Jump to content

Menu

When teacher is sick...


Recommended Posts

When you're sick and cannot really teach well, do you push through anyway, modify your day, do half days, skip a day but make up for it later?

 

I'm struggling as I'm recovering from an illness, my preschooler is in a funk (yelling and crying and screaming on and off since she woke up) so I think she's sick too, but DS is fine. I worked as much with DS as I could but got maybe 20% of our work done after four hours because of me and the preschooler. I finally am putting little one down to rest and DS has audiobooks on, but I'm wondering if I should just give up on today or try to do more after lunch. What do you tend to do?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When you're sick and cannot really teach well, do you push through anyway, modify your day, do half days, skip a day but make up for it later?

 

I'm struggling as I'm recovering from an illness, my preschooler is in a funk (yelling and crying and screaming on and off since she woke up) so I think she's sick too, but DS is fine. I worked as much with DS as I could but got maybe 20% of our work done after four hours because of me and the preschooler. I finally am putting little one down to rest and DS has audiobooks on, but I'm wondering if I should just give up on today or try to do more after lunch. What do you tend to do?

 

:grouphug:

 

When I'm sick, I'm sick. There's no Official School Stuff.

 

Have a jammy day. Watch your favorite movies. Let the dc free-play.

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I am just a little sick I push through.  If I am just not feeling up to it I call it quits until I am well.  Pushing through when I am too sick will only lead to short tempers, me not being clear or helpful, and just general chaos  It also tends to lead to me being sick longer because I am not getting proper rest.  When kids were younger DH would take the day to work from home and help with meals and such while I rested.  He didn't take over teaching, but could help with making sure I got rest and running kids to activities.  Now that the kids are older they take care of mom.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I take the day off. If I feel unwell then I'm not a pleasant teacher. I can usually only be mom on those days.

I give my kids thigs to do with a new activity every 30 min or so. For example: 30 min of iPad games, then I dimp out Legos and let them build for about 30 min, then they listen to an audiobook, then they play a game...

I've found that by changing the activity every 30 min they are too busy to have time to fight and argue. My kids are still young and need some direction from me. I usually hang out on the couch with a book so I can still supervise.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Last year I would have said, if I'm sick then I'm sick.  We aren't doing school.  But I have been struggling with a mystery chronic illness since last December, so now there are levels of sick each with its own procedure.  

 

Blinding pain, cannot leave my darkened bedroom- Chaos rules, lol.  If the big(ger) boys can keep the littler happy and quiet than that was a successful day.  I call it life-skills and move on.

Not functioning all that well, but getting around-  I asses my state honestly, and then prioritize.  How much CAN I do?  Whats MOST NEEDS to be done; chore-wise, school-wise, life-wise?  Sometimes school loses out and it's just overseeing that independent work gets done (math practice, writing something, reading something, listening to audio, ect), sometimes I can hit the most important subjects for the day.  Sometimes I start strong and fade fast so I do try to go in the order of priority.  

 

Functioning ok, just not feeling well- I push through it.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I am sick, I call my sub. Miss Frizzle takes my classes and the kids go on fantastic field trips with her. :)

That was so funny! DS has seen all the magic school bus episodes! I tried to sell popular mechanics but an audiobook won out.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My problem is my own grumpiness and inability to have patience that's the biggest problem when I'm unwell. Thankfully preschooler slept and I did math and reading and a little read aloud with DS. Then I quit. We still have to go to swimming so I'm going to pick up take out. I'll quiz some spelling while we drive too (maybe).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the kid is old enough where missing days makes a difference (ie, high school), they're old enough to work on their own without mom. If they're not old enough to do that, an occasional day off for mom's sickness isn't going to hurt them in the least. I rarely get sick enough to need to call a sick day.

 

Obviously chronic illness is different. At that point, you have to figure out some way to educate your kids.

 

I had a complicated pregnancy this year. We had a lot if partial days. We didn't do a million subjects. We are not the poster children for classical education this year. That said, my kids have still progressed in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Since this was a long term issue, I stripped our subjects down and used less teacher intensive curricula.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I'm sick:  My oldest does her work on her own. Next two do their independent subjects as best they can. The youngest two get the day off.

 

I've been known to do the public-school-substitute trick & hand over movies for them to watch (Liberty Kids, Carmen Sandiego). I usually wait until the afternoon so eldest gets a chance to get some work done. (I'm all tylenoled up today so that I'm not in bed shivering with a fever. Kids are all recovering from the same thing, so they had limited school today.)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm the persevering type so I tend to take a short break, regroup and then plod on.  Even if we are working at a snail's pace, we are still getting something accomplished.

 

This morning I had a migraine right as I was looking at math with ds12 so I took a break, he did something else, and when we returned to school, I put in a DVD that was slotted for viewing this week on WW1.  My older two can be mostly independent, if needed, so this helps.  I have no toddlers to wrangle.  That would change things.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have never taken a day off for being sick, however, we have worked a VERY modified schedule. When my kids were younger, they would bring all their books in on my bed and they'd read to me and if I was up to it I'd read to them. We did MUS back then, so we could usually still get math done (DVD drive on the tv in my room). Science might get done if it was reading, but if it needed activity, it might get skipped. 

 

I had a year with some fairly severe chronic health issues. If we didn't do school every time I couldn't get out of bed for the day, I would have had to send the kids to ps. We did everything planned for the year, but we did rearrange the schedule to make it possible.

 

If I was rarely sick, I might just take the day off. :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

today I asked my kiddos to do what they could on their own, then to do their "computer work" (duolingo, xtramath and typing web), then I asked DS to research a famous building and build it in minecraft, and gave DD a list of castle features and asked her to build be a castle with those features labelled (also in minecraft).  Then I made my way through three boxes of tissues and a fair amount of paracetemol. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Philosophy: Sometimes half a loaf of bread is better than no loaf at all.

1) What things can my child(ren) do independently?

--Piano:  Send dd to practice independently for 20 minutes, rather than the usual 30-with-instruction.  I don't even care what she plays, as long as her hands are touching the piano keys.

--The math facts sheets in the math lesson. 

--Writing with no expectations of spelling or grammar.  We can fix those on another day.

--General workbook pages (Explode the Code, Test Prep Practice, etc).

 

2) Science Documentaries, until I feel so sick that I give in and let them watch whatever they want while I lock the door and go lay down.
 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sick. Bronchitis I feel like garbage. But, my kids need structure or they fight all day, so we push through. I make a detailed schedule on the white board, give kids worksheets when I can, cut out subjects that are too teacher intensive (like Greek) and the rest, do from my bed. Yesterday I laid in bed all day, the kids came to me with their stack of books, we went through what we needed to do and off they went. It worked out all right.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We just take the day(s) off. We school year round though and only deal with the "normal" winter illnesses. If we stuck to a typical school schedule and/or were dealing with chronic health issues it might be different.

 

During the past 2 months we've had the cold/cough/fever thing and the stomach bug thing. And boy, did we stretch them out! We had both going through the house at the same time but only one or two of us sick at a time for 6+ weeks. We did no school on the fever/puking days and limited school on the less sick/recovery days. We usually stick with a few minutes of math and some reading. We also watch more educational TV on light days - How The States Got Their Shapes, Brain Games, Liberty's Kids, Curious George, CyberChase, Magic School Bus, as well as a variety of nature and survival type shows are all enjoyed on sick days around here.

 

We are finally all healthy again and back to our full schedule this week - minus the extracurricular stuff since my van is in the shop for the second time in 2 weeks. If it's not one thing it's another....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When my kids were sick, we used to just do stuff that could keep them busy and educate them without me getting off the couch.  Free play is not a good idea because I would fall asleep and find them tearing up the house.  Some things we used to do were:

read aloud

them read aloud

documentaries (educational stuff like Nova, BBC Nature, Reading Rainbow DVDs if we had them on hand. etc.)

Let them play outside for a little while, when I had to be up and about anyway.  (if you have your own yard)

Water Color paints

 

 

 

Now, if I was not sick enough to feel like I need to rest at all (a very mild cold) I would do all school stuff, because I knew the kids either had been sick or would be sick and would need several days of rest.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...