Just like with most things, homeschooling can ebb and flow and change with the seasons. I find we get way more “extras” like art and experiments, etc done in the wintertime. Those types of activities are typically ones that I will do for “afternoon school” over hot drinks and snacks. But during fall / spring we are enjoying the outdoors in the afternoons!
We live in a place where our nice weather is limited to a few months. Our winters are extremely cold and dark for the majority of the day. My girls do still enjoy to play outside in the snow but it is not the full afternoons spent outside of fall and spring. I want to encourage their love for outdoors and their creativity, not to mention how good the fresh air and vitamin D is for them.
When that guilt tries to come in, saying I’m not getting to everything, I remind myself that the long cold winters are coming and with it will come much more time inside to spend longer hours on school.
Our fall routine is looking like : Bible and Social Studies/ History over breakfast followed by some play and clean up time. Then morning snack with their individual LA and math lessons. Typically this is finished by lunch. After lunch we have quiet reading time and then they are free for the rest of the day to play as they wish. When we finish this unit in Social we will be switching to Science. For fall at least I am only doing one at a time of these. When winter comes, I know this routine will look different and that’s totally fine with me. A big benefit of homeschool is being able to adapt and go with the flow, finding what works for that season in life.
So if you’re having a hard time getting your kids to come back inside to finish school, don’t worry about it. Focus on the basics like Math and LA and let them enjoy what is left of the nice weather (especially if you live in the north like me!) Being outside is so incredibly good for kids anyways! Enjoy it while you can!
Are you kids outside more right now that in the winter months?
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