Grandmama has arrived! The cheetah broke his arm. The twins had their sixth birthday party, and the video games have invaded the minds of the vulnerable. Who can do school at a time like this?

And what’s to come… Christmas tree decorating, Christmas shopping, and our 20th anniversary cruise. Sure doesn’t look like school will be anyones priority in these upcoming weeks.

We generally take time off during the holiday season, so I am not too concerned about scaling back. What I can’t stand is idle time, when the kids proceed to turn their minds to mush by playing video games and watching movies. We generally limit computer games to about an hour a week, allow the kids to watch one movie on Friday evenings, and hide the video game consoles in the basement, until…well…until Grandmama comes. This year Grandmama has generously supplied the kids with the Marvel Infinity game set. The kids were able to play for one full day, on the twin’s birthday, but now I am determined, at least until we leave for the cruise, to get in some higher level, critical thinking skills.

So this is the plan:

We wake up in the morning and do our usual family devotional, then eat breakfast. After breakfast, the twins practice some quick cursive by writing their names and numbers, while the older kids either practice their lines for the Christmas play, or practice typing. I am not as concerned about the twins getting in scheduled reading time right now, because lately they have been sounding out almost everything they see. This will be enough until regular instruction picks up again after the holidays.

Then we continue our extremely slow journey through the novel, “The Twenty-One Balloons.” We only read about 2 to 3 pages a day, because we are analyzing it do death. The kids copy notes from the white board into their journals and we stop and discuss a lot. Today’s reading led to watching 2 YouTube videos, one on how to sail a boat, and another on hydraulic trucks. Here are a couple of pages from one of their notebooks:

Next we play a family math game. Our favorites right now are Slower Speed with even and odd numbers and Concentration with multiples. All of our games come from the funnest math program in the world, Right Start Math.

Finally, we are reading the best book written about Thanksgiving, “Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember,” by Barbara Rainey. Yes, I realize that Thanksgiving has passed, but we didn’t have time to read it before Thanksgiving, so we are doing it now. This book has made Thanksgiving my absolutely favorite holiday. During Thanksgiving, we can celebrate God’s providence without being choked by materialism.

I have the kids draw pictures about the Thanksgiving story as we read this book. Here is a sample:

Next year, I am determined to make Thanksgiving even more meaningful for the kids. I want the kids to write “Thank You” cards and keep a “Thankful Journal” for the month of November. Maybe we will still get to that before the year is over.

Well, that’s it! After that torture, the kids run upstairs to play…

After the new year, we will tuck the Xbox away, not to rear it’s ugly head again, until spring break.

How does your homeschool schedule change over the holidays?

Merry Christmas to All!

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. Luke 2:10