During the wintertime there are many wonderful opportunities for homeschooling! You can get back into your normal homeschool routine after a break for Christmas or start something new or different with your children. If your homeschooling during the winter looks like the rest of the year, what about adding in a few new activities?
Nature Studies
Many people associate nature studies with the warmer months – especially the spring or summer months but wintertime also provides wonderful opportunities for studying nature. While many animals have migrated or taken to hibernating during the winter months, with reduced foliage on trees it can be easier to spot the animals that are still around our homes in the winter months. You can also find animal tracks on the freshly fallen snow. Taking the time to document how the trees have changed in a nature journal is also a good way to continue science observations and lessons with our children.
Reading Books
Wintertime also provides homeschooling families with the opportunity to curl up under a cozy blanket, sip hot cocoa or tea, and read a good book. Every member of our family received books for Christmas so now is the perfect time for us to find a comfortable place in the house to read our new books. Homeschooling families can read these books for the joy of reading or incorporate them into their homeschool studies. Our youngest son received several biographies which I have been able to add into our homeschool history lessons. He learns about those in early American history and gets to spend time doing something he loves – reading.
Indoor Gaming
Your children might have received new games recently and winter creates a wonderful opportunity to incorporate more games into your homeschool day. When the weather is too cold to get outside, you can spend free time playing games together as a family. Whether these games are educational or not, they can still create many happy memories for your homeschooling family.
Outdoor Gaming
Winter provides another wonderful opportunity for homeschooling families to explore the great outdoors via winter sports. Outdoor Ice skating, ice hockey, skiing, sledding, hiking, and more become available during the wintertime and expand the physical education opportunities open to homeschooled children. We can teach our children how to be active no matter the weather or climate by adding in a few new winter sports or recreational activities.
Do you continue homeschooling through the winter? Or perhaps you take a break during the winter to spend time outside and complete projects? We would love to hear how you homeschool during the winter!
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A big thank you to Kristen of A Mom’s Quest to Teach for writing this post. Kristen is a housewife and mother to a teenage stepson and two younger children (son, 5, and daughter, 3). She is a certified social studies teacher and has worked as a volunteer at a National Park site, in the education department of a metropolitan zoo, and as a high school history teacher.
Featured from week 2 in the January Challenge
- A Crystal Snow Flake Tutorial and Degar inspired Snowflake Ballerina’s for art over at Every Bed of Roses.
- Activities to Help with Snowflake Bentley and Snowflake Photography at A Net in Time
- Snowflakes are Beautiful over At Home: Where Life Happens
This weeks prompt is: How do you homeschool in the winter?
Vey clever! Lots of great ideas. I especially like the suggestion for outdoor nature studies. One experiment we did was to leave different liquids outside to see which ones froze the fastest. My daughter had so much fun and it was super inexpensive to do!