Study update

We have now come to the end of our habitats study for now. The last section was on changing habitats. All the other ideas I come across need outdoor work which would be better done in spring when the minibeasts are easier to find, inshAllah.
We've been working through a few textbook pages recently, but there are three other activities worth mentioning perhaps.
1.Concept checking with food chains. I wasn't sure whether the boys really got how food chains work, so I asked them each to devise a different food chain using reference books we have on deserts and rainforests. There are no food chains in there as such, just various information about what different creatures eat, so they had to read widely and piece it together.
2. Badger Wood is a game about the consequences on wildlife of cutting down a wood to make room for a road. Follow this link, then click on "play", then "games".
3. Today we watched a presentation from Arkive Education, (look in 7-11 Geography, topic "Habitats and Humans"), and discussed what we saw.

Reading

Ia kindly shared her colouring kit with her brothers today.
And so the days roll on, alhamdulillah.
Today when we read in Ibn Kathir’s “Stories of the Prophets” : “In Surah Al-Anbiya too Allah tells us that He rescued him (Ibrahim (as)) and Lut (as) and they went to a blessed land…” it meant something more to us after our visit to the museum yesterday. Ibrahim (as) had confronted his people and he had confronted the king, and no one could win the argument over him, but still they rejected.
“Have you not considered the one who had an argument with Ibrahim, about his Lord, because Allah had given him kingdom? When Ibrahim said, “My Lord is He who gives life, and causes death,” he replied, “I give life and cause death.” Ibrahim said, “Surely Allah brings the sun from the east, so you bring it from the west.” Thereupon he, who disbelieved was confounded. And Allah guides not the evildoing people.” ( Al- Baqarah 258)
For someone with such pure tawheed as Ibrahim (as) how terrible would be those horrible idols and the people's attachment to their disbelief. Rescue seemed like a good word.

Jumbled

Today and yesterday. I hardly know how to start. So many different moods, little chunks, not blending together at all. Sometimes the mood is set for a day, busy, good, productive, stressed, messy, thoughtful, surprising. Sometimes it can be all of those.
Yesterday I began the day by fainting, which would not generally be seen to be a good start, and my failure to be up and about on time led to the cat being accidentally shut out from the room where her litter tray is, and, in apparent desperation, after I failed to understand her strange noises, she used U's duvet instead. That was the messy bit.
The surprising bit was how much moss the roofer cleared out of the gutters.
The productive bits were that Ia asked to read her phonics books again, and that we went for a day out museum visiting today. This was also the busy part, and the stressful part too. We took the train to the British museum, and then the Science museum.
First of all I wanted to visit the Mesopotamia galleries in the British museum, seeing that we have been studying that. It was interesting, but myself and the boys all found the museum an unpleasant place to be. That place is full of idols, they are everywhere you look (it feels like). It just makes you want to get away as fast as possible, saying "auzubillah" with every step. The Egyptian mummies are right next door to the Mesopotamians, but they didn't even want to look, although I had not let on my feeling to them at that stage and they are interested in history. They just felt uncomfortable. Alhamdulillah, that this what the perished nations are supposed to teach us really, not to follow their ways, they have perished and their idols and wealth could not save them from that. But Allah will never perish. That was a thoughtful moment.
The boys decided that the local museum, with its friendly collection of Roman coins, fossils and town artefacts is better than the British museum!
Anyway, the Science museum is wholesome enough, but it is SO crowded and noisy, U had a tantrum, even Ia started crying over nonsense at one point. Its worth going, but it certainly is stressful.
We've also come to the end of our reading of "Muhamed Man and Prophet" by Adil Salahi. The last chapter, describing the end of the Prophet's (saw) life, is written in such a moving way. The author brings to us so strongly the shock and sense of loss of the people at that time, it is very moving to read. Also the details about the Prophet's last days, how he would go to see the Companions praying together in the mosque, and they would be so happy to see him there. Such amazing times in which those Companions lived, the enormity of living your life from day to day with the expectation that at any time Allah could reveal something that would cause you to change yourself and your life beyond anything you could have imagined. They were ready for whatever changes and sacrifices to be asked of them at any time. How about us?
So many thoughts and feelings jumbled together. What will tomorrow bring? Alhamdulillah.

Monday

Today we were learning about the time when Ibrahim (as) was thrown into the fire by his people. "We (Allah) said "Oh fire! Be you coolness and safety for Ibrahim!" (21:69)

Over the weekend we made a second visit to the local museum, because the boys were keen to look again at the bits we had to rush past last time. This time they found drawers of medieval coins and keys, and drawers of fossils.

Today, between our usual work they devised a tv shedule, and "presented", amongst other things, the news. J also decided to make a cardboard robot model and Ia asked to read a couple of phonics books, which I think she has mostly memorised, but its a start, inshAllah.

Sometimes I get surprised by what someone has picked up and remembered. At the weekend I planted some garlic outside. Noone was with me, so I did not think anyone had picked up on what I was doing. However, today I heard R explaining about planting garlic in pots. So you don't always know how or why learning takes place, it just does. SubhanAllah.

The ups and downs of spontaneity

Something I like about home education is being able to do things when you feel like it, and when you look outside and the weather tells you that today would be a good day to....
visit the local museum. It was our first visit and the boys were impressed. It is basically a local history museum, but there were lots of practical things for the children to do, even things for U to handle. There were activity sheets aimed at just their level, and another Ia could join in with too, and of course we had the child focussed displays to ourselves.
The visit gave good knock on effects for the rest of the day too, as the day's sheduled work was finished more smoothly than usual. Alhamdulillah.
In other thoughts, when travelling on public transport with a two year old beware of unwelcome announcements. "I done a poo in my pants" U said loudly. "No you haven't" I say shusshing her and eying nearby commuters. Well, she hadn't- she was just bored and looking for some reaction, time for another retelling of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears.

Something Colourful

to brighten up these dark, dank November days. Wrapping paper collage.

Lots of hedgehog work going on in science. Hedgehog "property particulars", hedgehog menus, hedgehog diaries with descriptions of determined hedgehogs "shuffling on", finding tasty insect treats in the farmer's garden.

We're making lots of use of the Explore mountains site (learn about mountains, in sidebar), and the Woodlands section on moutains. Reading the information, watching the animation links, and noting down some main points. Primary resources also has some powerpoint files on mountains, which are good for further leads. All these sites divide the topic into useful chunks, which we can look at one at a time.

Reminder

Each little point on this cauliflower spirals up with lots of little spiral points coming out of it. SubhanAllah. It is so precise. Just seeing this vegetable is a reminder of tawheed. Well, I just have to keep looking at it.

We've had a very sociable weekend, including a chance for the boys to meet up with a group of their childhood friends. That was a treat for me too, because I do really enjoy seeing them all together, racing about.

Frost and Verbal

First "whole-garden-frost" of the year.

U is a very verbal child, maashAllah, she has a good vocabulary. Sometimes , however actions are better than words. When she cleans her teeth U brushes, looks at the sink, says "spit", then swallows. That really isn't the idea, you know?

Little Bits of Bite Size Learning

Jam tarts with letters on. Can you just about make them out?
I like this bite sized learning approach. Lots of short, concentrated activities, but returning to a topic very regularly.
Ia benefits from this type of style. I like to do lots of what I think is called "pre-adding" activities. Yesterday Ia and I laid out several sheets of different coloured paper, assembled some toy animals and arranged them in the "field", the "sandy place" and the "muddy place". Then the animals went around visiting each other. Ia counted how many animals there were already in one place, decided how many would be visiting, and worked out how many there would be once the visitors arrived. There are lots of variations to this. Today we played shopping, with 1p coins only, buying two items at a time. This is adding, without mentioning adding.
Something else the bigger three have been doing is looking up animals on the Arkive site. Ia loves the pictures and the boys wrote out all the creatures they could find beginning with the letters J, R and I. Later they were "being" those creatures. Ia complained that her cubs kept being eaten. Boys wanted to be top predators, Ia wanted to be something cute and furry.

Continuing habitats study

English Nature has a useful habitats unit, (scroll down on link page) which we have been working on.
We actually began with an article from a gardening magazine which told us about hedgehogs, blue tits and bumble bees, and how to build nesting boxes for them. It would be nice to build something, but it looks far too complicated.
Then we moved onto the English Nature unit, "Habitats- Are Our School Grounds Hedgehog Friendly?". Well, first we have to change that to garden, but its easy to adapt. I have not used all the lessons, things like sketching parts of the garden would be met with groans, and as I imagine the main purpose of that activity is to get children observing the environment I think that it is less necessary in such a familiar place as the garden, which we have already examined in the course of this study. The boys probably know its less accessible areas much better than me anyway, as they are the ones who go crawling under bushes to retrieve balls they've hit there.
The lesson on food chains was good though. We made the cards for different living things, but as we didn't have 30 children to hold one each, we just laid them out on the floor, and removed the ones which got eaten/killed. We found out any information we didn't already know about what each creature eats and is eaten by, using Arkive and Wikipedia.
Today it is the hedgehog fact file activity, finding out more details about the hedgehog. InshAllah I'll use the rest of the lesson suggestions over the rest of this week and next.
Considering the large number of cats which hang around this garden I don't think we should try to encourage any hedgehogs here. Its a stressful place for wildlife, we see very few small birds. Obviously hedgehogs have their defences, but still...?

What is the meaning of "Wibbly Pig's Silly Big Bear"?

My under 5s enjoy lots of picture books from the library. Usually these books are very simple, funny or moral. Sometimes there is something different, even surprising. Take for example the much used with early years, "Farmer Duck". It looks like the usual fare but when you read it you find its practically revolutionary propoganda. Fat, lazy farmer makes inarticulate, oppressed duck do all the farm jobs while he lies in bed, shouting down to duck "How goes the work?" (note odd word order). Oppressed duck arranges uprising with other animals during which farmer is thrown off the premises. Duck then presides over joyful peasant/worker rural idyll scene where all the animals co-operate together, under apparant leadership of duck.
That was a surprise.
Then take "Wibbly Pig's Silly Big Bear", by Mick Inkpen. On the back the blurb says, "Being clever is not all that counts. Mick Inkpen's funny and poignant story explores this simple theme." However on reading it it is striking how this story is nothing to do with cleverness.
The Silly Big Bear displays all the qualities of a 18 month old child. He cannot use a spoon to eat peas, cannot use a potty, hides by covering his eyes, scribbles on walls, loves bubbles and bouncing and crashing about. Then it says "And he will disappear your trouble inside a hug", then it goes on to say that when all the bubbles have blown away, when the bear is gone "...we will miss him more than anyone."
WHAT!
Who is the bear? Why does he go? Why do we miss him so? A book for little ones with an apparantly sad ending?
These are my suggestions.
Is the Silly Big Bear the sweetness of little ones, and a warning to us adult readers to enjoy their babyhood before they grow up? The hug from a little one is sweet enough to disappear a trouble. The story suggests that the bear will not be coming back.
Is the Silly Big Bear the innocence of toddlerhood, the joyfulness of laughing at funny things, and the enthusiasm of small children, which we all go through, and then we leave behind forever as we take on the cares of growing up? Silly Big Bear is full of this type of carefree joy.
So why is he so big (he can hardly fit on the page)? Is it because when you have a tiny person in your home they seem to take up the whole place with their things and their mess and their noises and their demands? Does the Silly Big Bear remind us to savour that, for its specialness? Is he so big because for a small person, their feelings and experiences fill up the whole of the world, as they see it?
Well I can't ask Mick Inkpen, so I'll have to just wonder.
And this is why I don't read fiction, except to my children, so that my thoughts will not be overrun by distractions from the rememberence of Allah.
And although this story has reminded me to notice as much as I can before it passes, it also reminds me that whenever you give a work of fiction to a child to read it is like having a stranger sit down with them to explain their take on life. That's a thought, isn't it?

Mountains and maps

More puzzle maps here. Good for mountains topic.

One of those days

when we all got caught up in something or other. The lid of this "vehicle" lifts up and two boys can squeeze in. Later there was an elaborate game involving the pop up tent and a lot of blankets in the front room, which added to the fact that to make the vehicle the box had to be first emptied out onto the floor, means that that room is now fairly trashed. U was looking for something in the filing cabinet toy drawer, and then decided to get all the puzzles out, so this room is pretty much gone too. On the up side, the above mentioned projects left me free to wash a window upstairs.

Any work? Snippets. Page of maths, comprehension, reading seerah, Quran recitation, French DVD followed by French reading, wordsearch and picture labelling, revising mountain ranges on a map, recording the names of mountain ranges on a Powerpoint slide.

Yesterday evening U organised the other three into lessons. She sat before them and told them to write letters, then numbers and draw pictures. Then they had to draw lines, then a map. She praised them for finishing their "work" too!

So why does it seem that the day has run away?

Maybe because I have to start potty training U - and have made no progress at all.

Photos

Some by me.

And some by boys, while I'm not looking.

Groups and keys links

As part of the science habitats topic this week we have been looking at groups and keys.
At crickweb there is this very useful activity for sorting. Go to keystage two, science, habitats.
At sciencenetlinks there is a fun game for grouping creatures by various criteria. The boys also did the second follow on activity from there today. I'm having trouble with a direct link, but go to the home page, then lessons, scroll down to the 3-5 section, click on Classification2 A Touch of Class, again scroll down to click on touch of class again. It takes a while but is worth it!
J and R also told me about a game called Buzz which uses the format of an identification key.
To finish off we devised a key for identifying a bee, (based on the one in the textbook).