Pushing through, headache and all....

As a stay-at-home mom and homeschool mom, I don't get the day off.  Not even a sick day.  I don't remember the last time I stayed in bed the whole day.  When my kids get sick, I have them stay in bed. That means no school and no television. We have no TVs in the bedrooms.  So they can't pretend they're sick to stay in bed and watch TV.  I remember doing that as a kid.  Just to make sure they get the rest they need and they don't spread the germs and get everyone in the house sick, they get quarantined, so-to-speak. They can read books and sleep.  If they're really sick, that's all they want to do anyway. Well, today I had a terrible headache. One of those headaches that hurt just to open my eyes.  I would've given anything to be able to just stay in bed.  I couldn't read, but I wouldn't have minded having someone read to me.  I often tell my kids, "When I'm really old, I just want to sit by the window where I have a view of nature (garden, mountains or ocean), play worship music and read to me."

On days like today, I'm thankful for our online curriculum and for teenage kids who help me with their little sister Samantha.  I only had to guide Samantha on which assignments she needed to do, and later look at her scores.  At one point, though, I heard her giggling and laughing.  I had to walk over to her computer to make sure she hadn't stopped doing her work. And she was.  I lingered close by just to hear what was so funny.  She was working on her 4th grade Language Arts, which is her favorite subject.  Today's lesson was on antonyms.  I know if she'd had to study antonyms from a workbook, she wouldn't have enjoyed it or understood it as well. Samantha is a right-brained visual learner.  So actually having the lesson presented visually is very helpful in retaining what she is learning.  The interactive and animated lessons really hold her attention.  Today Rita and Jack Riley were making her laugh with their jokes and the funny sounds they were making as they explained and talked about the different antonyms.

Samantha's social study lesson covered a lot of new vocabulary that are unfamiliar to her.  Her lesson was about Vikings.  Before finishing the lesson and starting her quiz, my older daughter Amber made a list of all the words and had her play some vocabulary games to help her understand and remember the vocabulary definitions and spellings.  One of the games was filling in which word accurately completes the sentence based on contextual clues.  Samantha does most of her online lessons independently, unless she's having trouble with a concept or has to repeat a lesson. When she's ready to take the quiz, she lets me know and I watch her go through it.  I was so proud of her as I watched her get every answer correct. I think the vocabulary context games helped her remember and retain the information in the Viking lesson.  Tomorrow we'll read a book on Vikings and that era.  We'll also review the lesson one more time just to be sure it's concrete before moving on.