The Rainbow Resource Center Homeschool Blog

With the holiday season fast approaching, we look forward to a break from our typical busy routines, and to time spent together with family and friends. Hopefully this means MORE cozy mornings and LESS rushed evenings. More time around the table or fireplace – steeped in conversation or playing games together. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? But somehow it feels like you just “blink” on Thanksgiving, and suddenly – it’s the middle of January! A little planning now can help us make the most of the time – nurturing relationships, creating memories, and all the while, boosting brain skills! 

Family traditions at Christmas are important because they create lasting memories, strengthen bonds, and provide a sense of stability and belonging. They bring us together, allowing for shared experiences and deeper connections with our loved ones. When it comes to making memories, there are truly so many options! Let me share with you some Christmas traditions from my own family, as well as some ideas for yours.

Homeschooling during the holidays doesn’t need to be stressful. It can be a joyful time if you adapt your schedule and mindset to focus on making wonderful memories while still learning. Putting in a little thought ahead of time will save you from feeling overwhelmed so you can still have productive school time while also enjoying the magic of the holidays. With careful planning and a healthy mindset, you can enjoy this special time of year without all the stress. 

It’s that festive time of year again! This has always been my favorite time of year. When I look back at my childhood, my fondest memories were the fun traditions my family made together during the holidays.  Children find comfort and bonding in these traditions and it generates a special joy around the home. Now my kids are all grown up but they still enjoy the traditions we made together and really look forward to the holidays.  I believe it is because we come together as a family unit, enjoy fun activities together, and most of all look outside ourselves. I would like to share some ideas as well as some of our favorite traditions my family began years ago!

Enjoyed by families for generations, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade made its debut in 1924 to celebrate and show off the opening of their World’s Largest Store in New York City. Offering a whopping 1 million square feet of clothing, household goods, and children’s toys, the newly expanded store stretched across an entire city block and loomed 11 stories tall to accommodate the brisk business experienced in the early 1920s. Over a century later, the parade has only grown in notoriety and popularity. In this unit study, take some time to learn about America's favorite parade as it enters its 99th running!

It happens every year. Somewhere between mid-October and mid-November, that homeschool energy we started the year with becomes… well, seriously depleted! The excitement of new books, fresh routines, and those color-coded bins that were definitely going to change everything has faded. The kids’ notebooks are already looking rough; the glue sticks lost their caps long ago. Yes—there’s peanut butter smeared across the pages of your planner. Schoolwork is getting harder, too, as the days are getting shorter. And with the current time change, 6pm is feeling suspiciously like midnight! Now, the holiday season twinkling on the horizon is a bit of a (glittering!) distraction. The good news? This is completely normal. A mid-semester slump doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. It means it’s time for a gentle reset. Here are some ideas to help you finish the semester strong!

Every year, Rainbow Resource Center receives hundreds of stories from young storytellers pouring their hearts and imaginations onto paper. We just finished up our 11^th annual summer book contest, and once again, I was blown away by the students’ talent! Of course, only a handful of stories could place overall, but regardless of scoring, if a student wrote an entire book, is that still not an amazing victory? They created a story out of thin air! Maybe as the parent of a reluctant writer, you’re wondering, how do I help my student write like that? Or maybe you have a voracious writer who consumes any piece of paper she sees and you’re wondering, how do I help her improve? As a writer who began her journey very young—and self-published three novels as a teenager—I would love to share some encouragement and practical tips for you as you cheer on your young writers.

Some homeschool parents respond with enthusiasm when given an opportunity to teach art. They pull up artist biographies, look up famous works of art, and find ways to practice the techniques of art masters with their children. These parents may or may not be using an art curriculum. If they are, they may be making lesson modifications based on their students’ ages, availability of art supplies, and time. But this isn’t all homeschool parents, is it?

We’ve all met kids and adults who seem to have more curious minds than others. Those with a higher curiosity tend to retain information easier, think critically, stay involved in their community, and become lifelong learners. Can we foster or acquire a higher thirst for knowledge? You bet! Below are some practical and fun ways you can spark healthy curiosity with your children.

Think back to the last time you attempted something and failed. Maybe it was a new recipe, or perhaps the latest Pinterest creation. Failure is a part of life. Intuitively we know this to be true. But how often, do we, in our roles as parents, try to shield our children from failure? Then on the flip side, how often does our encouragement to perform set them up to fail?