Homeschooling on the Hard Days

Last week was hard. My kids caught hand, foot, and mouth so we had fevers, puking, itchy rashes, and bad sleep. After everyone started to feel better we were still cooped up at home all week so we could avoid spreading it around. All that said, it would be so much more stressful for us if we weren't homeschooling. No rush back into the office or back to school we are able take the time we needed to get healthy and recover.

So, do we “homeschool” during times like these? Yes and no. Our days are loosely structured already so it's not that different. We still read, because it's cozy and we like to read. We watch more TV when one of us is sick. When it's me who is sick, I'll usually put on a documentary so that it's not super stimulating. That trick helps because if the kids get bored they start to play independently with something instead.

When everyone started to feel better, we had a lot of energy to get out and we were stuck home. So we biked up and down the street and played soccer in the yard.

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Exploring

Tell Me a Story Game - We have this card deck with interesting pictures and you put them together to tell a story. We have modified the game for my older kid and now we write captions for each card and turn it into a short story. Any interesting image would work for this. I've thought about making more from magazine clippings too. The fun part is coming up with an interesting caption. This week I scribed and he did punctuation and then copied his favorite line out.

Built a Stomp Rocket - This kit was hard for my son to do but he kept trying and was able to complete it and was excited.

The periodic table and the elements - We have had a lot of questions about the elements this week. The periodic table chart we have was out and my kiddo was asking a lot of questions about what noble gases are and what elements explode when they are introduced to water.

Large Numbers - We had fun researching and discussing really large numbers like Googleplex.

Reading

Work It, Girl: Blast off into Space like Mae Jemison by Caroline Moss - We finished this book which I reviewed last week. This became a prompt to make a Vision board all about our hopes and dreams for ourselves and the world.

Star Stories Constellation Tales From Around the World by Anita Ganeri - my child loves world mythology. This one has beautiful pictures too!

Robosauce by Adam Rubin - Just a fun read my child enjoys over and over.

That’s pretty representative of what we do when we are slowing down and taking a break. The learning never stops completely!

I make unit studies and more about many of the learning activities we do. They are up for sale in my store. Be sure to head over to check out more hands-on learning fun!