Productive By Doing Little?

Illness and homeschool makes an interesting mix. Last night, when Samuel started getting sick to his stomach, I was grateful we had taken the precaution to keep him away from other kids due to a cough. Although we did all of his academic subjects yesterday, he missed his speech session and swimming lesson and today we've done very little school.

I had discovered that he and his little brother really enjoyed some documentaries about wild horses. By watching them today, we gave Samuel the opportunity to think about a story line. We had been warned that spectrum kids can be really good at "decoding" or figuring out how to put the letter sounds together into words; but they can have trouble taking those letters and understanding a meaningful piece of information or story. While we read, I'm frequently asking him to recount parts of the story and to try to anticipate what will come next. With the horse documentaries, I could ask, "do you think we'll see the the foals next?" Or, "do you think the fire will scare the horses?"

This reminds me of years ago when I needed to have back surgery. Our oldest, Abigail, was able to work  independently on her high school studies, but I had to be creative to keep her younger sister Esther engaged. So we did a unit on Shakespeare, and while I was recovering from surgery, Esther, my mother, and I watched many movies with classical presentations of Shakespeare. For a long time after that, Esther would pick up Shakespeare just for fun!

Part of me feels like, we "should" be doing so much more today. Another part reminds me that sometimes these "down" days can be quite productive after all. Hmm, come to think of it, he's looking over my shoulder trying to "decode" even as I write this!