A Christmas Carol Study Ideas for Kids (Christmas School)

Inside: Our Christmas School plans for studying the Christmas Carol by Charles Dicken and other fun activities for the holidays.

I’ve always loved the Christmas season and doing fun holiday activities. Over the last few years, I have tried to pick a focus for our homeschool during the month of December (aka Christmas school).

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This year for our Christmas school we are going to dive into Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol and Christmas in England.

Christmas School Rythm

Every year our school rhythm during the holiday has been different.

Some years we have kept our normal school schedule and added holiday things to the mix; other years we’ve stopped our core work completely for the month.

This year my plan is pause all the subjects and just enjoy all the Christmas things. Thanksgiving is late this year so we don’t have a lot of time between the two holidays.

We will still have piano lessons and gymnastics throughout the month, and we might do a math or language arts lesson a few times but I’m not going to stress it.

I really want to focus on having some fun with A Christmas Carol as well as doing other fun Christmas activities we all love.

Christmas Devotional / Morning Time

One of my favorite things to make sure we include in our Christmas school is slow mornings with Christmas music playing, time to read our picture book advent story and a no stress devotional.

During the Christmas season our devotionals include singing Christmas carols, scripture study (we will use the scripture and devotional from the 25 Days of Christ), and reading Christmas books. We will also continue to do our daily KidNuz episodes during the holidays.

Other Things I’m planning to include in our devotionals throughout December (but not daily) include:

Music and the Spoken Word
Christmas Would You Rather Questions
Letter Writing (I got this fun wax stamp set I’m so excited about!)

Christmas Advent

Advent is the time to prepare spiritually for the celebration of Christ’s birth as well as the promise of His second coming.

I love to spend time each day in December focusing on Christ and yes, I love doing other fun and sweet advents too.

25 Days of Christ

Our main advent this year is the 25 Days of Christ Advent with ornaments and daily devotional we will be doing each morning as part of our devotional / morning time. (use code ADREE to save on your order!)

We will be using the cute book, ornament and discussion questions as part of our daily scripture study. I’m so excited to add it to our day, I love that it’s going to work for all of my kids.

The heirloom ornaments to hang on the Christmas tree and the little bee for the kids to find are definitely going to be a favorite with my preschoolers.

Science Advent Calendar

My kids love doing science experiments and activities, so I got this little science advent that I think will be a lot of fun. The science activities are really simple and shouldn’t add to much craziness to our days.

In the past we have done Lego Advents and really liked them, but I decided to change it up this year.

Christmas Carol Advent

I got this Christmas Carl Advent book that has the history of a different carol each day that I’m really excited about.

I originally planned to use it as part of our morning devotionals. But my husband is really excited about it and wants to do this advent with us so we will be using it as part of our nightly scripture study and prayers with him.

Chocolate Christmas Countdowns

We’ve done chocolate Christmas advents since my kids were little so of course we have to continue with that this year. There is nothing educational about them at all, but we love doing them.

A Christmas Carol

Our main study this year for Christmas school is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I’m so excited to dive into this traditional Christmas story and learn more about it with my kids.

I’m not sure exactly how this study is going to go but I have a LOT of ideas.

The plan is to start our study watching the movie The Man Who Invented Christmas and learning about Charles Dickens by reading Who Was Charles Dickens.

Then we’re going to dive into the story of a Christmas Carol. I have a picture book we will read and then we will also read the original text and use Language Plus Christmas Carol study to go along with our reading.

We might end our study with a Christmas Carol escape room…but I’m still getting that figured out.

After we finish reading the book we will be watching a Muppets Christmas Carol and having a movie themed dinner.

To go along with our study of a Christmas Carol, I thought it would be fun to also learn about Christmas traditions in England.

Christmas in England

Adding Christmas in England to our Christmas school this year just felt right. (We learned about Christmas in several other countries a few years ago and had so much fun with it.)

The plan for learning about Christmas in England is to use this cut and paste worksheet I made, watch a short video or two and try some traditional English foods.

We might also try making (or buying) Christmas crackers.

Victorian Christmas

Since our study is set in Victorian England at Christmas time, I had to add a few Victorian touches…we will see just how much we have added by the end of the season.

We’ve added candles to our Christmas tree, and I love how it looks! I’m planning on making silhouette ornaments for our tree.

Other Victorian Christmas traditions I’m thinking of adding to our month include caroling, learning some parlor games from the time period, and making Christmas crackers.

Read Aloud

Our main read aloud is A Christmas Carol that will be read during the day to go along with our activities.

In the evenings we will be reading aloud The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The King Is Born as a family. I got the book last year and we never read it, so I’m really excited to read it this year.

Hands-On Christmas Activities

We love hands on activities and crafts…especially when doing our read aloud.

My kids love doing stuff throughout the day, so I grabbed some fun activities for the kids to have easy access to throughout the Christmas season.

Christmas Puzzles

We have two new Christmas puzzles (Christmas around the world and covered bridge Christmas) to do this month. We will start them and have them out to work on anytime we want throughout the month.

Christmas Sticker By Number

I picked up two different holiday sticker by number books that I know all my kids are going to love (it just might be a little bit too much for my youngest though)

Christmas Mad Libs

We love Mad Libs so I thought it would be fun to have some Christmas Carol ones. These will probably happen throughout the day or at dinner.

Lego Holiday Ideas

I picked up this Lego Holiday Ideas book since my kids love building with Lego. The book comes with a few Lego bricks but I’m sure the kids will be using a lot of them that we already have.

Beeswax Candle Making Kit

I’m really excited about this candle making kit and hoping my kids enjoy it too. Candle making just fit so well with the Old-Fashioned Christmas theme.

Printable Christmas Activities

We will probably add a few of these activities to our days depending on how things go and I have a couple of different art activities in mind, but I’m not sure what we will actually get to.

I’m also scheduling in a baking day to make whatever Christmas cookies we want to, weekly themed Christmas dinner and movie nights and we have an indoor triathlon my husband and I and the older two kids are doing, along with all the other holiday things.

It’s going to be a busy and fun Christmas season and I can’t wait!

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