How to Get Back to Homeschooling (After a Holiday Break)

Updated: 1/7/16 

It’s back to school time! At one of our homeschool support meetings I remember this question was posed to  the moms, “what wrecks your homeschool?”. The list was lengthy but I think everyone agreed that the holidays and illness were at the top of the list! Getting back in the groove of things after either an illness or a holiday, especially long holidays, can be a tough. It gets even tougher when the two occur together.

So here we are trying to get back in the groove of things after:

• my husband’s carpal tunnel release surgery
• lots of free time to visiting with friends and family, just to chat and fellowship
• all the kids being sick back-to-back,
• ultimately I got sick (and am still recovering)
• and then to top it off…the overall chillax, laid back mode of the holidays, all that fruit cake and sorrel!

Well, no one’s in the mood (and when I say no one, I mean me) to get back to a schedule! LOL.

But, not only do we need to get back, we must lest we tarry and the teacher forgets what she taught and students forget everything they’ve learnt! We have to press on towards the mark people!

A great kick-starter for me (other than prayer) is to start off simple (and fun) with less structured studies. Unit studies are great for this. This week we added to our U.S. social studies knowledge using the “How the States Got their Shapes“ show on the History Channel. It was SO informative. We learnt, among other things, that the original map shape of Washington D.C. used to be a perfect diamond. D.C., however,  lost a chunk of land in 1837 due to a fight with the state of Virginia over slave trading in Alexandria, VA. So, yep, Alexandria, VA was initially part of Washington DC. Who knew? I didn’t.

Another Unit Study we love, love is our Try the World food subscription box. I told you a little bit about that here. This month we received a bonus box filled with holiday treats from over 7 countries including Canada, Sweden, the U.K. and Brazil! Woo hoo!

Once we get hyped up doing our Unit Studies it will be a lot easier to get back to our “regularly scheduled programming”.

“We’re just trying to glide”

A great tip from Diane Lockman at MomsCourse is, for the month of January, just focus on one skill area that one of children may be weak in and put some extra thrust in that while obviously not ignoring the educational goals of your other kids. Bottom line, don’t try to do too much when you re-start after a holiday, that’s a sure recipe for crash and burn. At homewithmykings we’re just trying to glide. 🙂

Alright, so let’s pray for each other this school semester knowing that all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. And whatever your burdens are for school, work, health, family issues, your spouse, your kids or the world, take it to the Lord in prayer.

Updated 1/7/16: I decided to add this bit as a wonderful tip to kick-starting after the holidays. 

• Get together with your homeschool mom friends!

I’m around a lot of my mom friends throughout the year at our co-op or field trips, but usually we’re multitasking with teaching, ushering kids to classes, helping with clean-up or some other activity that begs our participation. We chit-chat in passing but there’s not a lot of uninterrupted time. Today, however, our Lego League members and their moms got together for the kids to continue working on their Lego model. Afterwards, the kids watched a movie and us moms had an opportunity to just sit, relax and talk, I mean really talk, and share about our lives. Most, like myself, confessed that we were trying to get back into the groove of homeschooling after the long holidays. I think we all left encouraged and refreshed ready to seize the day! So, plan a get together with some mom friends before the start of the school semester. It will energize you!

Love ya!

Wendy, XOXO