subject: Home Schooling and Dodging the Holdiay Trap [print this page] Home Schooling and Dodging the Holdiay Trap
It doesn't matter how old you are, or how old your children are, or even which schooling type you chose for your child; but whenever a major holiday comes about, such as Christmas vacation, people are always saying how fast they ear goes by. And if you're a parent, you can't help but feel concerned as to whether or not your children are performing well academically, even if you chose homeschooling for your children.
Remember, when you were a kid and the holidays were in sight, what were you more focused on: school or the coming vacation? Well I think I can speak for the majority of us when I say that our attention was turned more towards the holiday than anything else. This loss of focus created by the holidays is what makes your children slow down their development.
If your child is in a home school program, then it is imperative, in order to avoid that holiday trap, to set up a routine calendar with key dates by which something needs to be accomplished. If you don't stray from this calendar, you will give both yourself and the child some motivation to work harder, so that if the content is finished in advance, you can decide to let your kid have a few days off, or to get even more advanced in the program so as to finish it early and have a longer summer.
Also, remember that a week actually consists of 7 days, meaning that if you want to take some time off for the holidays, you can add some extra work on the weekends pre-dating that holiday. It's important not to give too much work on a weekend though, as that might set the child in a negative mood since he's not getting the playtime he's used to having. A perfect length for a weekend home school day would half the length of a regular day.
Taking all the afore-mentioned steps as well as having a master plan and sticking to it will allow homeschool parents to avoid the holiday trap, and will encourage children to work harder and learn faster.
