Tips for Getting Back to Homeschooling After the Holidays

EP244: In this episode of the Art of Homeschooling Podcast, Jean is joined by members of the Taproot Team to share gentle, practical tips for getting back to homeschooling after the holidays ~ or after any kind of break.

January can feel surprisingly hard for homeschoolers. While September brings fresh notebooks and new energy, January often arrives with fatigue, self-doubt, and the nagging feeling that we’re already behind.

This episode is an invitation to slow down, reset seasonally, and remember that small, thoughtful steps matter more than big overhauls.

Join Taproot Online
https://artofhomeschooling.com/taprootonline

Find the Show Notes here  https://artofhomeschooling.com/episode244/

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And The January Restart
• 2:43 Taproot Events And Midyear Reset
• 4:48 Rebecca: Start Gentle And Make It Fun
• 7:08 Karen: Imagine Travel And Learn Through Food
• 9:23 Jean: Layer Learning Gradually
• 10:55 Sarah: Rhythm Tweaks And Winter Outdoors
• 14:20 Jodi: Gratitude, Mornings, And Top Three
• 16:58 Joe: Compassion, Calm, And Presence
• 19:34 Barbara: Seasons, Resilience, Lifelong Learning
• 22:23 Recap, Invitation, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 0:09

You're listening to the Art of Homeschooling podcast, where we help parents cultivate creativity and connection at home. I'm your host, Jean Miller, and here on this podcast, you'll find stories and inspiration to bring you the confidence you need to make homeschooling work for your family. Let's begin. Welcome, I'm Jean, and as I'm recording this episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast, it's January. And one thing I find myself saying to homeschooling parents every single year around this time is this. The January restart can often be harder than the beginning of a new school year in September. In the fall, everything feels fresh. There's momentum, new notebooks, new rhythms. But January? January often finds us tired, a little disoriented, maybe even feeling behind and focusing on what hasn't been working. So today's episode is here to meet you right where you are. Whether you're returning to homeschooling after the holidays or any kind of break for that matter, I have something special for you. I asked the Taproot team to share their top tips for easing back into homeschooling with more gentleness, intention, and trust. Now, before we dive in, I want to share a little context. This incredible Taproot team is collaborating on two events in 2026. Our 20th annual in-person Taproot Teacher training next summer at the beginning of August. And this year, Taproot Online, our virtual retreat happening very soon at the end of January. Now, Taproot Online is a seasonal reset for homeschoolers. We've always wanted to do this mid-year, midwinter here in the northern hemisphere reset for homeschoolers from all over the world. And this year it's happening. We'll be singing, drawing, exploring a seasonal story, sharing in small groups, and enjoying a handwork project, all from the comfort of home. Taproot Online takes place the afternoon of January 30th and all day January 31st. If you're craving renewal and a sense of orientation, reorientation, I would truly love to have you join us. You can find more details in the show notes for this episode, which is at artofomeschooling.comslash episode 244. All right, let's turn to the wisdom of the Taprook team. Our first tip comes from Rebecca, a homeschooling mother of four, with two now graduated. Rebecca's encouragement is simple yet powerful. Be gentle with yourself and start with something fun.

SPEAKER_03: 3:25

My tip for starting back up homeschooling after the holidays is to be gentle with yourself. Don't expect a full schedule the first day back to your homeschooling or even the first week after the holidays. I would start with something fun, you know, especially something that your child is really interested in. It could be a new block. That would mean that you're prepared for it. That could be a handwork project, it could be a read aloud. Think of just posing up on the couch and having some tea, you know, and just reading for a couple of hours. I would also like skip the kind of heady stuff on the first day back, unless, again, my child is really into it. But even at 15 and 18, my kids don't want to do that the first day back after a break. This year, my senior in high school, mostly she's doing her classes outside of the house, but we decided to do geography of Asia coming back after the holidays. So on our first day back last week, we just talked through which countries we would cover, the continent as a whole, like kind of where things were. We looked at a map, what foods we might want to cook up. We looked at different places we could maybe get some food and find some recipes. And we actually ordered a meal preparation kit on Japan. And then she was really into coloring a map book that that which is so not really Waldorf, but she really likes to color. And so that worked. And that was day one. With my second child, who is a sophomore, a 10th grader, we just decided to start with a read aloud. So we just kind of sat on the couch and read. We're starting a block on World War I. And so, yeah, just a historical fiction book. That's what we did both days that we worked together last week. You know, just keep it simple and again be gentle with yourself and don't have huge expectations on the first week and maybe just skip, like I said, the heady stuff, any kind of language arts, deep work, maybe some of the math work, maybe they just, that's just not where they're at at that moment. Ask your child, they'll let you know.

SPEAKER_05: 5:20

Next up, we hear from Karen, who sent her recording from Thailand. Karen reminds us to look ahead with wonder, to imagine upcoming trips or places you'd love to visit as a family, and then bring those places to life through food, stories, and conversation.

SPEAKER_00: 5:40

Good morning. This is Karen. For many years, when I was homeschooling, many years ago, I should say, we got back into homeschooling after the busyness of the holidays by uh looking ahead into the rest of the year, kind of like the New Year's resolutions that people like to make. We talk about travel and places we wanted to visit in the upcoming year, and then we would associate it with food. So we got back in by learning about, like, for example, if we were going to a trip to somebody's wedding later on in the year in Philadelphia, we would look up what kinds of foods are famous in Philadelphia, and then we would try to make those at home. Or if we were traveling going on a national park trip, it was a way to combine food with the local. So if we went to a national park, depending on where it was, we might look up what kinds of foods grow in that region and make something with it. Food was sort of our homeschooling uh linkage. It was the way to connect all of the areas of academics. And so that's my tip. Plan a trip, make some food.

SPEAKER_05: 7:02

Here's my own top tip. Layer in the learning gradually. You don't have to do everything all at once. You might start with songs or verses and a shared story that you just read aloud together. After a few days, add in main lesson book work or skills practice. Then in the second or even third week, gently bring it all together. I want to echo what Rebecca shared. Don't try to do everything right out of the gate. And if you're feeling discouraged about how the school year has gone so far, please don't try to change everything all at once. Small tweaks first. Give everyone time to settle in. I have two past podcast episodes that can really help support you here. One is called Layering in the Learning, and another just from last week is Welcoming the New Year Without a Plan Yet. I'll link both of those in the show notes at artofomeschool.com/slash episode 244. Next up is Sarah, our community and content manager here at Art of Homeschooling. Sarah is homeschooling the youngest of her four children, and she shares how a few small tweaks, especially getting outside, yes, even in winter, have made a big difference for her family.

SPEAKER_04: 8:29

Here's a little bit about getting back to homeschooling after the holidays at our house. So I'm homeschooling my last of four kiddos for grade six. And with the older kiddos, there are periods of busyness and a lot of chaos in our house. And then there are periods of calm and quiet. And that's when I really try to take advantage of the time for working with my sixth grader. So in December, we were in the middle of a Waldorfish geology main lesson block, which is going really slowly. So we just put that down in December, and I decided to pick up where we left off in January. So we weren't starting a new main lesson block. But day one for us was still all about getting into our rhythm with some couch time together, and we started a new volcano book, and we picked up reading a chapter of the holiday read aloud we had been reading throughout the break. Then we played a math game, did one page from his math workbook, and then a short skills lesson, reading a review word list and marking syllables, and then we started a new reader. Just that felt like a pretty long day. We did have a good goal setting conversation that was initiated by my kiddo about how many pages were left in his math book for the year, and also how he wants to focus more on his writing skills for the second half of the year, which I felt really good about. Going into January, I felt like we needed a slight tweak in our rhythm because before break we were getting into this pattern where we were getting to the artistic portion of our lessons so late in the morning. And by late in the morning, I mean like 12:30 or 1 o'clock before we would even be starting the artistic portion of the lesson. And we were both just too tired, too burnt out. And so the artistic portion often was put off completely, and that's kind of why we were moving so slowly. So I tried starting out our daily rhythm for two days this week with the artistic portion of the lesson, first thing in the morning. We started with the Waldorfish video lessons from our geology study. And on the first day, he did the artistic lesson through the video independently by himself. And on the second day, I sat and did the drawing too. So I felt like that worked out really well, and it felt like a good productive way to start our day. And then we made tea and snacks and we settled on the couch for our reading and the narrative portion of our main lesson. Next, after that was a math game and a workbook page, followed by some playtime in the yard with the puppy, and then some language arts skills and reading from his reader, and finally some work with our main lesson content. And then he worked for about 20 minutes independently on his independent maiden lesson project. So I think this little tweak in our rhythm, which we did two days of this first week back, is probably gonna work for three to four days of the week going forward. And it feels pretty good. It's definitely a lot different than when my oldest was in sixth grade, and I had little ones in tow. But I have loved every season of homeschooling. And my one tip for homeschooling parents out there moving into January in the northern hemisphere would just be to get outside, even in bad weather, and then you can come inside and enjoy the cozy, warm, connecting times of your day.

SPEAKER_05: 12:41

Jodi reminds us of the power of starting the day with gratitude. And of taking even small moments for ourselves.

SPEAKER_02: 12:52

Hi everyone, this is Jodi Messler of Living Music, and I wanted to share my top tip for getting started with homeschooling after the holidays. And this is the top tip for just my everyday life that gets me in that place where I'm really in a feeling good place. I think that feeling good is the most important thing for any human being on the planet. So my top tip for getting started would be once you wake up, it is so important for you to just take a moment and realize that you're awake and that something to be grateful for, anything. It could be, oh I'm just grateful for these covers, I'm grateful for this pillow, I love the way it feels so soft in here, and I'm looking forward to this new day. It's gonna be a great day. And you just get this momentum of gratefulness going, appreciation going, and you get to start your day right. And if you're lucky, I don't know if you call it luck, or if you prepare, let's call it that. If you prepare to get up earlier than your children, then you're doing even better. Because if you get up just 30 minutes before them, you are giving yourself a gift to you. Put it in you first. You get up and you go make yourself your favorite drink. Mine is coffee. So I go straight in after I do this rampage of appreciation, and I go in and I start making my coffee, and it's a very ritual. I like to sit and think about what I would like to happen in the day. And once I kind of wake up and I start to do things for myself, maybe read for myself, and then after I get that 30 minutes or an hour, then I do this. I look at my day and I pick three top things that I want to get done. And then I list those top three. For example, first, I like to write music in the morning. Number two, I need to take care of business, and number three, I have to teach lessons at the end of the day. That's just one example of my day. But if you're a homeschooler, it looks different, right? You want to list the very top three things that you can get done in one day. And if you can accomplish that, then that's amazing. That's what I would give as my advice. All right, good luck with all your homeschooling and way to go if you made it into the new year and you're excited about it because being in a new year is really fun.

SPEAKER_05: 15:36

And now here's Joe, who encourages us to focus on virtues like self-care, compassion, loving kindness, and staying present.

SPEAKER_01: 15:49

This is Joe Maxwell, and I wanted to help you with some advice, maybe, or just a little couple of concepts I've used to get my year started. I was never really good with resolutions, so I took some virtues and some concepts from some Buddhist teachings that I utilize that I thought might be helpful. One of the things is self-care is big. Remember, a human being isn't meant to be some kind of machine designed only for production. Human life isn't just for work. Another one is that worry is useless. And what I got from the Dalai Lama's readings in an article is if you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there's no need to worry about it. If you cannot do anything, there is also no need to worry. Compassion. Now, true compassion is not just an emotional response, but a firm commitment that's founded in reason. So therefore, a true compassionate attitude towards others does not change even if they behave negatively. So through your universal altruism, you develop a feeling of responsibility for others and the wish to help them actively overcome their problems. Now, a big one for me is always to try to focus on happiness, because it's a state of mind. And I always have to put myself in that. And then going into a new year for school is definitely the way to think about it. Physical comfort, if your mind is still in a state of confusion or if you're agitated, it is not happiness. Happiness means calmness. Calmness of your mind. The other one for me is a big one that I took, is also called like the enemies within, like anger and hatred, are real enemies that you must confront and defeat, not the enemies who appear from time to time in our lives. It's those constant things that make you battle. And then love and kindness, very basis of all society. If we lose these feelings, society will face tremendous difficulties. So the survival of humanity will be endangered if we just can't understand love and kindness to ourselves and to others. And the last one would be to always live in the present moment. Time passes very unhindered, very quickly in everything that we do. We will all make mistakes and we cannot turn the clock back and try again. So all we can do is use the present very well. I hope this helps a little bit to set your year.

SPEAKER_05: 18:18

Our final reflection comes from Barbara Dewey, the founder of the Tapu Teacher Training, and whom many of us lovingly call the matriarch of Waldorf homeschooling. Barbara shares this beautiful reminder. When homeschooling, I like to think that we are living life so that we're resilient no matter what comes. To me, that means if it's nice weather, we do something outside. If there's a warm rain, we do something outside to experience water, build a dam, or see what happens if we add silt or color to clean flowing water. If it's snowing, we go sledding and see if the snow is wet and sticky enough to build a snowman, an igloo. We study different kinds of snow or what the wind is doing to it. We make use of what the universe provides, whatever it is. With that philosophy, it isn't so hard to move in and out of holiday mode. I used to get a lot of frightened emails when a family was moving or a new baby came or grandma was dying. Parents worried that homeschooling had to stop and then the children would fall behind. This is life, and how a family handles these events shapes a child's resilience. Trying to fit in formal lessons at times like these just adds stress to what could otherwise be a time of empathy, caring, and joy. Keeping your home as an example. Of lifelong learning will keep you from the fear of not doing enough. There is always something worthwhile happening. Thank you so much, Barbara, for that wise tip. Myself, I recently received an email from someone in my community who said, I'm homeschooling three kiddos now and I feel like I'm so behind. And this advice applies in that kind of situation as well. We'll be talking more about this at Taproot Online when we have our team panel QA discussion. So I hope you'll come join us. As we wrap up, here is a little recap of the Taproot team's tips. Rebecca says, be gentle with yourself. Karen says, look ahead to what's coming and bring it to life through food and imagination. My tip, layer in the learning slowly and intentionally. Sarah suggests get outside, then come back in for cozy connection. Jody says, begin with gratitude and care for yourself. And from Joe, lead with compassion and presence. Barbara suggests to all of us to follow the seasons and model lifelong learning to build resilience. What great tips! I'm so happy to be able to share these with you today. And thank you so much for listening. The Taproot team and I would love to welcome you to Taproot Online 2026 beginning January 30th. You can find all the details and register at artofomeschooling.com/slash Taproot Online. Wishing you steadiness, warmth, and just enough light as you ease back into homeschooling after the holidays. That's all for today, my friend. But here's what I want you to remember. Rather than perfection, let's focus on connection. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you on the next episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast.