Punxsutawney Phil predicted what many didn’t want to hear last week: six more weeks of winter. Of course, my skiing friends are delighted but my woolen-socked toes are yearning for spring, green grass and the warmth of blue skies and sunshine! When the crabby sadness of winter creeps in, its time to free-style homeschool and take advantage of some hard-earned flexibility.

A flexible schedule is addictive. Homeschoolers often list this singular point as the reason to not return to traditional school. Homeschooling families may travel when they want, accommodate parent work schedules, family emergencies or medical needs, enjoy “too-well-for-school days” (more on this later) or any number of personal preferences.

Flexibility can also be addictive in a less productive way. Free-styling can entice us to veer off track. Sometimes we get in freestyle-slump (in my case some ditches and canyons) and find difficulty returning to routine and goals, important anchors of training up children. I can remember school years that began with September’s Great Intention only to be derailed by Thanksgiving Exhaustion, then Christmas, and New Years followed by a rash of bank holidays, clearance sales, illness and inclement weather days. By February, I usually felt like a week-old helium balloon: lackluster and droopy. Somewhere between checking-in with my plan the middle of November and trying to get motivated the second week of January I’d been infected by a head funk and just couldn’t get back on the homeschool bus till after Saint Patrick’s day.

If this is you, fear not! This too shall pass. And, your kids will go on to be brilliant humans and you will not regret that this little season of homeschool-no-school. Free styling can give everyone a fresh perspective, like a reset button. Being flexible with your students and yourself, embracing some creativity and looking for opportunities to blend day-to-day life with learning goals can breath fresh life into your plan.

Setting a daily prayer and devotion time is a routine that need not take a holiday, ever. You can take your resources (scripture) with you everywhere and anywhere, in paper form or electronic, with supports like commentaries or devotionals. If you haven’t done it yet, winter is a perfect time indoors to make it part of your daily routine. Prayer as a common thread, a habit, is one I regret not making more prominent in the lives of my kids and one that I personally have benefited from more than any other habit. As you pray, ask the Lord to show you how He’d have you spend your teaching time with the children He’s trusted to you.

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven– A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace. [Ecc 3:1-8 NASB20]

Everyone likes a good-time. What does play look like for your kids? What will beat the winter doldrums? Do your people like an adventure? Is snuggling in front of the TV their very favorite thing? Anyone for a family bowling tournament including daily practice before the main event? How about that museum exhibit you’ve been meaning to see? Is there a hobby your crew has wanted to try like geocaching, photography, sculpting, or hiking but just haven’t made the time?

Now is the time! Use this season of blah to overcome and triumph with something completely off script, fresh and new! If watching TV is your kid’s passion but you are concerned about screen time, redeem the time with something fun and educational. I remember taking a break from a sort of textbook geography season to watch episodes of Rick Steve’s travel shows. My kid was engrossed in all the history and videography. While it wasn’t a traditional curriculum we learned interesting things about other cultures and learned how the world looks very similar and very different no matter where you go. It was productive, not too demanding and we created new traditions while we sipped cocoa and traveled with Rick.

I remember one particularly gloomy winter that dad was away and the kids were all sad about it. We’d been snowed-in and the push to go from holiday back to routine felt burdensome and rigorous. To recapture our mojo, we tossed the plan and built a sled trail in the deep snow along a steep hill. It took an all-hands-on-deck effort but by sunset (and for days after) we were careening downhill at daredevil speeds and making the most of a sad situation. The sled hill winter remains legendary in our family and it wouldn’t have happened of I hadn’t remembered that some time to play helps the hard work get accomplished.

We also have enjoyed seasons of life skills training for which no textbook is necessary. Since most life skills are skills parents have learned from years of practice, teaching our kids comes naturally. We can accomplish the task from habit, we just need to think a little about how we can share that knowledge and experience with our heritage. The only down side is that life skill training can be time consuming when compared to a unit of math or a chapter in a novel. Life skill training can wreck havoc on a regular school schedule, but those lessons fit nicely into the no-mans-land between New Years and Saint Patrick’s Day.

I’ve filled weeks with cooking lessons expanded to include recipe research, budgeting, shopping (with the occasional driving lesson sprinkled in), technique, preparation, clean up, hospitality. There are loads of minor holidays to learn about in January and February and some years we’ve celebrated something from the National Day Calendar. Who doesn’t enjoy easing back into a routine with a spiced up version of the mundane?

How about a post-holiday focus on finances? Have you spent time teaching how to open a bank account, how to save or invest, how to balance a checking account or even how to budget? Not exactly sure how to do this? Get help! Credit unions , the library and plenty of online resources are free and really helpful. One year a StockPile was gifted to our son and it beget many days of investing education including the now-epic Gamestop event. A whole day could be spent learning about saving, researching the best youth rates in your neighborhood, and opening a bank account. Best of all this will stick with a person for life!

Life skills aren’t taught once and left. Life skills are things to practice over and over. So, if mom needs a break from chores, maybe its time to carve out a larger role for your homeschoolers, train them up and share the load. Speaking of “load,” the same is true for laundry or yard work or most anything that needs to be done at home. Someday kids will need to care for their home and, as age permits, its our job to train them to get it done right.

The Too Well For School Day was introduced to me years ago by a dear friend, Heather. Its a simple concept that sometimes we just need a mental health day, a bonding day with family, a day to do different things that the routine. Based on her inspiration, my homeschool implemented the Too Well For School Day with great success. It was particularly functional in the aforementioned doldrums of deep winter. Occasionally we overused our Too Well For School Pass. But, it was issued with the understanding it must be respected for special occasions. We complied, assured we could be too well for school after actually accomplishing some school.

Things we’ve done on too well for school days are especially nice when we explore our town as if we were tourists. We’ve explored historical sites, museums, gardens (complete with picnics and maybe a dog on a leash), libraries, parks and theaters. Once we purchased pizzas from several nearby eateries and held a competition for the best tasting one. The kids budgeted, planned, created and kept score cards, evaluated flavors, tallied results and announced the winner. It was fun and helped reinforce math and life skills plus it was fun and a complete diversion from the text books.

One of our favorite gloom busting outings was the greenhouse at a local park. It’s warm and tropical even when it’s subfreezing and snowed-in outside. Here are a few pic from one such freestyle homeschool date that warmed our brains and prepared us for great things!

If you’re feeling the winter blues or just stuck in a homeschool rut, consider witching up the routine with a changed of plan. Keep some anchoring routine like scripture and prayer time but make the balance of the days something off-script for a while. Set a date to book-end the freestyle and trust you’ll be rejuvenated and ready to get back to the original program when that time comes.

If you have questions about homeschooling or you (or someone you know of) could use some encouragement, please email me at wendy@homeschoolmentormom.com. In addition, some very generous folks have entrusted me with books and curriculum resources to share with others in need, I’m always looking for a homeschool families who can use some free books so please don’t be shy when you email.