Julie Soul 0:00
Welcome to the creative homeschool podcast. And this podcast I'm coming at you to deliver you a weekly dash of creativity to make your homeschool exciting for your kids. But for you too, we're going to explore all of the different ways to creatively homeschool games, field trips, unit studies, writing activities, Kid businesses, art and more. I'm your host Julie soul, longtime homeschool mom, shenanigan enthusiast, espresso drinker, and founder and co owner of soul Sparkletts art, I've helped 1000s Add creativity and joy to their homeschool and I'm ready to help you to ready to get started, let's go, ah, December, December the last month of the year, December the month where it feels like there should be a wind down. But instead sometimes it feels like a wind up. We're acutely aware of how much or how little we've done in homeschooling, we have this feeling like we have to start fresh for the new year just because the calendar is about to turn, we may celebrate holidays, either religiously or secularly, we may have a bunch of birthdays at the end of the year, we might have gifts we might have just trying to clean up, we might have the snow coming. So many reasons why December actually can feel a little stressful. So today, I wanted to really dive into some ways to make December, a little bit relaxing, while still getting in some fun homeschooling without it feeling, you know, like homeschooling. So one of my first and favorite things to do every December is my kids that I choose a country to study. Now. This does not mean that we get every single book out of the library on this country. No, no. What this means is one of the things we love to do is study the holiday traditions of a certain country. So you don't do they make cookies. And if they do, we make some and we test them out. We look at what music they listen to not just around the holidays, but maybe we've never heard traditional Persian music before. And we'd like to learn now. So we feel like we have a better understanding of the world around us. What traditions do they have? Again, these don't have to be holidays. But we just look at what is their end of year tradition. Or maybe December isn't an end of the year for them. Maybe the year doesn't end until February, we watch videos or movies and listen to the sounds of those countries, especially the music. Now this is again, one of my absolute favorites, we found some of our absolute best holiday cookies doing these. And again, these don't have to be holiday cookies. These can just be a traditional cookie, or bread or dish that you can use, it helps you get into the kitchen you're creating, especially at a time of the year, where you kind of want to embrace that warmth a little bit more. And sometimes you find something that you really, really love. And so if other people are having any kind of holiday festivities, you have something really fun and unique to take to these events. So it can be a real win win. That's our country study. Now, the second thing I wanted to suggest is something that is kind of similar, but instead of looking at a country looking at winter traditions, so looking at different cultures and time periods, what did they do in the Victorian era? How did they ice skate? Did ice skates look the same as they used to you can choose something like ice skating or sledding and take a look at what people used to wear. This is often a source of giggles for kids. I know that even I can't believe sometimes that people were actually able to sledder ice skate and what clothes they were wearing. But things like winter activities and taking a look at even what food you know what food do they eat during the winter? What food could they eat? Because I guarantee you they weren't trying to stuff a 20 pound frozen turkey at this time of the year into their fridge. So what did they do? This is a really, really fun way for kids to look at how things have changed. Or where did Christmas lights come from? Now a lot of people put them up for a secular reason. I know I do. But you know, how did they change over time? I know they've changed a lot recently. You know they flash. I feel like they glitter. They're all different colors. When I was little, we had a whole box of bulbs and my father would let me choose the order of the colors on the house every year. And I mean, this was like the biggest thing as a kid for me. So studying those you don't have to even go that far into the past. You can go into the gas, the 70s or the 80s or beasts. Here's another one that doesn't have to do with tradition. To get into the joy of December by birdwatching, so different winter birds come into our yards, we have juncos that come every year. And then we usually say goodbye to the Robins. I think this year, the Robins here showed up in Michigan really, really early. So everyone was feeling a little bad for these birds. But the juncos are already here. That's always a huge signal of winter to us. It's a really beautiful way to look at nature. But you get to also support your wildlife and learn more about them. At the same vein of getting out there into nature, you can go on a scavenger hunt. As soon as the ground changes, whether you have snow or not. You might have fallen leaves. And you can see in those leaf piles where they're packed, our animals might have been sleeping overnight. Or you can look at icicles, animal tracks in the snow. Look at the Winter berries. Chances are a lot of these bushes that you've always walked by, you didn't even know had berries, but these are the bushes that actually sustain wildlife throughout the winter. Take time to look at that. When we think of winter we think of winter is white, especially when it snows but there's a lot of green and red to be found outside. And this is a really great opportunity to go out and see what those are to go on a hike to ask questions to explore to get outside. next winter constellation as things are starting to shift. You're going to have longer winter nights here it is dark is midnight at like five o'clock. And it's really hard to tell what time it is. I do appreciate the morning sun, but at 5pm when it feels like midnight, but you can take this opportunity go outside go for a walk stargaze those brisk nights. Those are the beautiful times to look up and see what stars are out there. There are a lot of stargazing apps now that you can actually point at the sky and it'll tell you exactly what it is no need to guess. Perfect time to get out that telescope, especially if there's not a lot of snow out there, but you have those longer nights. So you're not trying to drag your kids out at 1130 at night to see something, you can drag them out at 5:30pm Even before dinner. And finally, enjoy the season with having a winter movie marathon. You can look up a bunch of fun winter films, get animated ones classics, but set up a really fun movie space, you can use this opportunity to try out different kinds of popcorn. You know like the red ones, the blue ones, different toppings, set up blankets, cozy space, you can even read beforehand, but make for that relaxing activity. This doesn't even have to be a movie where it's fiction or sorority, you can choose to watch a documentary about reindeer. I just went to the reindeer ranch yesterday, we have a reindeer ranch in town, which is one of the coolest things in the world as far as I'm concerned to be able to see these animals up close. And you can even choose to watch a documentary about a winter animal or an animal that survives in the cold while you're all huddled up and getting warm instead. So I hope these six ways help you find a way to just remember that it is okay to take some time to do things just to relax and these activities that I was talking about. They're nice and relaxing. But you're also getting in that homeschooling for when you feel deep down that you have that edge. You want to make sure that you're actually doing something and you feel that guilt. You can rest assured that doing one of these activities you're getting in that homeschooling too and your kids are having the most incredible December because of it. Pay everyone till next time
