What I Know Now

Monday was a sick day. Nightowl had been up breathing steam at midnight so this wasn't too surprising. What was surprising was the whole concept of "sick day." I remember as a kid that sick day meant relaxing, doing nothing, getting well while watching t.v. As a parent I recall sick days from the time when I was working or when we were doing preschool - the need to arrange childcare, the worry about what we would do ALL DAY LONG. Yikes.

The homeschool sick day is a horse of another color - largely, I suspect, because of my new attitude toward home and activities. So it was a sick day - but we're already home. Nightowl took it easy and stayed on the couch until lunch and during quiet time, after which she was feeling better. What did we do? Exactly what we always do - minus the physcial stuff. We worked on our natural science block, did some reading, some art, learned a little bit more Russian.

The school work we do is no longer "school work" it's everyday. It's what we do. For us learning is no longer a separate activity as in "Now it's time to do school." It just is. I was trying to explain this and our general way of life now to a friend whose kids go to public school. I had a hard time explaining. She laughed and called us all "a bunch-o-buddhas." Which is a good thing - I think? Words from those within the eastern religions.

Anyway, this is now the way and it seems to be working. Today was our second (sorta) sick day - although Nightowl was much better and even went to soccer practice this evening. We spent our craft time working on pop-up faces - a cool little craft that came to us from Wonder Homeschool. Neat!