December homeschool can be the most fun and the most hectic of any time of year, but it's also a wonderful time to concentrate on Christ. There are many ways to keep Christ in your Christmas homeschool studies, but here is a list of 26 to start your ideas flowing.
Keeping Christ in Language Arts
- Read the Christmas story from the Gospels: Matthew 1:18-2:23, Luke 1:1-2:40.
- Do a word study on the names of Jesus listed in Isaiah 9:6. You might even research the meaning of the roots of the words or the original language of the words.
- Create as many words as you can from “Christmas” or “Bethlehem” or one of the names of Jesus.
- Create your own crossword puzzle to share with the family, mail to friends/cousins with questions/answers about the Christmas story. (Don’t forget to include an answer key)
- Do this FREE word search for the Names of God.
- Read Christmas books from this list.
- Find and glue or draw a picture relating to Christmas for every letter of the alphabet.
- Write a poem about Christmas.
Keeping Christ in Music/History
- Study Christmas Hymns – Kim from Not Consumed has a great downloadable Christmas Hymns study guide for families and homeschoolers. It’s called Gloria and you can get it here.
- Get a hymnal and sing through the Christmas section, learning the ones that are unfamiliar and researching the story behind the songs/songwriter’s.
- Learn a new Christmas hymn as a family and the story behind it or the meaning of it.
- Have a Christmas concert for friends, family, or do special music at church, children's church, an assisted living home or homeless shelter.
Keeping Christ in Art
- Make Christmas ornaments to give as tracts to your neighbors. Get ornament ideas here. Download free printable tracts here.
- Make stick puppets out of this printable nativity and use them to tell the Christmas story.
- Make matching sets of cards out of this printable nativity and use it to play Memory, Old Maid, Go Fish or a similar game.
Keeping Christ in Home Economics
- Give the kids a budget and have them plan the Christmas meal, Christmas party, or Christmas shopping list for a needy family, making a list of needed food items, gift items, costs, etc.
- Or a little more involved: Let the kids make a budget for doing a larger project for someone in need, and then come up with a home business idea to fund it. Take into account, materials and other expenses when you calculate your projected income. (ideas: cookie sales, yard sales, yard work, craft sales, etc.)
Keeping Christ in History, Geography & Math
- Study the geography of Israel and the middle east.
- Create a map of the journeys of Jesus as told in the Gospels.
- Do a study of the prophecies of Christ’s birth in the Old Testament.
- Plan a trip from Arimathea to Bethlehem. How many miles would it be, how long would it take on foot. How long would you stay? How much money, food, etc would you need to pack? Map out the trip? What would have been the route Joseph and Mary took to get there?
- Do a study of the numbers mentioned in the Christmas story in the Gospels.
Keeping Christ in Science
- Read the Christmas story in Luke 2 and record all the times someone gave something to someone and the result of the action. Then brainstorm how you can give to others.
- Make a list of friends you want to give something to, and brainstorm together what you could do/make for them. This list of gifts kids can make, may lend some inspiration.
- Watch The Star of Bethlehem (for older kids because of the technical language) and study the stars.
- Do this star study by Dawnita Fogleman.
Do you have other ideas? Please leave them in the comments below.
Looking for an advent activity? Check out Melk, the Christmas Monkey! He can help you enjoy holiday activities while teaching your children about the character of God!