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I ate this menu nearly everyday when I got sick.
There is one downside point of choosing homeschooling for our children’s education. As a single teacher of homeschooling, getting sick will not have any substitution. For a matter of worse, there isn’t any co op here that can help me to get kids catching the lessons. Two days ago was not the first time I got high fever that made me unable both to teach and to supervise them. I was so terrified that the same typhus had attacked me as it was last April 2013. The story of that one month getting bed rest might be too late to tell, but this is a great lesson for me to know more about how natural life learning happens.
When I got sick six to seven months ago, I cannot either plan or assess kids’ works as I should not move anywhere or get out of the bed. I was so stressful that the doctor gave me some prescription but The fever didn’t leave me soon. Once I didn’t get any fever, I still had to take rest to recover myself. I had to stay in my parents’ house in Malang, a cleaner and colder town than Surabaya where I live. I just brought my eldest son, Ken, with me. I wasn’t allowed to be stressful at all. My husband had to take care of the other boys in the evening. It was lucky that my sister could supervise them in the morning until my husband came home from working.
My ready to use lesson plan was only for 2 weeks and kids could not use it all as some of the items needed my help. I didn’t use electronic or automatic lesson planning at that time so all the left out lessons could not bump or shift automatically. It was untrackable.
I changed most of the resources. Kids had to learn independently by themselves. Whenever they had trouble or didn’t understand about things, they just stopped and had some alternative resources to do. Their learning hours just changed. From morning to afternoon and evening. It was very lucky that my husband and sister were very helpful.
Maths
Kids had to learn by themselves most of the time. When they met trouble and couldn’t ask adults, they will do some online Maths programs suggested by Math Mammoth. Unfortunately, they still could not understand Khan Academy yet. Ken was not really left out as he was with me. Ken drilled himself using MathBoard – PalaSoftware Inc. and Tom used Reflexmath most of the time. It seemed that he had been left out a lot. Do you know what happened? He could do double portion of Maths once I got recovered. It was amazing. His basic was getting stronger so he could run faster afterward.
Language Arts
We used Raz Kids at that time. Tom and Jim could access it easily as our house had well connected wifi. There wasn’t any internet connection in my parents’ house, so I just changed Ken’ reading material into McGuffey Eclectic Readers: Primer Through 6th Edition
. Everyday Ken read silently and loudly, write and narrate chapter by chapter of the third and fourth books. I found he was improved in sentence construction using that old resources.
Both of Ken and Tom were still able do spelling with some help from adults.
Science
Ken was forced to use some ebooks of science resources I kept in my ipad. I read for him, explained using Educreations Interactive Whiteboard – Educreations, Inc. We did some oral narration and when he had finished, he tried to go upstairs where there is good internet connection and send it to Tom.
Well, we also did some human anatomy memorization helped by Enjoy Learning Anatomy model puzzle – Digital Gene. Both of them enjoyed it a lot.
Geography
We focused on maps using Enjoy Learning Indonesia Map Puzzle – Digital Gene. For World map, we used both Enjoy Learning World Map Puzzle – Digital Gene and GeoMaster Plus HD – Visuamobile. Tell you what, they could memorize all the 33 provinces of Indonesia with their location and capital cities. I couldn’t believe it. They also can locate all Asian and European countries easily and fast. However, I rarely give them privilege using too much IPad as it is not good for their eyes. It was just an emergency thing.
Civics and Bahasa
I put them altogether as they just used textbooks for each and do it in their notebook. They become more independent in doing both Civics and Bahasa, I think. They have known their portion, although a supervision from adults was still required.
World History
Ken read some Greek and Roman myths downloaded through Oldfashionededucation. It was still lucky that there was a good spot upstair in my parents’ house where we can get the internet connection as there wasn’t any internet connection in the room where I stayed. Tom just open his The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History
at home.
I was very grateful that finally it was getting normal. It was like starting doing homeschooling when I got cured. Ken learnt how to take care of sick mother. He was very caring. He helped me to get some water from the kitchen, supervised my menu, controlled my temperature and medicine.
There were a lot of things to learn from being sick momma. Behind the worries, I can get one important point that learning for life is much more important than life for learning. Thanks God for everything. God has arranged everything for us.
Wow… I’ve been thinking of doing home schooling, but didn’t even think about what would happen if I got sick. This is great!
God is really fantastic. Even when I got sick, we still could run in different way. I just pray.
Wow it is easy to overlook all the things a parent and home-school teacher is expected to do. You seem to accomplish a lot. Thanks for sharing this post.
I am sorry to hear that you are sick! We had a fever run through our house as well. My oldest and I were the only ones who didn’t get sick! I spent the weekend getting my house sanitized and clean. I hate this season change sometimes, because sickness often comes. Take the time to rest and take care of yourself!
I have been recovered now. Thanks God, nothing like that bad typhus happens.
It’s no fun when Mom is sick. I’m glad you had the help of family, I’m not sure what I would do in such an extended situation of illness. It’s nice to see that your family pulled together and helped each other out and your children’s education continued and didn’t suffer.
Sure Crystal. Thanks a lot for your attention.
I didn’t even think about that aspect of homeschooling. My husband got food poisoning this weekend and I was thinking geez glad it happened on the weekend…and I could take care of him. Same situation for the stay at home mom, there are no sick days.
When we are sick, it seems that the factory stopped production, the train is stuck so that the passengers are mad, and the traffic is jammed so that the vehicles cannot move.
It is amazing how wonderful children can be when Momma is sick. they are caring and really try hard to take extra special care of you. You are right, there are a lot of life lessons that can be learned from taking care of someone… and they are every bit as important as reading writing, ad arithmetic.
~Lorelai
Life With Lorelai
Thanks for stopping by, Lorelai.
My goodness! It’s definitely no fun when momma is sick 🙁 I do hope you’re feeling better this time around!
I have been great today. Thanks for your attention.
Oh my goodness, I never thought about homeschooling when mom gets sick! And not only sick but REALLY sick. I hope you are feeling better from this recent bout and that it wasn’t near as bad. It seems like you had a few plans in place that helped. We, too, use RAZ kids for reading help and I love it.
That’s great that your children were so helpful. I’m glad you are feeling better. It’s wonderful that we have so many things to help us with education these days.
I feel great today Tammy. Thanks for your attention.
I certainly hope you’re feeling better. I’ve been praying for you. There are some really good resources here. Thank you for listing them.
Thanks for your care and prayer, Missy.
I admire you for homeschooling your children! I know it takes a very special person to do that, I am definitely not geared towards that!
Ah, not really. I am just an ordinary mom with the weapon of pray. Thanks for stopping by.
I understand when Momma gets sick. I started blogging the last week in June. By the Second week in July I had pancretitis. This is not something that is common in a woman in her 30’s. Since I had just started blogging, I had no back up blogs. So I had a bad start to blogging. Now I have friends who have blogged along with me and they are further along. It’s all okay though. In the end it all works out. I just still work usually only a week ahead. I have never made it to 30 days of blogs ahead.
Your blog has worked very well I think. Getting sick is a warning from God that we have to respect our health as well.
What happens when the homeschool teacher gets sick is something I would have never thought about. I have a friend that live in a community where a few of the parents homeschool their kids, but those parents share activities. One parent does math, one does english, etc. Therefore if someone gets sick, there’s always another parent to step in. When my child becomes school age, I would love to be able to homeschool her. If I am able to do this, I will keep in mind that I will need a backup plan in case something happens to me. Thank you for sharing your story.
Back up plan is very important. It is great if you live with co op that can help you.
Wow! I hope you feel better now! Having a fever is just the worst and trying to teach during all that is so hard!
I am recovered already but some things are still messy.