heartofdakota.com

Hey Ladies,

I am sure this has been posted somewhere, but I am too tired to look! LOL

This week has been ROUGH! I am sick with allergies (it feels like flu, but that is how I get with allergies), and all I feel like doing is sleeping. Evan and I have managed some school each day except for yesterday when I forced myself out of the house to take him to his swim lesson.

I am not a fan of TV! We have just free TV, and so while I sleep on the couch he has been watching either PBS educational stuff or Christian programming. I'm feeling major guilt here with him watching his allotment of TV for a month in the matter of a couple of days!

Please bear in mind I do not have any other children in the home to help out or keep Evan entertained. So what do you all do when Momma is sick? Please pray! Evan's 6th Birthday is tomorrow, and I hope to be well enough to go with him and Daddy to Sea World!

Thanks!

Shannon, I am so sorry that you are sick! It is so hard to try to get everything done in school and around the house when you aren't feeling well. I have had some extended times of illness and that has made homeschooling tough. Fortunately HOD had made it easier in those times since it was easy to do a box or two at a time as I felt well enough. My dc have watched educational TV and dvds, played computer games, read on their own when they were able, played their Leapsters, or other handheld educational games. The handheld educational games can be really helpful. They really do learn a lot from those, but it still is screen time. If you have Netflix there are some good, educational shows on there. Last year while we were doing Bigger, my dc were sick for a few days with the flu so we watched quite a few episodes of Liberty Kids. They enjoyed doing some educational computer games like Freddy Fish, Carmen Sandiego, Liberty Kids, Zoombinis, etc. Again though that is screen time. You could have him do puzzles or color. Those are great for motor and thinking skills. Could he still read to you a bit? Perhaps he could still do his handwriting exercises too. I would just try to do what you can and hang in there. It will be alright. I'll be praying. Feel better soon!

I have had this problem too. The past 3 weeks all of us have been sick on and off, mine hasn't been debilitating but I have definitely had to sacrifice other things and push myself really hard in order to get school done. We took one unexpected day off. Even the days when I was so bad in the morning we didn't get anything done and we watched a video (or our many umpteen doctor visits), I would try to get school done in the afternoon which worked out okay. Now that I'm in a good routine with HOD its really easy for me to do the different parts of it as we have time or when I feel up to it. I've even left some things for my husband to do in the evening which he and the kids really seem to enjoy.

Screen time is a tough thing, but sometimes it is a real sanity saver for the child and for you. It makes us feel so guilty, but then on the other hand its nice to have and it does have educational value.

I guess I would encourage you not to be too terribly hard on yourself. The value in your child's education is not always being on task and getting things done, it's in the relationship and the things you are building into your child. If you have to give up on it for a short time due to health or other factors, you figure out whether to just let it go and push everything back, make it up at another time, or whatever else you can figure out. Flexibility in homeschooling is a nice thing to have, even though of course we want to have goals and do our job well.

I hope and pray you are feeling better soon! Allergies can be so tough!

Shannon - I am so sorry that you are under the weather. I just wanted you to know that I have been keeping you in my prayers, and I hope that you are on the mend!

Love in Christ,
Julie

I'm on the mend, and much better!!! Thank you all for your responses and concern. I had either a sinus infection of a really bad case of hay fever. I refuse to go to the doctor unless I am really sick (or due for a check-up), so I just fought it on my own. And then Evan had it...it started the day before his birthday. We all made it to Sea World, though Evan and I felt like crud, we had a fun time! Now hubby is sick. But we are blessed, and it could be so much worse!

The TV got more use last week than it does in a month's worth of time! Yes, it is a sanity saver. There were times when I just needed to lay flat, or sit up and not think. Everything Evan watched had educational or spiritual value, so at least it wasn't just time filler junky stuff! Oh, and we broke out the Wikki Stix (that we forgot that we had) and that made for some fun time too!

Again, thank you ladies for listening. I was just frustrated and felt guilty for having the TV on so much (and not accomplishing every box in the guide every day).