Learning Through the Holidays: by Jenning Nanninga

Learning Through the Holidays
By Jenny Nanninga @bloom.wild.schoolhouse

With the holidays approaching, it can be hard to stay focused on school lessons and curriculum. This is especially true if the subject matter doesn't exactly seem to flow well with topics such as St. Nicholas, gingerbread, or snow. 

Thankfully for our family, our curriculum on world cultures was centered on the Netherlands as Christmas approached. We easily wove in Dutch stories and traditions, Swedish tales and recipes, and more into our days. The lessons flowed seamlessly with the celebrations.

It had me pondering the concept of spending an entire year, using the holidays and seasons as a guide for our lessons. Why feel overwhelmed with school on May Day when we really wanted to be delivering baskets of flowers to our neighbors. Why feel overwhelmed with curriculum when our real desire was to bake heart shaped cookies and make cards near Valentine's day? Why rush through worksheets during Christmas when there were handmade gifts to craft?

Many homeschoolers believe in the mantra that "life is learning", yet we are often too afraid to fully embrace that. We are afraid of what we might miss if we skip the store bought curriculum or the required daily activities. Yet, I wonder what we miss by boxing ourselves in. I wonder how rich of a learning experience we could give our children by simply learning through the holidays.

I imagine it could look something like this:

As Christmas approaches, we pull out Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and read aloud. The rich vocabulary is often explained to inquiring minds and the descriptive writing style and characters capture their imagination. We discuss the plot, the children narrate to others, and even act out portions of the story. A family movie night occurs. Language classed. Check.

We bake constantly, sharing with neighbors and friends. We study the recipes and work on doubling batches. We learn the fractions necessary for measuring ingredients. Math. Check.

Holiday cards must be sent out and we busily draw and color and write messages. Spelling and grammar. Check.

We decide to make handmade gifts this year and out come the knitting, embroidery, carving, watercolors, clay, and more. Art. Check.

We become curious about our traditions and where they come from. We research their origins. We read numerous picture books about the many traditions that we observe and begin to understand them more deeply, giving them a richer meaning. History. Check.

From here, we read about the celebrations in other countries. Bam. Geography. We memorize some winter poems. Boom. Recitation.

Are you catching my drift here? This is for ONE holiday. The number of American holidays alone is staggering and spread throughout the year. Throw in the rest of the world, or even hilarious holidays like "National Donut Day" and you will never run out of possibilities.

The point is not to overwhelm you by making you feel that you should be studying all of this during the holiday seasons on top of your "regular" school. Rather, the point is to free you from feeling like you must accomplish every single task on your curriculum to do list during a busy holiday season. There is learning everywhere if you see it, and grasp it, and make it your own.

While I love the idea of this experiment and have toyed with the idea of creating my own curriculum centered on this concept, I myself waver. I wonder if I can truly let go of the expectations or the norms of society and learn through the holidays with my crew.

If this idea appeals to you, then I want to encourage you to try it! Even if only for a season! Test it out on a holiday that is less involved for your family. Maybe you normally take a week off of school near St. Patrick's day. Load up on a few library books, look up Ireland and England. Measure the distance. Read about ships or pirates. Complete a nature study on clovers. Learn a new recipe. Give it a whirl. 

I am sure that once you begin to imagine the possibilities with each new holiday, you will begin to see how very vast and rich they are. 

So, right now. Whether you are observing Advent or St. Lucia's, Las Posadas, Epiphany, or any of the other wonderful December and January holidays, breathe deep and open your eyes to the possibilities. Let go of the expectations and jump into celebration wholeheartedly. You'll learn more by celebrating wholeheartedly than you will be attempting to halfheartedly "get through" the curriculum, so that you can go bake some gingerbread cookies afterward. Maybe gingerbread cookies are the real lesson after all. Don't miss it.