Nothing seems to sabotage a homeschool day worse than the flu, a migraine, or any other illness. If one of your little ones is sick of course it's not usually a question of whether to let them rest or push on through school work , but when mommy's down with a 24 hour flu bug or due to chronic illness she can’t or won’t always take off the time she needs. Here are some ways you can manage school on sick days.

How to Homeschool When You are Sick

Take a sick day – Give yourself and your children a little grace, take a free day, this is my favorite option. Let them have a movie day, color, eat healthy snacks they can prepare themselves, play in the yard, etc.. One or two days will not ruin your entire school year so this is a completely reasonable option. If you have already had to miss many days or this just doesn’t sit well with you there are other ways to school while you are ill.

Make work packets – If you don’t already organize your curriculum into daily or weekly packets when you feel well and have extra time ( haha, yes I know, what’s extra time?) go ahead and make up work packets- they can include a variety of worksheets, file folder games, lapbooks, journaling prompts, and math review sheets. These can be pulled out and used with less help needed from mom.

Pile up on the couch – Use clipboards or lap trays and let everyone pile around you while you help with lessons and questions. Bring books and paper to wherever you are comfortable and let the kids work near you while you rest.

Use online classes – Take advantage of the wide variety of online classes and learning games available and many are free or just a nominal fee. Your child can study a wide variety of subjects with only minimal assistance from you. Some of My favorites are ABC Mouse and Reading Eggs and their Sister site Math Seeds.

Turn to the workbooks – If you don’t normally use workbooks on a day to day basis this would be a good opportunity to take advantage of them. These will cover most of your basic subjects like math, handwriting, and reading. Keep a couple on hand for each grade level for sick days.

Let them take the lead – Let your child choose their own curriculum for the day with a few guidelines. They can choose a topic to study, birds for example. They must choose a book to read, write about their topic, create some math problems within the theme, perhaps do a little geography by identifying state birds then pointing them out  on the map. You might be surprised how hard they work to please you when they are given control over the choices.