Life Strikes
We all have those days. Those days when you just cant do homeschooling. Whether its that your kids are sick or you are sick, or you just donโt have it in you to do โschoolโ that day; that doesnโt mean the day has to be an all out loss. Its best to have some advanced ideas for what you can do, so that when those days come, it requires the most minimal of effort on your part. Hereโs some ideas that have worked well for us.
Reading
10. Reading. This could be your kids reading to themselves, reading to you, or you reading to them. An audiobook would also work well. Even if its not what you would call the most educational of books, it is still beneficial to the brain. Reading exercises the brain, keeping it health and active. Also, reading is a great way to improve literary skills and vocabulary.
Coloring
9. Coloring. Coloring is useful for developing fine motor skills, which is especially important in younger children. Although I imagine that is helpful at any stage of life. It also stimulates creativity with the colors and the patterns. Coloring can also be calming and meditative, which in theory will hopefully keep everyone calmer and allow for a more restful recovery. Not to mention hopefully distracting them so that the kids leave each other alone instead of fighting. (which is what my kids seem to do when someone is sick.)
Music
8. Music. Whatโs that saying? Music calms the raging beast? Well music can also be a welcome distraction when life has thrown you off course. When life throws you off,that can be a good time to expose your kids to some new genres of music. Switch it up with some classical or jazz. Heck, these days, even some good old rock and roll would be off their beaten track in many cases. If you are able this would also be a potential teaching moment to talk to your kids about what music has meant in your life or possibly what a certain song has meant historically. You donโt have to go looking all this stuff if you arenโt up to it. Just work from what you know. You will be surprised at where the conversation can go from there.
Life Skills
7. Life skills. Depending on the situation, the possibility for developing life skills is a good substitute for a day when regular schoolwork is out of the question. For example, if mom is the one home sick, than good life skills would be helping take care of mom. Making a sandwich, bringing her a wet washcloth, how to check temperature, what kinds of things they are able to do on their own. This one could be a lot of things, depending on the circumstances and the age of the child. If one or more of the kids are sick, things like caregiving from other siblings, what to do with different kinds of illnesses, are all possibilities. Be creative. Life skills donโt have to fit in a box. Really its just being adaptable in any situation of life you find yourselves in.
Games
6. Games. Days when life strikes can be good days to play games. This one is nice because it offers up a fair amount of flexibility as to time, effort and location. Games can be played anywhere and thereโs a variety of options to compensate for time, energy and location. If you have to be in the car, I spy is a great option. It requires nothing but things to look at. I spy is beneficial by encouraging listening skills as well as improving observation. The Ungame is great for stimulating conversation. Dominos can be used to include not only numbers but math concepts as well. Puzzles are great for developing motor skills, as well as visual coordination.
Tablets
5. Tablets. This is really almost a spin off of several of the other options, but is nice to mention because many of these things can all be done in one place. Tablets can be used for educational games, digital books as well as audio books. They can also be used for playing music, ect.
Podcasts
4. Podcasts. There are many educational podcasts out there now that cover a wide variety of topics.
Stretching
3. Stretching. This one obviously depends on whether or not the people involved are up to it. But if so, stretching is good for health. It helps stimulate the lymphatic system, which helps your body flush out toxins and bacteria. Stretching is also good for stress relief, which always seems to be helpful when life throws you curves. It may even help get everyone back on their feet just a little bit quicker. Of course because it is a form of exercise, it easily falls under the category of Physical Education.
Movies
2. Movies. There are loads of movies out there that have some sort of educational benefit. Even ones that you might not ordinarily think of. Last week, my boys were obsessing about the idea of terraforming. I donโt know how that came into their thinking, but since it was there, I wanted to use it for educational advancement. (Especially since I have been done with headaches a lot lately.) So, what was the first thing to come to my mind when I thought of terraforming? Star Trek. The Wrath of Khan and The search for Spock specifically. If you have never seen these movies, well, shame on you. But anyway, there are scientists that are developing a device to terraform a planet. Things go wrong, of course and then they are left to deal with the fallout from their actions. What I thought was important, what not only that it was specifically about terraforming, but that it showed things like what can go wrong when great power falls into the wrong hands. Possibility even more important was that it showed that there are consequences when man tries to cut corners to try and achieve his desired result. There are other lessons and morals that I personally took from the movie, but to just give you a taste of what possibilities lie well within our reach. What movies stand out to you as being filled with possibility? Possibility of values, creativity or any number of lessons.
Streaming Services
Last, but not least,
1. Streaming services. I love streaming services. They have been an absolute lifesaver on life challenging days. When I talk about streaming services, I am talking about Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and YouTube. All of these services have wonderful options for educational videos. Shows like, Draining the Oceans, Expedition Unknown for example. There are shows and movies on History, geography, art and so much more. YouTube is great because it presents such a wide variety of options. You can learn about so many things. Not only that, but you can create playlists in advance so that they are available when you need them. We have playlists for American Sign Language, a variety of countries around the globe, science experiments and clips on random things that we just want to know about. These services are no guarantee that everything on them will be safe and amazing, but there are some pretty good options out there. National Geographic is a big one that comes to mind, as is the History channel. Take a peek for yourself and Iโm confident that you will find many possibilities for you to have available when life happens.
Have a smooth ride
I hope that I have been able to get your creative juices flowing. Its never fun to be down and out, but hopefully some of these suggestions will help you to find some good options for your family. My goal is to make your journey in homeschooling a little bit smoother one.
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