Sick, but not stagnant

Well, I went from three posts in one day to nothing all week.

The culprit?  

The sickies.  

First it was Daddy.  Which meant more work for Momma (an extra person to take care of during the day) and more stress from lack of pay (unfortunately, he is in the line of work that means if you're not working, you're not getting paid).

Then it was Momma.  Which really just meant more of the same.  As I explained to the girls, when you have a "job" (you know, the kind where you actually GO to work), if you get sick, you can call into work, stay home and get rest and get better.  When THIS is your "job", there's no such thing.  UGH

Then it was the Hippie.  She hasn't been terribly sick, but she has the most vibrant personality; you know immediately when she is not herself.  For one thing, there is actually a bit of quiet.  :-)

We're still nursing ourselves back to health.  No one is perfect just yet.  But, hopefully we are on the mend.  

This week was supposed to be the start of a lot of our school year's goodies.  Spanish Club was cancelled due to the illness of the leader (must be going around town).  Handwork, though, was not cancelled, so we missed the first one.  Major bummer.  Then, we had to miss our homeschool group's trip to the Museum of Science & History yesterday.  Double bummer.  

Next week starts our Homeschool Theater Troupe and more handwork and more homeschool adventures.  So, we are just hoping to be all better by then.  Keeping our fingers crossed.

So, for the average kid, when they're sick, they don't go to school, which means (to most people) that they don't learn anything (haha ... as if we can't learn anything outside of those four walls).  

For the average homeschooler, when the Momma is sick, they don't "do school", which means (to most homeschoolers) that they don't learn anything (haha again ... as if we can't learn anything without carefully laid out plans and curriculum choices).

So, what about the family that learns through life?  The family that learns organically, naturally, all the time?  What happens in that family when Daddy is sick or Momma is sick or one of the "students" are sick?

A LOT OF LEARNING, that's what. 

Since the sickies entered the household, we've:

• Learned about worms on Wild Kratt's
• Added fractions while making breakfast (1/2 + 1/4 = 3/4)
• Played library
• Practiced reading (the one who's still learning) by reading the directions on the oatmeal
• Calculated the amount of protein in breakfast by dividing and multiplying fractions (8 is 1/3 of 24, 1/3 of 6 is 2, then added all the grams of protein)
• Both girls have made shirts for Daddy's birthday (a tradition we started last year)
• The Princess painted Daddy a picture for his birthday
• The Princess has written a "thank you card" a day 
• The Hippie made Daddy another birthday gift
• painted the inside of brown paper bags to use for wrapping paper
• The Hippie has written several chapters in her book "Mermaid Dreams"
• drawn A LOT
• worked with Sculpy and then did math to determine how long to bake it (measure its thickness, 15 min per 1/4", so for 3/4" it needs to bake for 45 minutes)
•  painted some more
• the Hippie's drawn an illustration for her book
• the Hippie worked outside, creating what she called a 'dog bowl' ... she stood a gutter up against the roof and attached it to a bucket lid, filled in any holes with weather stripping and said that the rain would travel down the gutter and collect in the lid so that the dogs would always have water
• read aloud at night
• the Hippie worked on making a "bomb" with soap and glue and paint and water and whatever she could find (when they girls tried throwing it at the fence, though, it never would explode ... bummer)
• baked with dirt and paint and glue and leaves outside
• made a "Springs" with rocks and twigs and leaves and water ... talked about why the water kept disappearing (soaking into the ground) and why that doesn't happen at the real Springs
• the Princess wants to be able to read SO BAD ... she doesn't want to read the easy readers anymore, she wants to be able to read the chapter books, the real books about horses ... like Black Beauty and the Black Stallion and Misty of Chincoteague and the like 
• Spurred by the above, she broke out her Bob books and started practicing again, on her own, then sounded out the title to Misty of Chincoteague ... then made the connection that the Misty in that book was the same Misty as the one in the album we have of Marguerite Henry's ... then ran off to draw pictures of Misty and declare that Misty was her new favorite horse
• we've watched The Summer of the Colt
• we've watched cooking shows
• we've played with the kittens 
• we've made smoothies
• the Hippie's continued to read about the Titanic and Picasso
• we all watched an adult documentary on the Titanic today ... it was quite intense, but they wanted to watch it
• We've talked about getting books published and what exactly publishers do
• We've talked about what it means to "edit" your book

I could go on and on.  Reading and drawing and playing and creating and painting and cooking and making connections.  All while we were sick.  Awesome!

I just have to share another proud moment in my home.  A morning of proof that the way we are learning is really working! 

This morning, within minutes of waking up, the Hippie runs up to me and says, "Momma, do you know how to say 'omelette' in French?  I do."    "omelette du fromage" 

"Where'd you learn that?"  

"Dexter's Laboratory" (that's a cartoon that would not be considered the least bit educational for those of you who don't already know that)

Ahhhh ... very interesting.

A few minutes later, the girls are eating breakfast and the Hippie tells me to come see.  She has put salt and pepper on the plate and proceeds to rub a pen on her head to create static electricity and then moves the pen slowly over the plate, watching as the pepper jumps up to stick to the pen.  Apparently the pepper is attracted to the electric charge she has created.  

Then, the connection was made that the pepper was just like the little dirt people in her favorite Swiffer commercials.  "So, how does the Swiffer work, then?" "Static Electricity" 

Aaaahhhhh .... 

Connections.  

No lessons planned.  No schedules adhered to.  No worksheets.  No boredom.

Just sickness and lots of fun learning still going on.

So blessed to be a homeschooler!