Learning When Sick: 10 Tips for Homeschool Families

Someday, when I become president, I’m making head colds during 95-degree summer weather illegal.

I’ve been sick for the past two weeks. My son was overly generous and shared his fever and head cold with me. Plus, we’re moving; my husband started a new job in a different state; we’ve been house hunting; our kids are exploring summer interests, and this post is due. And did I mention the 95-degree weather?

But even when sick and it’s summer, learning doesn’t pause. Homeschooling is a lifestyle that happens 24/7. And sometimes, that’s the best thing about being sick. Learning can distract from how many times you’ve had to blow your nose in the last hour (I lost count).

When my siblings and I got sick as homeschooled kids, it meant our textbooks and worksheets and the tea and honey migrated to the family room couch with us. Propped with pillows and throw blankets, we were comfy while blowing noses and trying to figure out what x equaled and how the “i before e” rule works (and doesn’t).

Being sick meant we had extra time to do extra schoolwork. When schoolwork was done, we watched educational videos. My favorite in our VHS collection was about sea life and otters.

Today, I tend to repeat a similar process with my kids.

Learning when wrestling these inconvenient germs tends to be low-key, overlap with current interests, and often doesn’t include math. And that’s okay, though math might be a favorite activity for other kids. Learning while sick can look like:

• Listening to an audiobook or two about your current interest, borrowed digitally from the library while doing coloring or activity pages.
• Watching educational movies or shows (Answers TV, anyone?).
• Learning about how our bodies fight germs and the immune system.
• Researching which foods have which health benefits.
• Planning field trips.
• Following a drawing or sketching tutorial.
• Testing the waters of a new subject or hobby with an introductory overview article, book, or video.
• Video calling a friend or loved one and challenging them to a game you can play across the miles (like trivia games, Bible quizzes, Battleship, and Guess Who). Bonus: Encourage the creation of your own trivia game based on unit studies and current topics of interest.
• Pull out those travel games, crafts, and mini art sets. Easy to use, easy to keep consolidated, easy to sanitize later.
• Resting.

Resting for real isn’t always easy for us as homeschooling families. There can be this expectation to do all the things all the time, to make the most of every moment, and seize every possible teaching and learning opportunity. But in Genesis 2, we get a lovely example of God establishing rest and setting that example for us. When we are sick, a definite result of the Fall, maybe the best learning we can do is to care for and rest our bodies.

So now, I think I’ll take my own advice and go rest . . .