Homeschool Websites for December Lesson Plans

December already! Last thing I remember is the kind of September when life was slow and oh so mellow. (Yes, I stole that from a song that randomly popped in my head. Obviously the writer wasn't homeschooling when the inspiration for the lyrics hit.) The mere fact that it's December makes it easy to come up with homeschool lesson plans for the final month of the year. Last year I did a post on "Homeschooling on the Holidays about the Holidays" that has educational links that can be used for homeschool lesson plans on calendars, holidays, geography, traditions, culture, math, reading, etc., that can be incorporated into any subject. This post probably won't be that long nor as informative. If you're looking for heavy duty December lesson plans for homeschooling, head on over to that link.

I was trying to fix my search engine that searches only free educational online games and came across some cute sites I wanted to share, so thought I'd do a post on December Lesson Plans. I couldn't get results from Abc'ya to show up as much as I wanted to for certain searches - and I have much to learn about annotations and xml before I ever figure it out. Abcya has a lot of free online games and worksheets that are lifesavers in the December rush.

What I thought was really cute was a simple math game for first grade, second grade or third grade students that rewards the child with a number of Christmas lights that can be used to decorate a house using the mouse. (Not to be confused with the house where not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.) The mouse can run all over the house and there's flashing lights and jingle bell chimes when your child is done decorating their house with Christmas lights. (I think when you hit "go" the lights and music begins.) There's even a link that preschoolers and kindergarteners can use to escape the math lesson "clause" of the game and just have fun putting lights on the house. (Poor attempt at a joke. Legal clause. Santa Clause. Nobody thinks this is funny but me do they?)

Another simple Christmas game for kindergarten and first grade students (heck, my fourth grader still likes these) is a simple drag and drop "decorate the Christmas tree" game for the little ones. Just look at it as a homeschool lesson plan on Christmas traditions that can keep the little ones busy while you hide in the bathroom to sneak a piece of Christmas candy. I love these simple things that don't have all the fluff and dander of webkinz, but still entertain with their simplicity. If you type "Christmas Games" (without the quotes) into my search engine for educational games you'll see a few pages of Christmas Games from reputable, educational websites.

A December lesson plan for elementary homeschoolers to learn the calendar months can always be supported on a daily basis with Starfall's educational virtual calendar activity. Pbskids.org has a December calendar of special days, such as December 3rds "handwashing day" and December 5ths "International Volunteer Day" as well as some "more stress free" days that homeschooling moms can use as an excuse to relax or get organized. (Does getting organized relax you?)

For homeschooled children who have already learned the months of the year, homeschool December lesson plans can include studying historical December events and December holidays and traditions around the world. Homeschoolers can also create December lessons plans on weather in December locally or internationally or historically, and of course these can lead to lessons plans on water, snow and ice - or global warming. You get the idea.

Finding December events to instigate a lesson plan can go way beyond looking at a calendar for the major federal and religious December holidays. BrainyHistory has a free online December Calendar that allows you to click a date and see a list of events for that December date going back to years that are pre-1000's. You will find national and international December events, sports and political December events as well as historical moments in space and memorable weather records.

I chose to look at December 9th, and wondered why Pearl Harbor Day wasn't mentioned. DUH. Today is December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day. So, let's look at December 9th. Looking at Brainy History we see that this is the day that in 1688 King James II's wife and son flee England for France (lesson plan: explore why - better food maybe?); in 1753 Noah Webster established the American Minerva, New York's first daily newspaper (I never new that! Compare Ben Franklin and Noah Webster.); On December 9th, 1805 a comet approached Earth by "0.0366 AUs" (lesson plan on comets and learning what AUs are - don't ask me, I'm clueless); On December 9, 1851 the first YMCA was established in North America; In December 1931 Spain became a republic (geography, social studies); and there are too many December war dates to mention, on December 9th, 1941 Hitler ordered US ships to be attacked, and on the same December date in 1953 GE orders all communist employees to be fired. (Wow, hard to imagine that these days! Where were all the lawyers? I'll have to look that one up.) On December 9, 1963 Frank Sinatra was kidnapped, and on the same day two years later Charlie Brown Christmas went on the air on December 9, 1965. (Music lessons.) I could go on and on, and I didn't even delve into sports, theater and weather statistics. (Arizona got 3 inches of snow in 1985.) ENDLESS opportunities for December homeschooling lesson plans!

If you need a heads up on history yourself before you give your lessons, always remember the History Channel and BBC History for text and video educational resources. My 9 year old has loved watching documentaries for a couple years now, and it's amazing how much information she retains.

Personally, I like to make lessons more fun. I think I'm going to go with the lesson plan on the History of Toys and Games at Education World. They even have a special section devoted to Holiday lesson plans, and an archived holiday page for you to choose holiday lesson plans by month and theme. Then we'll read the history of candy canes and make some candy cane recipes.

Here's some websites that have a list of December, Holiday or Winter lesson plans that can be used for holiday homeschooling:

Teachnology is worth a visit. Here you'll find an amazing amount of free worksheets, free lesson plans, free printables, some educational games and downloads. Teachnology has December listed as "read a book month" and "graph" month. They also have a page dedicated to December Lesson Plans.

AtoZ Teacher Stuff has a page dedicated to Christmas Lesson Plans. These include free worksheets, Christmas and Winter lesson plans, songs, poems and stories.

HotChalk Lessons Plan Page (always a great source for ideas) has a list of Christmas and Winter lesson plans for elementary students covering many subjects - English, Social Studies, Math, Art and Music are all covered with an assortment of ideas.

You'll find some simple elementary free printable worksheets for homeschooling that are "winter themed" (translate: picture of winter clipart on standard worksheet) at the Kidzone Winter Math webpage. I like the fairly large print they use for their numbers.

St. Mary's school has a list of Christmas, Winter and Holiday links to explore that include December lesson plans, activities, stories and other goodies for elementary students.

Homefires, a homeschool online journal, has a list of holiday activities and links for December lesson plans, and very interesting tidbits on the physics of Santa Clause.


Easy Fun School has a long list of December activities and homeschooling ideas.

I love to fill December up with a fun Christmas reading list from new and classic Amazon Christmas books. We were excited to find Magic Tree House Christmas in Camelot at the library and can't wait to read it.

Homeschooling parents know that children should be learning about all Holiday traditions around the world. You can look at the History Channel for Hanukkah, and find Hanukkah and holiday lesson plans at Cloudnet, and find Kwanzaa resources at those websites as well.

Hotchalk has a couple lesson plans on Kwanzaa, and a lesson plan on holidays around the world. You'll find Kwanzaa activity ideas at Apples4theteacher, and daily Kwanzaa traditions at Mr. Donn's website.

A lesson plan and list of international December holidays can be found at Suite101, here you'll find brief Hindu, Muslim and Mexican holiday information and a holidays around the world lesson plan. DLTK has a good page for elementary students with free worksheets and activities on December Muslim/Islam holidays.

Christmas movies become December traditions, and of course homeschool music lessons and sheet music are free on the internet. A day (or night) can be filled with Christmas caroling using free Christmas Carol ebooks and free Christmas music mp3 downloads.

Homeschooling December language lesson plans can include Christmas Poetry and Winter poems from Canteach's free elementary lesson plans. There are endless opportunities for wintry December crafts and handmade gift-giving opportunities that cover art class requirements.

Here's some Christmas and Holiday gift-giving craft idea websites. A lot of these are "tried and true" and I've seen my other five kids bring many of these home for the holidays from their public school elementary classes (long ago and far away...). But there's some cute stuff I haven't heard of, like homemade lip gloss. (Wonder if my homeschooled youngest's teenage sisters will wear it? Think we'll try that.)

DLTK is a craft site for kids with holiday crafts as well as free printables, and has a link for very simple kids crafts for younger children.

Activity Village has a good list of crafts kids can make for holiday gift-giving.

Creative Kids at Home has some cute ideas for kids crafts that the family will adore.

Crafty crafters will no doubt find some great ideas at All Free Crafts.

At Amazing Moms you'll find the traditional crafts that kids make in public school, as well as some unique ideas.

I take back what I said about Homeschooling on the Holidays about the Holidays having more links than this post. It now appears that you'll find more December lesson plan links from this post than my previous Holiday Homeschooling post. But there's some funny bizarre holiday links at the old post that you should take a look at if you need a smile.

The best December lesson plan for homeschoolers is the lesson of giving. Give to the Salvation Army and make some real-life math problems out of it. Learn about world-wide poverty around the world and sponsor a child. Study history, geography, science and war, and send Christmas cards to the soldiers. Learn about the community and domestic shelters, food pantries, clothing pantries and religious organizations. "Adopt" a child or family from the community for Christmas, and subtract the sacrifice of spending from the joy of giving. Make every day in December a giving day. Give your time, knowledge, strength, words, smile, hug, music, crafts, services or even money to a family, neighbor or charity every day.

Giving is the best December lesson plan of all. Ask Santa. He knows.

The adorable (copyrighted) picture in this post was created by T-Koni using colored pencils. Her colorful, adorable artwork can be found on her Flickr profile.



For more Free Printables, Homeschool Worksheets and Free Lesson Plans, go to Homeschool Websites Homepage

Homeschooling on the Holidays about the Holidays

Holiday homeschooling could mean that you’re homeschooling your child during the holidays, or you’re teaching your child (or children) about the holidays. Teaching about holidays in the US and around the world can be one of the most entertaining subjects for children. (Teaching during the holidays, not so fun.)

The ideas for crafts and projects are endless. Holiday decorations, crafts, calendars and gifts can all be created during homeschool “lessons.” Jamie Sue Austin is a paper-crafter expert and has some wonderful ideas for holiday crafts and homeschool crafts using free printables at her blog Free Printable Fun, including snowman printables and free printables for rulers and measuring guides. (I never thought of searching for a free printable ruler when I couldn't find my ruler. What a great idea!) She has lots of free printables for the holidays, so keep checking during the seasons if you are an artsy crafty person or you'd like to put some fun into your homeschooling lessons.

Personally, I prefer to avoid the word “lesson” during homeschooling, and just make it appear as if we’re having fun all the time – but my daughter does know we’re supposed to be doing five hours of schoolwork a day. She also knows it’s not always fun. Jesse does have fun telling me “well, this can be counted as schoolwork because it teaches me about art (or math, or reading, or music),” whenever she wants an excuse to do something fun, or when we’re doing something that’s fun and she wants to count it as homeschooling.

She loves cooking and is always looking for an excuse to make something. I am NOT skilled in the kitchen, although I should be by now. I'm too forgetful, and too clumsy. My kids however, (except one who has unforunately inherited my forgetfulness and clumsiness), are excellent cooks and kitchen creators. If you enjoy making gingerbread houses and Christmas cookies, you'll enjoy paying a visit to Laurie Turk's Tip Junkie Blog. She has some amazing Gingerbread creations from readers featured, and links to tutorials on how they were created. Art, math, science and social studies can all be incorporated into a day (or week!) spent making gingerbread houses, towers or villages. (You've got to look at the gingerbread skyscraper!) She has lots of links to tips, crafts and giveaways for all the major holidays, so if you scroll down a bit you'll find a lot of links to fun at this adorable blog. It's definitely a treat to visit!

Teaching about the holidays is a fun way to contribute to studies on social studies, global studies, history, or whatever name current mandatory subjects are being designated as. The holidays are also a great opportunity to work on the math of calendars, clock and time. There are far too many websites on holidays that would be useful to teaching about the holidays, and since it is the holidays and I’m running behind on my own teaching, I’m just going to list a few websites to help homeschooling parents homeschool for the holidays. If you have your favorite websites for teaching about the holidays, please feel free to leave a comment and let others know. Knowledge is power – and holiday studies are fun!

If you'd like to learn about some funny holidays in the US that are overlooked on traditional calendars throughout the year, take a visit to the holiday website Bizzare American Holidays from Thinkquest, created by Larissa Wilson at Hiawatha High School, and Coleen Gilg at Paxton High School. January 2nd is "Run up the Flagpole and See if Anyone Salutes Day". First, this reminded me of my son breaking both his arms and a leg when he decided to swing from a rope on a school flagpole, then it reminded me of the tongue freezing on the flagpole scene in the movie A Christmas Story. I find it much more relaxing to think about January 3rd's "Festival of Sleep Day." Can't wait to study that one! The Bizarre Holiday website gives you the choice to search by month or by category, and there are more educational topics than flagpoles and sleep. (Although I can already think of a few dozen tangents to go off on with those... .) There are Bird Day, Rock Day, and other holidays that are perfect for determining the day's lesson plan. (Try Bird Day if you're looking for something on the fly - sorry, couldn't resist!) You'll find holidays for adults, like "Man-Watching Day," and cute holidays for kids, like "Winnie the Pooh Day."

If you prefer a little more reality in your lesson plans (but why?) - DMOZ has a list of links under Calendars and Lists which lists links to calendars and holiday observance information from countries around the world. There are free printable calendars and perpetual calendar links listed. DMOZ links are evaluated before they are listed in their directory, so they are likely to be a good source of information. Another interesting website for free printable calendars and lesson plans on calendars is the Library Support Staff educational website. They have a page called "What's Being Observed Today", and it has a list of links to many calendars, observance information, and educational websites on American and International holidays. It looks like a unique website, although I haven't researched it thoroughly. I'm sure there's useful homeschool ideas in there, and they have a search box to search for more educational links. And look at that - it even says that December is International Calendar Awareness Month. There's something I didn't know! There are a lot of links on the side of the blog that lead to other educational websites and reference websites.

The Money Instructor website has links to free worksheets on clocks, money, calendars and math. The title says it's for Kindergarten, but quite frankly, many of the assignments are for second graders and even third graders. After I wrote that last sentence, I noticed they did put first grade, second grade and third grade at the bottom. You'll find kindergarten worksheets, as well as coin counting, place value and fractions.

If you're interested in Calendar and Clock worksheets to teach telling time, calendar history, sundials and more, try Just in Time, a page from the Journey in Time website. You have to click on the pictures to reach the topics you wants. Just move your cursor around and you'll be able to tell it's on a link when it changes its form. You'll find information on gears, pendulums and other time-related subjects. A good bookmark for science class. We're studying gears and simple machines now so I need to bookmark this!

You can also find calendar free printables by the month, week and day along with lesson plans and questions at Instructor Web. I haven't been to their website before, but they do have free lesson plans on all the major subjects as well as free educational worksheets. It looks like you do have to sign up for the "free limited membership" to print the worksheets. The lesson plans are viewable at no cost and without having to sign up.

The US Government has many educational websites for kids that are useful for homeschooling. (Google has a Government Search that searches only US government websites.) Kids in the House is a government website created to teach kids about Congress. They have a link on the history of Federal Holidays, an explanation on how holidays are made and the separation of federal and state holiday regulations, as well as many interesting links and an opportunity to do a full text search for content in official holiday bills. This website also has a free download for an educational kids book, and links to "fun and games." The US also has The National Archives website, which has a link with a long history of George Washington's Birthday, and a search box to search for historical information on other national holidays.

Anderson Elementary is an excellent resource for a list of educational holiday websites. It includes links to activities, free printable worksheets, government holiday websites, PBS and Scholastic educational holiday links and resources for free lesson plans.

I just stumbled across Dr. Labush's Links to Learning website, and it has a LONG list of links to not only educational websites for holidays, but numerous links to websites for lesson plans, free printable worksheets, a timeline maker, and free printable calendars. I haven't delved into yet, but it's definitely worth the time to browse around. You'll likely find something useful for elementary and early grade homeschooling. There are also links for ESL and multi-cultural learning. Sadly, Dr. Labush has recently passed away. However, the free knowledge that was so wholeheartedly put together for the Links to Learning website will no doubt continue to educate children for years to come.

Hot Chalk is also a rich resource for educational links. They have many detailed free lesson plans, including one on Winter Holidays around the world for elementary grade students. Education World also has many links to free lesson plans, including a list of links to lesson plans and history on holidays around the world.

The Internet School Media also has a comprehensive list of links to educational websites with free holiday printables and free holiday lesson plans on holidays around the world. Very sad to read their website is closing because of objectionable email and other reasons, but it appears the links are still valid and live. The Internet School Media also has links for Junior High School and High School students that are valuable for homeschooling on all subjects. Hot Chalk, Education World and Internet School Media all have lesson plans and links to free educational printables on every subject, and are certainly not limited to lesson plans on holidays.
These are all great homeschool websites to bookmark for future reference.

And, since it's New Year's Eve (although I started writing this three days ago!) I'll make my last link a link from Apples4theTeacher, (a homeschool website I'm sure many of you are familiar with), and their page on Links to New Years Eve and New Years Day lesson plans, free calendar printables, and links to historical information on international holidays. Their website is geared towards First Grade, Second Grade, Third Grade, Fourth Grade, Fifth Grade and Sixth Grade. If you scroll down the New Years Eve and New Years Day page you'll see links to more educational holiday websites for kids that you can bookmark for the rest of the New Year.

I could go on forever, but I'm on my old slow computer and ready to turn it into fireworks for the new year. Yesterday I tripped over the cord to my laptop and it went crashing to the floor - which of course crashed the hard drive. So I'm having fun taking it apart for my New Years Eve celebration. (Luckily I back everything up on an external hard drive.) I'm sure the data is still there. I just need to make sure it's connected. Wish me luck. Let me know what you're doing for New Year's Eve! I'm sure it'll be more fun than mine!

Have fun with homeschooling for the holidays and have a really great new year!


Calendar Photo Courtesy of Pawel Kryj








For more Free Printables, Homeschool Worksheets and Free Lesson Plans, go to Homeschool Websites Homepage