not be connecting with Emily. It would not end up being cute. It would be nothing but stress for me and in return stress for her because I would be at my wit's end. And I know that about myself. and about her and about our homeschool. Even though looking at some of the cute things and the end products sometimes makes me think, "Oh, I could do that. Oh, we should do that." Here's the thing. We should not because I promise it's not going to end well. It just isn't who we are. And that is one of the amazing things about homeschooling is you get to choose. You get to pick and you get to decide what is best for you and your family and your kids. What is going to bring you joy? What is going to be less stressful? If that looks completely different than what it looks like in my home school, that's okay because that is the perk. You get to pick. You have the freedom to choose what is joyful to you and what is stressful to you. And during the holidays especially, choose joy, not stress. So with that in mind, I have tried my best to create some sort of holiday study with every family in mind. So I'm going to share those with you, but I'm also going to say you don't need a holiday study at all. If you're like having a study in general stresses me out, then don't use one. Like you don't need it. But if you're somebody who wants a study, who wants something, these are all of the different things that we offer and these are the people that they would be best for. If sitting down and reading books and connecting with your kids through literature is what adds joy to your homeschool, then I have four different holiday novel study recommendations. We have a boy called Christmas novel study. This is more of like a magical and whimsical story. Um he goes to elfim. It's kind of like a origin story of Father Christmas with like I said a lot of magic and whimsy. Um it reminds me a lot of a roll doll style book. So if that is your jam then this is probably the book in the novel study for you. We also have the lion the witch and the wardrobe novel study. If you're looking for something that is great for Christmas but maybe you don't want to have to finish it by Christmas this is the novel study for you because it has a lot of winteresque to it too. So, you could easily even have it, you know, bleed over into January. It is obviously a magical, heartfelt, touching story. Um, or, you know, good perseveres over evil. We also have the classic, a Christmas Carol novel study. Again, if you're looking for that classic Christmas story, this would be great. Um, Emily really loved it when we did it. you get to, you know, have the whole Scrooge go from, you know, the evil guy to the good guy to heartfelt and kind of like that um that change of heart type of thing. It feels kind of like the Grinch type of story except an old cranky man. Um and then we also have the best Christmas pageant ever novel study. This one is such a interesting story. It is about a bunch of kids that are rowdy and kind of rambunctious and they try out for the play at the church for the the typical nativity play because they think that there's food involved. They're going to church for food and food only. And the whole family that's a very rambunctious kind of wild never followed rules family um ends up you know kind of changing who they are becoming better people being exposed to the story of the Christmas story. It is very very sweet. Also, all four of these novel studies also include some bookto movie comparisons as well as movie discussions in the novel studies. So, if you're like, you know what, this Christmas season I really want to just cozy up on the couch, read books, and maybe watch a movie, those are perfect for you. If your idea of a joyful holiday season is baking, if you love being in the kitchen, if baking with your kids does not add stress to your holiday season, if you're good with the mess and you love being in there, then the study that is perfect for you is Santa's tasty trip around the world. This study stops in 32 different locations. So basically, you're going to go with Santa around the world. You're going to make 32 different stops. At each stop, there is a recipe for their traditional cookie or baked good that they would leave out for Santa. So, you're going to learn about that. You're going to bake that and you're going to learn a little bit more about the culture and the traditions of that place. It is a lot of fun. I will say while I love this study, love it. Um, we have never done it in its entirety in one season because baking 32 recipes in one season is stressful for me. So to make it joyful, we typically do one to two of these a week. So this 32 different stops has lasted us I think we're going into our fifth year with it this year. Um because like I said, we do one to two a week. I let Emily go through. I've highlighted the ones that we've done so she knows which ones are left. So essentially we will do them all eventually. So that is another way that you can use this. If you're like 32 different baked desserts, absolutely not. Just pick one to two. Find a way to make it joyful and not stressful for you. If the thing that brings joy to your homeschool or your family is watching movies together and that is all you want to do this holiday season, if you're like, I just want to curl up on the couch and watch movies. I don't want to have to read. I don't want to have to bake. I don't want to have to do school at all. Then Lights, Camera, Holiday Magic is the perfect study for you. This is basically 25 different holiday movies. They are all Christmas themed. They range from the classics like It's a Wonderful Life to some of the new things like um The Christmas Chronicles. Each one of the movies has a very short mini lesson on like cinematography and film making things from lighting to costume to setting design all of that. You're going to read that mini lesson and I am talking like less than five minutes to read the lesson. You're going to watch the movie then you're going to discuss with the discussion questions afterwards. All in all, we're talking maybe 15 to 20 minutes max of the lesson and the discussions after depending on how deep your discussions go and how many kids you have discussing it together and then the time to watch the movie. So, this is very simple. It's open and go. Other than you having to locate whichever streaming service has the video available for you, um this is what we're doing this year because that is what I needed was something very easy and kind of hands-off if I'm being honest. I just wanted to enjoy the season. Emily's getting to that stage where as a teenager, we are going a lot in general. So, I wanted to enjoy and be chill when we were home together. If you just need something open and go, if you were like, I just I want to do a Christmas study, but I need something open and go. I don't really want to have to plan a lot of things, then our 12 days of Christmas study is perfect. It is open and go. It is so simple. Everything is included. So, you are basically going to learn about 12 different symbols of Christmas and you are going to have kind of a page like this where it's going to have all of these different things where you can click or scan. You're going to watch a video. You're going to read about the origin and the history and how it was made. Again, the writing and the reading is included for you. And then you are either going to um do a coloring page if your kids are young, which is included, or there is a drawing tutorial that's a video tutorial included if your kids are older and enjoy drawing. And then there's a notebook page where your kids can notebook and kind of record what they learned about that symbol. So, it requires nothing from you other than you scanning the QR code to access the video to watch and the drawing tutorial. It's everything's here. Like once you print this out, you're good to go. Your reading is included. Your links are included for your videos. Um your coloring pages are included. It's everything is all ready to go. It is open and go. There's a few extra things and ideas in here that you could use, but you don't have to, which is what I love. This is what we did last year in our home school, and it was perfect. The open and go um kind of ready for me was exactly what I needed. If all of that still seems like a lot because your plate is overflowing and you want to infuse a little bit of Christmas school with like zero involvement from you because you don't have anything left to give and anything that you give is going to stress you out. In that case, our discovery decks are perfect. We happen to have a celebrate Christmas one that is 20 different Christmas inspired questions. So, your kids can learn things like, "How is Christmas celebrated in Germany?" or "How are candy canes made?" Um, "What are some of the world's coolest Christmas traditions?" "Why do we have Christmas trees?" "How is Christmas celebrated in Italy? Where did Santa get his name? How is Christmas celebrated in Portugal? Who is Krampus the Christmas monster? And why do we leave cookies for Santa? Those are just a few of the questions. These, like I said, literally require nothing from me. You print them out, you hand them to your kids, they read the question, they scan the QR code, it's going to take them to a YouTube video that's going to explain and answer that question in a 5 to 10 minute video. So you could use these like maybe Advent, you leave one out a day, there's 20. You use them to countdown and it's perfect for Christmas school. In 5 to 10 minutes, they've learned something educational about the holiday season. with zero from you. Like nothing. You just gave them a card. Which is perfect for the mom who's like any kind of Christmas school is stressing me out right now. Which is totally okay because we have a ton on our plate during the holiday season. And I really believe that you deserve to feel joy and not stress. So, however that works for you, whether that is with baking or reading books or watching movies or handing them a card because you want to do nothing or you literally doing nothing and saying, "We're not doing any homeschool things at all for the month of December. We're taking this the whole month off." That is okay, too, because you deserve to have the most joyful holiday season possible. So, whatever works best for your family is exactly what you should do.