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For those who are teaching two or more kiddos...a question!


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So I obviously with twin boys use the same curriculum and lesson plan for each day. I'm wondering what the rest of you do when one child is sick (in this case running a fever of 102.1). Do you continue on with the lessons for the well child (ren) or do you halt the lesson plan for the day, and hope for the best tomorrow?

 

I guess I'm just curious... here's my plan for the rest of the day, but I'm just wondering what you would do?

 

This a.m. one of my guys woke up "feeling funny/dizzy" and by the time we headed in to do schoolwork I could tell he was teetering on the edge of heading 'downhill'. He managed to get 45 minutes of math in before I felt his head and realized he was running a temp. I gave him ibuprofen and put him in his bed for a bit, and then returned and finished up the lesson with my other kiddo as he was 3/4's of the way thru anyway. Then I read from our read-aloud with him ('well' kiddo) and started our first break.

 

10 minutes in to our break, 'sick' kiddo comes downstairs feeling a bit better, but temp not entirely gone. I have him resting and taking fluids and at this point we are 30 minutes from lunch and then have soccer scheduled at 1pm. I plan on sitting him out of soccer and letting my well kiddo play and then heading back home to *hopefully* get more/the rest of our work in for the afternoon.

 

So, what would you do in this scenario?

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If I were you - if my goal was to keep them on the same lessons daily, everyone would take the day off of actual lessons and well child would be given some "busy work" - practice handwriting, math drills, online time on Brain pop jr, or reading eggs, leisure reading, etc.

 

As far as the soccer goes, I'd probably drop off the well child or skip it all together - but that's just b/c I would want to keep sick kiddo home in general.

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If I were you - if my goal was to keep them on the same lessons daily, everyone would take the day off of actual lessons and well child would be given some "busy work" - practice handwriting, math drills, online time on Brain pop jr, or reading eggs, leisure reading, etc.

 

As far as the soccer goes, I'd probably drop off the well child or skip it all together - but that's just b/c I would want to keep sick kiddo home in general.

 

:iagree:

 

My kids are all different ages and so if one gets sick, the others just keep working.

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If I were you - if my goal was to keep them on the same lessons daily, everyone would take the day off of actual lessons and well child would be given some "busy work" - practice handwriting, math drills, online time on Brain pop jr, or reading eggs, leisure reading, etc.

 

As far as the soccer goes, I'd probably drop off the well child or skip it all together - but that's just b/c I would want to keep sick kiddo home in general.

 

:iagree: My kids are of scattered ages, but I've tried to work together when possible. When one isn't able, that's the time we work on music practice, independent reading, educational toys/games (snap circuits, k'nex, etc) plus the things mentioned by pp above.

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I have twins who are on the same schedule. I would just find other things for the child who is feeling well to do. He could just have a reading day or an un-schooling day. Let him choose what he would like to learn about for the day.

 

I see no need to teach it twice so I would let the "well" child do independent work as much as possible and maybe find an educational movie they could both watch if the sick one felt well enough. If it turned into an extended illness, I guess I'd figure something else out.

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if they are running a temperature, but can function, then we do school as usual, except that we do somethings curled up in bed or on the couch.

 

in our house, we've had a rule since they were little that if they are too sick to do school, then they must stay in bed with the light off and no electronics, and they may not do any outside activities. pretty much, that lets them sort how sick they are.... very rarely will one of them choose to just go to bed, but when they do, its because they really need to.

 

we also sometimes do a "minimum day", which when they were younger was math, and language arts.

 

so i'd have given the younger one ibuprofen, and let him take his math seat work to his bed to do. i'd have read aloud to both of them, with the sick one in bed, and the well one playing/sitting on the floor somewhere in the room.....

 

fwiw,

ann

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My boys are doing some things together and some things separately. I'd skip the together things depending on what it was. For example, they do science together. If we need to do an experiment, I'm skipping that when one is sick. If it's writing definitions or summaries or something, the healthy kid can do those.

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Thanks for the insight everyone... :001_smile: So as the afternoon is progressing, the fever has now turned into a fever and headache with sensitivity to light. He is now in his dark bedroom, trying to sleep off the headache with another dose of meds.

 

Unfortunately for him, he has inheirited the migraines that my family is prone to. Typically he'll get a headache and seek out darkness when he isn't feeling well. No way he's able to do schoolwork. Because I have them on the same lesson plan daily, it's not really possible to continue on with my other boy without creating a bit of a mess schedule wise. So I'm going to take your advice and head upstairs to do a bit more reading with my well kiddo, and some workbook work in lieu of our normal workload. Thankfully I have plenty of workbooks laying around to give a nice overall 'review' for the day.

 

Hopefully tomorrow goes better than today!!:glare:

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My kids aren't at the same level so it's not the same. If one misses school for some reason, I have a regular day for the others. It seems to average out in the end as various kids miss various days throughout the year. If I have a short teaching day, I teach the kid who is behind in # of days so he/she can get caught up. I also skip content areas to keep us within a few days of each other.

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