Holiday Learning Made Simple with Easy Homeschool Holiday Lessons

The holidays can be busy and hectic. But, your homeschooling and learning does not.

Using a Christmas around the world unit study along with reading literature with a Christmas theme covers all subjects for the month and is an easy and fun way “to do school during the holidays”!

And, you don’t need to write your own lesson plans or create your own units. There are plenty of homeschool holiday lessons out there for you to choose from.

Every year, my family focused on Christmas and Advent traditions around the world and read plenty of Christmas stories, while including some literature study and literary devices.

To get you started, I’ve compiled our favorite Christmas lessons and activity ideas through the years.

Christmas Around the World Unit Study

Using this unit study is the easiest way to include learning and all your subject areas into your homeschool holiday activities. The unit study can become a seamless part of your holiday activities, while learning new things along the way.

We normally included Advent traditions along with Christmas traditions from different countries around the world.

It’s best to start with a map and identify your country and any important cities and landmarks. Your mini geography lesson can be as basic or detailed as you choose to make it.

Learning about Christmas and Advent traditions came next. History (and sometimes the geography) of the country is usually tied into these traditions, so you’ll be learning these at the same time.

There are plenty of fun and educational websites that include this information just for kids of all ages.

These traditions involve mostly hands-on activities, such as arts and crafts, singing, cooking, games, and re-enactments of some kind.

They may include making advent calendars or wreaths. Here are some Free Advent Calendar and Wreath Ideas to try in your Home that we enjoyed!

There are also plenty of other types of traditions to include in your study, from traditional crafts to hang from the tree and around the house to simulations of the holy family visiting houses looking for a place to stay or the celebration of Lucia in Sweden.

Make sure you include traditional Christmas stories and songs from different countries. Some of them have interesting backgrounds. For example, the Christmas carol, Silent Night, is tied to history in Europe. And some of them are just plain fun, especially from Australia.

Cooking is a fun and wonderful activity to include in your homeschool holiday activities. Try to step out of the usual routine of making sugar cookies and experiment with traditional Christmas recipes from different countries. You may find something to include with your Christmas dinner.

Cooking includes various skills in math, following directions, and paying attention to detail. You might even include some chemistry in there!

As you can see, a Christmas around the world unit study includes all of your subject areas and all ages will have fun. And, you may find some new favorite family traditions!

Christmas Literature Study

Another easy way to homeschool through the holidays is reading Christmas stories together or doing a Christmas literature study.

This can be simply reading a story for enjoyment or discussing it together as a family.

If your children are older and you want to include some literature study of more depth, there are plenty of novels and short stories out there to read and look at more closely.

Of course, the ultimate classic Christmas story is A Christmas Carol, with plenty of literary analysis and devices to study. Especially the use of imagery, character analysis, themes, and the moral of the story. A Christmas Carol is the perfect time to do a study of Victorian England and Charles Dickens’ childhood experience and how it influenced him to write this classic.

Other titles may include The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, a fun novel for upper elementary and middle school ages, for character analysis and practice in plot maps and elements of a story, if you want to introduce “real literature study”. The study of the Herdman children in this story is worth the read!

Another classic for your older children to read at this time and look at “irony” in a story is the short story, The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.

Other assorted Christmas stories include The Christmas Angel or Home for Christmas: Stories for Young and Old, and Short Stories by Henry Van Dyke.

This free Literary Study Tool Kit is helpful to have alongside your reading to assist you in exploring literature study during this busy season.

Christmas Literary Devices

Another form of literature study includes learning and studying literary devices such as imagery and figurative language, like similes and metaphors.

Christmas is the perfect time to study literary devices and have fun at the same time!

Singing Christmas carols and looking at the lyrics of different songs is a perfect way to learn about literary devices, which makes these carols so easy to picture in our minds as we sing them.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer uses personification to add personality to the reindeer and allows them to do “human like” behaviors in the song. 

The Grinch Song is filled with metaphors, similes, imagery, and more. With these Christmas literary devices we know how “rotten” the Grinch really is!

Songs like Walking in a Winter Wonderland teaches us “alliteration”. And, The Little Drummer Boy demonstrates “onomatopoeia” in an easy to understand manner.

Christmas short stories are another great way to practice identifying literary devices in a fun way during the holidays.

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas is filled with imagery, metaphors, similes, and more to have fun identifying while reading aloud.

A wonderful story by Truman Capote called A Christmas Memory is a great story for older children to read and learn about the use of imagery and other literary devices that makes this author’s writing so effective.

To make a study of Christmas literary devices easier for you, here are some Free Videos and Printables for Literary Devices with a Christmas Twist for you to use.

Holiday Homeschooling Lessons

Learning the easy way through the holidays does not have to be challenging. 

Through combining Christmas activities you would normally include during your holidays and some new learning elements such as a unit study and some literature study, you have all your learning for the month and the season completed.

No additional lesson planning, time, or stress required. And this type of learning is different from a regular routine, fun, and refreshing! 

You may get hooked on this homeschooling method and decide to use it during the rest of the school year!

I hope you find these tips, ideas, and resources helpful and fun! 

And most of all I wish for you a very merry and blessed Christmas!

Want More Holiday Lesson Ideas?

Be sure to check out these other homeschool holiday lessons!

• 25 Christmas Traditions For A Wonderful Holiday Season
• How To Make Homeschooling Through The Holidays Festive
• Keeping Things Simple with One More Holiday Homeschooling Tip

Thank you so much to Katie from Katie’s Homeschool Cottage for this fabulous Homeschooling Through The Holidays guest post!