School Holidays AGAIN!

As a Homeschooling Mum these days the only time I really know that it's school holidays is when I see my Facebook friends posting comments like "I'm not looking forward to the next 2 weeks of school holidays", "Stuck at home with the kids on the holidays, what will we do?" and "Yay, no school runs for 2 weeks, but can I really survive having them all at home for the next 2 weeks?", etc...

For me the only real drawbacks to the school holidays is that if I choose to take my boys out and about I will find it harder to get a parents parking spot, the shops will be filled to the brim with kids at any given time of the day and I'm best to delay plans to any fun filled places like Dreamworld or the Train Museum unless I'm prepared to deal with long waits and cranky Mums.

Call me crazy but even when my eldest did go to school I enjoyed the school holidays, every day of it. It meant no fighting for a park in the school grounds, no getting everyone out the door to someone else's schedule, packing lunches, remembering that swimming is on or the excursion money needs to be handed in. School holidays was like a giant rest for all of us.

I think part of the reason some families find it hard having the kids at home through the holidays is that kids get bored very quickly. When kids get bored they get up to mischief and there the real issue arises.

The thing I've learnt about Homeschooling first and foremost is that kids are natural learners. They love to learn about the World around them. They love structured activities and unlike school if given some activities at home they can take as much time completing them without feeling any real pressure to perform or compete with school peers.

My suggestion for these school holidays is to think about doing a bit of informal 'Homeschooling' so to speak. It doesn't need to be difficult, nor anything relating to a boring lesson of Maths or History. It could be as simple as choosing a topic suitable for their age/s and running with it. For example a recent topic of ours has been Spring. If you have boys that love all things relating to cars and trucks then perhaps Transport would be a good topic for them. This year so far we've done Emergency services, Recycling and Sustainability of Earth and it's resources, Planets and the Solar system and Healthy Eating, to name a few.

A good place to start is the Internet. Choose your topic and look up what games you can find that might be interesting and informative. Think about what Art & craft activities you can do for that topic also. For eg: Spring topic they can make flower necklaces by colouring in some pictures of flowers and thread onto string with straws or beads. Cutting out pictures from a magazine to make a collage with pictures relating to the topic helps with their fine motor skills when cutting and pasting as an added bonus for younger kids. A trip to the library for some books or DVD's relating to your topic can also double as an interesting outing. Let them choose some other books that they like also for free reading on a rainy day or before bedtime. More interesting outings can be arranged if you like such as a visit to the planetarium for Space or to the Museum for a topic on Dinosaurs or transport.

You might find that the kids will delight in thinking up things they can do for the day that centre on their topic of the week. Let your imagination run wild, you might surprise yourself with all the fun stuff you and the kids can be doing these school holidays. Before you know it they'll be back at school and you might even find yourself pondering what topic you'll focus on next holidays :)

Until next time,
Take care,
Farewell.