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Hello, friends. Welcome to season two of Cultivating Grace today. I would like to talk to you today about five ways you can continue homeschooling even when Mom gets sick. This actually came about because last week when we started back to homeschool, I had a horrible asthma flare, and it left me pretty depleted for most of the week. These five things really help us stay on track and continue homeschooling any time I get sick. I hope that they are helpful to you, as well.
The first thing that we use is audiobooks. We have a very large selection of audiobooks on CD. They range from classic stories like Men of Iron to G.A. Henty’s dramatized adventures from Heirloom Audio. They are all fantastic to listen to, and they keep the boys very engaged. If you listen to approximately one chapter at a time, you can even have the children give you a narration back to tell you what they’ve gleaned from the story. It’s an excellent way to continue working on narration when Mom is down for the count. We also use Audible. Audible has many fantastic audiobooks. They have some that are dramatized and some that are just recorded audiobooks. One of our favorites currently is the Green Ember series recorded by Joel Clarkson.
The second thing that we like to do when I am not feeling well enough to do full-on homeschooling is game schooling. Game schooling is where you use whatever games you have available to you to continue the learning process without your kids really feeling like they’re stuck in school. We enjoy playing games like chess, and Scrabble, and Rory’s Story Cubes. Anything that’s fun and keeps learning going is always a good idea.
The third thing that we use for schooling when Mom doesn’t feel so great is the dreaded screen time. Yes, I do let my children watch TV sometimes, and I am totally okay with that, especially when I’m not feeling well. Some of the DVDs that we really enjoy using for learning fun are the Drive Thru History DVDs and the Mission Imperative DVDs. We also use a lot of older, more classic literature-based stories like the Swiss Family Robinson and Doctor Dolittle. There are a lot of streaming documentaries and fantastic resources also available on Netflix and Amazon Prime. We really enjoy using both of those as supplemental learning from time to time when we’re studying something that does really need pictures for explanation.
Fourth, let them do the work they can on their own. Now that the boys are a little bit older, we are also able to do our copy work and handwriting work, even when I’m not feeling well and can’t be right there at their elbow. They can practice their letters; they can practice their cursive loops; they can practice their copy work, all without me needing to stand over them. Since both of them enjoy drawing, it’s not too hard any more to get them to work on their writing. But if you have older children that are already writing well without needing the copy work, then you can give them some writing prompts and things of that nature to continue on with the learning while you’re not feeling well.
Last but certainly not least in the things that we do when Mom is not feeling well to continue our homeschooling is app and computer schooling. We have a lot of educational apps on our iPad for the boys. One of their favorites right now is Duolingo. They can actually work on learning a foreign language even when I’m not there to help, which is probably good, because I was never very good at Spanish anyway. We also use MindPlay for literacy; we use Reading Eggs; we use MathSeeds. We have quite a few educational things that we can do on the computer. Because we also use computer learning for our music lessons, the boys can even continue working on their piano and guitar skills while I’m sick and cannot help them. It’s a fantastic resource and something that every mother should utilize, especially if she deals with chronic illness or is just down for the count for a couple days.
Whatever method you choose to utilize, don’t be afraid to continue homeschooling even when you’re not feeling well. And conversely, don’t be afraid to take a break if you need to. If you’re really sick and you just can’t fathom doing homeschool that day, then don’t.
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