Disruptions to your normal homeschool schedule can be unsettling or even worrisome. Whether it’s due to a major life event, time running away from you, or simply the excitement of the holidays, you might feel as if you’re getting off-track.
Don’t worry, though! As a homeschool family, you already know that learning occurs nearly every day and often through spontaneous incidents.
If you’re unable to create lesson plans or keep the daily logbook updated for a month or two, that’s okay!
Tips and Ideas to get through interruptions in your homeschool schedule:
1. Unit Studies: Great for the holidays or for special events. They needn’t be time-consuming nor in-depth, either.
If you want to keep your logbooks updated, map out a couple weeks dedicated to unit studies on Thanksgiving or Christmas, for instance. These studies can incorporate history, social studies, reading, writing, research, math and calculations, crafts and artwork, baking and decorating, life skills and memory-making, all revolving around a special holiday.
If you’re facing a life event, such as making a move, welcoming a new family member, or dealing with lifestyle changes, take a “field trip” to your local library and research the event. Then create your unit study around the new location, or new family member, or new lifestyle. This helps your children better understand and adapt to the event, while learning new and interesting facts along the way.
* See the “Unit Studies” category in the Labels below for more ideas.
2. Unschooling or Child-Led Learning: Look to your children for ideas that especially interest them. Ask them about their current favorite hobbies, games, arts and crafts, sports and activities, books and authors, music and musicians, movies and actors, favorite places to go, foods to fix and eat, or other favorite pastimes.
In addition to their favorite activities, ask them what else they’d like to try, or explore, or learn more about. If they can’t think of topics, take another “field trip” to the library and check out books such as:
* 501 Weird, Wild and Wonderful Facts by Susan Runnels
* 100,000 Whys for Kids by Elliott Wonder
* Big Book of Useless Knowledge by Neon Squid
* Highlights Book of Things to Do by Highlights
* See How Things Work by Conrad Mason
* Unbored: 100 Screen-Free, Fun-Filled Activities by PT Sparks
* Unlock Your Imagination: Over 250 Screen-Free Ideas by DK
Many more similar books can be found at your library, or you can research the topics online. Then list the activities your children try, or the facts they learn, under “Unschooling Activities” in your logbook.
* See the “Unschooling” category in the Labels below for ideas.
3. Hands-On Activities: As you did with Unschooling, ask your kids what they would like to do this week or this month. Would they rather try math manipulatives or solve equations from their math book? Would they rather re-enact a historic event or read about the event in their history book?
Maybe they would rather do science experiments, or build a ship, bridge, or totem pole with Legos, or construct an elevator or hydraulic lift, or form famous figures from clay, or design and create a new game.
Perhaps they would like to sew or crochet a pet’s toy or a doll's outfit, plan and prepare meals or desserts, rearrange the furniture in their bedrooms, paint pictures of scenes outside their windows, or plan weekly field trips to nearby areas of interest.
They might enjoy creating decorations from items found in nature, collecting stones or shells from a shoreline, building shelves to store their collections, and taking pictures or videos of daily projects, then putting together a photo album or journal.
* See the “Hands-On Activities” category in the Labels below for more ideas.
For each of these activities outlined above — and hundreds more — kids can research the background or history of them, read and write about them, plan and calculate how to create them, and follow through with the actual creation process.
In doing so, they're covering subjects such as History, Social Studies, Reading, Writing, Language Arts, Math and Calculations, Scientific Thinking and Reasoning, Critical and Creative Thinking, Life Skills and Hands-On Processing.
It's so easy to jot down the Unit Studies, Unschooling Activities, or Hands-On Activities under each of the Subject areas in your logbook. And often less time-consuming than creating lesson plans and recording them.
As an extra bonus, you'll most likely have lots of photos or videos of your children's projects — a great way to retain learning, along with creating special memories!
Happy homeschooling!
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