When Someone Is Sick

This is our 6th year homeschooling and in that time we have marked *maybe* 2 school days as being "absent". It has been rare that things have come up so quickly I haven't been able to plan around them, by rearranging the hours that we work that day or by substituting another day for the one we need to miss.

In an odd twist of fate, Brandyn came down with the virus my younger children had earlier in the week. Yes, that means we completed all of 2 days of school before having to take a sick day! He was still running a fever when he went to bed tonight, so it looks like another sick day tomorrow......

So, what do you do when you can't have school due to a sickness or emergency on a certain day? Usually, I would suggest planning another day to do school in place of the one you miss. I find it works better that way in our family. But, on occasion I think it is alright to mark your child "absent" for the day, and count it as a school day anyway. You will want to consider your state laws as you decide what is the best for your family. In Tennessee, we are required to school 180 days out of the year. Not every state requires a mandated amount of days though. You can check the laws in your state at www.hslda.org.

The other consideration when missing days is what to do with the work that was planned for that day? This can be really easy or somewhat of a difficult question depending on the materials that you use for school. I personally just prefer to bump the day's work up and start on the missed day when we resume school. I use a white out pen to change the dates on my planning sheets (I usually do detailed planning sheets about a month in advance, which also serves as great records of what we are doing), and go right along. Some homeschoolers choose to try and catch up on the materials by doing a little extra work daily for a specified period of time.