Homeschooling and Sick? 5 Tips to Help!
Are you homeschooling and sick? ‘Tis the season for all sorts of sicknesses, and many tend to hang around awhile. Homeschooling parents and children alike get sick. One family member passes sickness on to another, and sometimes it even circles back around for one more round. You don’t want homeschooling to screech to a halt for weeks or months. So, what can you do if multiple members of your family are sick for multiple days, weeks, or months? Here are 5 tips to help!
1: Keep homeschooling, but slow down the pace.
Sick parents and children lack the energy to homeschool full-speed. However, that doesn’t mean they cannot homeschool at a slower pace. In fact, continuing to homeschool combats boredom, depression, and loneliness. It breaks up the day. If you homeschool four hours a day, try for two hours a day. Halve the time and spread it out. Children will still make progress, and they won’t regress in their retention.
Heart of Dakota (HOD) makes it easy to go half-speed. Just spread the boxes of plans over two days instead of one day. Keep homeschooling – just slow down the pace.
2: Use technology to keep moving forward with homeschooling.
Sick parents or children may need to quarantine. Certainly, they need to rest, which often means they spend ample time in their bedrooms. Parents – how can you teach when you’re quarantined? Children – how can you discuss questions, share oral narrations, or show your work when you’re quarantined? Well, use technology – namely, your cell phone or computer. When the sick person has a window of time of feeling somewhat better, Facetime each other to discuss questions. Share oral narrations via Zoom. Show your work by videoing yourself on your phone. Email your typed written narrations or essays.
Heart of Dakota’s plans lend themselves well to using technology in times of sickness. Experiment with technology – it can keep your homeschooling moving forward and keep isolation from feeling so, well… isolated.
3: Make homeschool ‘stuff’ mobile.
How do you get your school ‘stuff’? When you’re sick, the last thing you want to do is run around and gather school ‘stuff’. Healthy family members can help. Grab a cube, a tub, a backpack, or a tote. Load one up with school books and resources. Fill another with school art supplies and writing utensils. Then, deliver the ‘stuff’ to the sick person. Leave it outside their door if necessary. This goes both ways. Parents can gather and make mobile school books and supplies for children. And children can gather and make mobile answer keys and plans for parents.
Heart of Dakota’s plans clearly note what is needed each day, so gathering ‘stuff’ and making it mobile is easy.
4: Enlist help.
Who can help? Circle the wagons. Older siblings can teach younger siblings. Playtimes can become teaching times. Siblings can also help each other by discussing questions, correcting work, listening to narrations, or reading read-alouds. Your spouse and grandparents can help step in and teach or even just oooh and ahhhh over completed work. No family living near you? Use technology! Facetime, Zoom, or video can cross the distance and help you enlist the help you need! Use recorded voice memos of friends or family reading aloud read alouds. Voice memos can be recorded any time and listened to later at any time.
Heart of Dakota‘s plans are so easy to follow, enlisting help is easy. Anyone who can read and follow directions should be able to step in and help!
5: Simplify meals and divide chores.
When sickness visits your homeschooling, simplify meals and divide chores. Use paper plates and plastic cups. Have food delivered or pick it up as carryout. Throw in a frozen pizza. Make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Microwave some mac & cheese. Now is the time to make meal time and cleanup as easy as possible. No judgment. When it comes to chores, divide and conquer. Well people must pull together and do things they may not normally do. This means they may not make meals nor complete chores as well as whomever usually does these tasks. Let it go. Perfection need not be the goal; survival is the goal. Simplify meals and divide the chores. And pray! Remember, this too SHALL PASS!
These 5 tips have helped my family keep homeschooling through sickness. Should sickness visit your home, I pray they help you as well!
In Christ,
Julie
This Post Has 4 Comments
Our family of six have been fighting COVID. I got it first. Then my daughter and her 3 children. My husband did not ever get it. So it’s been a good 2 weeks. We just couldn’t do school. Tomorrow we will finish Unit 10. We’ve had so many interruptions this year. So we’ll just plod along and may have to go into the summer.
Ah the cold and flu season. I love the idea of getting a tote and putting all needed materials in it for the day.
In desperate times I’ve been known to look up a liberty kids or wild Kratts show to substitute read alouds at younger ages.
With my middle schooler, instead of a regular math lesson, we do a timed review sheet. I choose one I know he’s fairly good at but could still use practice with and sit next to him trying to call out the right answer before he writes it down. If he’s sick and I’m well I also read to him stuff that’s he’s typically doing independently. Another trick is to do all worksheets orally.
Bobbi – I am so sorry you and your family have been sick! It is important to refresh and take time to get better. I am glad you are on the mend, and I hope you have a good return to homeschooling!
Amanda – so glad you loved the tote idea! It sounds like you have some great ideas that have worked well for your family during times of sickness! Our sons absolutely loved Liberty’s Kids, as well as the Kratt Brothers. Thanks for sharing!