Sep 25 2008
Homescooling from the Hospital
My father is in the hospital this week getting a new knee. We planned on visiting him in the evening after his surgery, so our school day involved a lot of projects revolving around Grandpa.
We worked on measurements for math, and baked some cookies to bring to him. Our art project for the day was a cute, potato stamp painting inside a get well card we made for him. The get well card was also our writing practice for the day. Even though Grandpa was too groggly for us to visit him on that first night, we enjoyed learning while also being productive and making gifts for him. This is how I sometimes imagine unschoolers operate, finding ways to learn through everyday activities that need to be done anyway.
On the flip side of that, my mother is under a lot of stress trying to communicate with the doctors, planning what therapy Grandpa will need when he gets home, and also still watching the girls two days this week. They did very little school work today, and the next Grandma day will probably be even worse because that’s the day Grandpa comes home.
However, even though there wasn’t much for Grandma to write down in out teacher planner book today, I think the girls still learned a lot. Maybe nothing that fit neatly into the categories of ‘writing’ or ‘art’, but many things in life don’t fit into categories. For example, my daughter was fascinated with how the machine that kept Grandpa’s leg moving – bending and stretching, bending and stretching, over and over again – worked. She examined it from all angles, and studied all the cords and joints. They got a little lesson on hospital etiquette, which I was proud to see they took very seriously.
And I think it’s wonderful that they also got to learn that sometimes our regular schedule gets put on hold because family is more important.
