Homeschooling During Days When You are Sick

You know that from time to time throughout the homeschooling years, you are going to get sick. It happens! Especially with little ones with congested noses and coughs in tow. You will feel terrible. You’ll feel so tired. You’ll be worried about what to do about the children’s homeschooling when you are sick.

Your children need you healthy mom. So it’s important for you to do as much as you can to take care of you during this time.

Items to Keep On-hand to Help you Feel Better Soon:

Good quality tea
Honey
Soft tissues
Humidifier
Warm fuzzy socks

But, you’ll most likely want to try to keep the children engaged in learning. This is especially true if you are a newer homeschooling mom. There are ways to make that happen without having to be too involved in the process.

For older children, middle school and high school they should be independent learners, so keeping them on-task shouldn’t be difficult. For younger children, you can consider lighter learning days. It’s time to think outside the typical education methods and consider simpler learning for the day.

5 Ways to Keep Kids Learning While Mom is Sick

1- Gather on the Couch
Gather the kids on the couch and make it a video learning day. Utilize Netflix or Amazon Prime subscriptions to spend a day learning from documentaries, period movies, and tv shows. Pop some corn, or have bowls of ice cream, and let the whole family take a brain break day.

2- Take a Sick day
One of the best things about homeschooling is the schedule flexibility. If you need to take a day or two off so you or the family can recuperate from the sniffles and coughs, then go ahead. It’s better to get better and have kids be able to focus than it is to try to force learning when it’s just not going to happen.

3- Work from Bed
Gather a good printable unit study or notebooking pages, perhaps utilize Kindle downloads for read-a-longs, and use clipboards to keep everything organized while kids work on lap trays. Kids can pile on the bed beside you and you can be comfortable while the older kids read to the younger kids. Let them document their learning using those notebooking pages.

4- Outsource Classes for the Day
Utilize online courses such as Khan Academy, Pre-Made Lesson Plans from Homeschool Planet’s Lesson Plan Marketplace, or others and allow your kids to pile around a computer or two and let them learn from other teachers. You can even utilize learning apps on tablets and phones. The point is, keep the kids learning while you, mom, are drinking a cup of tea, and resting.

5- Interest Led Learning Day
Most likely our children have some topics, some areas of learning that they enjoy more than others. Perhaps it’s STEM fun or reading chapter books. Whatever the case, let your child choose their learning path for the day.

While I’ve shared several ways to keep the kids learning during sick days, the reality is, moms, you need to take the time to get better. If the kids are also ill, your whole family will do better in the long run if you all take time to get healthy. Throw a dinner into the crock-pot to make dinner come together with ease and rest for a day, read, watch videos or just be still.