We’re full swing into the Christmas countdown. From now on, your weeks become a blur of Christmas carol concerts, nativity plays, Christmas parties, Secret Santas and more. But at the same time, you’re still trying to juggle homework.

What’s more, although everyone in the family is in need of a well earned rest after the long Autumn term, you’re conscious that from January, school pressure will increase as you move into the countdown to exams and tests, whether that’s SATs, 11+ or GCSEs or N5s.

How to stay sane and keep on top of their education

The first thing that often gets put on hold at this time of year is homework or spending a little extra time with your children to help them stay on top of maths, English and other subjects. After all, there is only so much time in the day. The children are tired and distracted, and you probably feel the same.

However, rather than let the whole thing go until the new year, here are some festive ideas to help keep everyone’s brain ticking over during the next few weeks!

Find five minutes

The thought of finding an hour in a day to spend on homework can feel impossible as you rush from one after school club to another and then on to a Christmas event. But you can probably find just five minutes a day, even if it’s as your child finally falls into bed. Use that time to read with your child. You can either get them to read to you, read to them or try a mixture of the two depending on who is more exhausted. For younger children, Christmas books are great for this as they help build the excitement and magic.

Reading regularly helps children concentrate, improves their vocabulary and language skills and can help boost performance at school. If you read for five minutes a day, that’s half an hour a week. And the chances are your five minutes will become a little longer. It’s a quick win! 

Exploit Father Christmas and the holiday season

Take full advantage of Christmas traditions. Christmas gift lists definitely need to be written by hand (Santa will not accept lists sent to the family WhatsApp group this year!) and spelt correctly! Santa might even require a little persuasion …perhaps your child could explain why they deserve each present requested in a couple of sentences!

If you’re still writing Christmas cards…get the children to write them. Chances are, this will feel much more personal for the recipient, rather than your standard signature scribble that you’ve just repeated 27 times and you could ask the children to write a few sentences with the year’s news. The children could also try calculating how many stamps you’ll need and how much that will cost.

Ask the elves to help

You’ve probably heard of Elf on the Shelf? The idea is a simple one. You buy or make a toy elf and each evening throughout December you put them in a different place and tell your children that Santa sent them to watch out for any bad behaviour and report back!

Have a bit of fun and encourage learning by adapting this idea. The elves could come with short written notes from Santa for your children to read, little challenges or puzzles to solve or spelling tests! Santa and his elves might even require your child to know their times tables by Christmas eve for example!

Advent calendars are another opportunity for children to practice their maths…counting down how many days, hours or minutes are left to Christmas day. One mother we know even writes little riddles each day of December which the children have to solve to get their advent treat!

She swears that even the older children love this and don’t want her to give up this tradition. And whilst all these suggestions might only require short bursts of concentration, they are all adding to your child’s mental agility and skills!

Time to get a sous chef

Let’s face it, Christmas means cooking! From mince pies and gingerbread houses, to chocolate yule logs and the dreaded sprout. But with the help of your little sous chef you can create a whole heap of new traditions and practice a whole range of maths skills. From calculating how many sweets you need for the gingerbread house (and how many come in a packet) to buying and weighing out ingredients to reading recipes, what can be a chore for adults, is fun for the little ones.

Turn up some Christmas tunes in the background. Add some festive hairpieces or jumpers and a throw in a little Christmas dancing around the kitchen for added amounts of silliness! For younger children, there are also lots of children’s books which tie in with the Christmas food theme such as “Out Smelly Sprout”, which is one of our favourites!

Go maths mad

How many decorations do you need for the tree?  How many lights are on that house? How many mince pies will Santa have eaten by the time he’s been all the way down your street? If mummy eats three mince pies a day, how many mince pies will Mummy have had by Christmas day? How many presents will you need to buy and how much will that cost? What’s the best way to work these things out?  For the grown up, Christmas is a budgeting nightmare, for the children, it’s a great chance to learn!

Re-write Christmas

Most of us love a good Christmas story! So why not get the children to write their own and then turn this into a regular family tradition. Get the children to illustrate their stories and either type them up or stick them into a scrap book as they are and bring them out every year. The sky is the limit with this one, and the stories could be short, long or extraordinary covering everything from Father Christmas and his reindeer to Jesus or Christmas turkeys!

And for the older children?

Even though a lot of these ideas will clearly appeal to younger children, you may be surprised how much older children still love getting into the spirit of Christmas if given the chance. Just increase the complexity of the challenges.

Can the older ones work out the Christmas budget or the cost of Christmas lunch? Can they calculate how many miles to the North Pole and what speed Father Christmas needs to travel at to get his work done on Christmas eve? 

And your most important New Year’s resolution?

Book the children a place at a MagiKats workshop to start in the New Year. That way, you can be sure that your children will stay on top of the curriculum and fulfil their full potential while you pick up the pieces after the chaos of Christmas.