History and Rhymes

This post could also be called "Racing the clock", because that is what it has felt like today! I've just been home, but when I'm in planning mode I just can't get things done fast enough!

Today we finished the storyboard project on Prophet Shu'ayb (as). We had a sequence of 8 points for the story. After that we went through the verses of the Quran relating to Shu'ayb (as), using Ibn Kathir, finding within them examples of Shu'ayb (as) fulfilling the duties of prophets. (Calling to Tawheed, Warning, Speaking Out, Guiding the people etc.).

We listed 10 duties and noted down the Quran references to go with each.

Ia had a friend over again. (This is spoiling her really, alhamdulillah!). Today we did some work on rhymes. I began by reading them a phonics reader, containing lots of rhyming words. Then we remembered the rhyming words, using context clues from the story. I listed them on the whiteboard, then pointed out the spelling pattern, they all ended with OG. Then the children each read through the list. Ia doesn't read yet, but as she can do initial sounds, and I prompted her, she could read them through. Then we found other short rhyming words, and listed them. They were coming out with lots of rhymes by this time, alhamdulillah! We played odd one out, with me saying aloud a set of words, one of which did not rhyme, and they had to spot which it was. Then we played with a set of rhyme flashcards I have.

After that it was on to more pattern block creations!

Thinking of Spring

Ia had a friend over again today and together we all (includes friend's mother) put the spring tree poster together. It's actually bigger than it looks in the picture. It was done on textured wallpaper, rubbed with crayon. The friend's mum did the flowers, maashAllah.
The girls also did some maths. I put 10 yellow, 10 pink and 10 brown cubes in a cloth bag. Then we took out any 10 cubes, sorted them into colour groups and wrote down the addition calculation. (2+5+3=10, for example).
Next they played with shape cards, organizing them into sets of the same shape and naming the shape. They cooperated well on this, maashAllah.
Then they got creative with the pattern blocks, see below.

Apples and stories

Yesterday the boys continued with the farming project by looking at an example of an apple farm in the UK. Having the internet is such an advantage for work like this. I'm not sure how I would go about gathering information on farms and what they produce without it. Many farms have their own websites, primarily to promote their products of course, but they helpfully give some background information on themselves as well. Of course most such farms are the smaller family run type, especially those promoting organic/free range / unusual varities. Large conventional farms are not so open about themselves, but then they don't need to promote in the same way. I will be pointing these things out. The farming education site has some case studies on it to use too.
Yesterday they used the website to answer the following:
Where is Tullens Fruit Farm?
What varities of fruit do they grow?
How do they sell their crop?
What else is produced on the farm?
What has changed in apple farming?
How does a farm shop seem to be different from a supermarket?

As the weather gradually improves, inshAllah everyone will want to spend more time in the garden. Yesterday the boys played "cricket" out there and the girls went for a run around. U often asks to go out to run around. The boys did well in terms of exercise yesterday as they also got to go cycling with H and had a swimming lesson. It is worth letting them play outside in the afternoon, even if it does mean that we continue studies in the evening.

Ia had a friend over, and we did some English work together. I read them the story of the Enormous Turnip, and we discussed the "list style" it uses. Then the girls did pictures to show what they felt was the most important part of the story (giant turnips), and wrote sentences to explain. Ia wrote, "They all pulled. It came out." When I say wrote I mean that she dictated what she wanted to write, I wrote it and she copied it out. After that I asked them to write their own story, with a list element. Of course they are only young, you must wonder how they could possibly do that! They wrote in pictures of course, adding any words they could. Both girls chose a story about cats which went out to find food. If they feel that they have written a story, they will believe that they can write stories, which will mean, inshAllah, that in the future they really will write stories.

Remembering Ramadan

I planted the bulbs for these crocus flowers in Ramadan. At that time we had read about how the Sahabah used to pray to Allah in the six months before Ramadan to extend their lives so that they could fast Ramadan and in the months after they would pray that Allah accept their fast of Ramadan. When I planted the bulbs I thought that inshAllah they would flower once we were around halfway to the next Ramadan, which it is. A time to think about what we have been doing since Ramadan, have we been keeping up with the intentions of that month? Have we prayed that Allah accept our last Ramadan, are we hoping for the next already?
And what better promt to the rememberance of Allah than the sight of some of His springtime creations?

Its been a usual sort of day. Nothing wrong with that, alhamdulillah. Ia has improved a lot on her initial sounds, and her addition to totals less than 10 is coming on well. The boys continued the storyboard for the history of Shu'ayb (as) and began using new workbooks for French.

Seeds

These are some seeds my children chose to grow for our garden, inshAllah. Ia chose pink nasturtium and pompom asters. The boys wanted giant sunflowers. I haven't grown flowers from seeds before, so we are all learning together. Today we planted lupin seeds in a compost tray, and left it on the kitchen windowsill. Our garden shed is glazed and shelved on one side, so it's a kind of potting shed. But it may be too cold still, and probably I'd forget to water anything I left in there!

Sure I know what the books say about the germination of the seed, and what it needs to grow, but this doesn't make me any more sure about caring for them correctly. The seeds will only grow if Allah wills. I really hope they do grow!

The Coconut

To cover the history of the Prophet Shu'ayb (as) we are making a "storyboard" to go on the wall. Yesterday we divided the account into eight points. For each we will, inshAllah, draw and write a poster so that when they are displayed they tell the story. More on that when it is done inshAllah.

The highlight of the morning was the arrival of a coconut (the brown hairy type) in the fruit and vegetable delivery. Now, I have never had to deal with such a coconut before, and I did not know what to do with it. The kids tried striking it with butter knives, to no effect. So I butchered it with a meat cleaver. This took a long time and so much husk flew around the kitchen that I'm sure to be finding bits of it in odd corners for months to come. The kids drank the juice, mixed with other fruit juice, and we munched on coconut. A new experience for us all. (There must be a better way.)

For the rest of the day's work the boys used the Iqra workbook to study tasfir of Surah Kafiroon, we started the activities from the Farming Matters activity book I downloaded from FACE, Ia did bits of workbooks and a collage with old wrapping paper, and so on and so on. Alhamdulillah.

Running After Myself

Today has just been.....
U has been very funny, maashAllah. She helped me mix up muffins this morning, but that is not the funny bit. U says that when she is bigger and I am her age, she will look after me. This is what she will do for me when our roles are reversed, she will get me to sleep at night (but I will have to sleep in my own bed), when I call she will bring me a drink in a cup with a lid on it. She will give me food, buy me toys, allow me to watch TV and she will teach the boys. She will shout at the boys until they come downstairs, then they will do good writing. She will also look after Papa when he is a little boy, but Ia will be her sister.

Today we got into the geography farming project. I finished reading to them the library book we had borrowed, featuring four farms in different parts of the world. Then I came across this excellent farming educational resource. InshAllah I will be making use of the primary level materials on there. Today we watched the video about farming, then we discussed these questions:
Where are farms?
What are farms for?
What do farmers grow?
How do farmers decide what to grow?
The purpose of these questions was really to open up the hugeness of this topic, to show the boys how varied farms must be, and the importance of their role.

But we didn't get everything else done that I wanted to today. So much of everything to do!!!

Round and round and up and down

Using interlocking cubes of one colour at a time we made sets of rods of lengths 1 to 8.

Then we joined together sets of two colours to represent the number bonds for 8.

Then using the bicoloured rods to help, Ia wrote down the number bonds.

Today has been tiring in an illogical kind of way. Busy, yes. With enough to account for all that busy busy? Not sure. Anyway, I apologise for the disjointed nature of this post.

Yesterday we went to the library, so these past couple of days have involved lots of reading. This morning began with reading library books with the girls. Later I read the boys their usual story of the sahabah and a chapter from “The Woodbegoods”. In between they read their library books. We also read the history of the Prophet Shu’ayb, and started reading a geography book on farming around the world. Lots of reading. Its so easy it almost feels like cheating.
The boy’s maths has been about circles. Drawing circles with a pair of compasses, cutting and folding circles, learning about degrees of an angle, learning about the directional compass.
Think about this, I heard on the radio today that a British university is involved in a £2000,000 world wide project to discover whether belief in God is a part of human nature.
Surah Al-Araaf 172 “When your Lord drew forth from the loins of the children of Adam, their descendants and made them testify concerning themselves. (Saying): “Am I not your Lord?” They said “Yes, we testify to it” This in case you say on the Day of Judgement, “We were unaware of this.”
This information is available free of charge, thanks to the mercy of Allah, but no amount of money can buy imaan. Looking for answers to questions which have already been answered, that is really going round in circles, with all sense of direction lost.

Having some social time

I don't pick flowers, but these were knocked over by a football, so I brought them in.
We've been having visitors and making new friends. I don't plan for "holidays" from home education, I find that from time to time we will become temporarily busy doing social things, and that becomes a holiday time, or at least a time for a reduced timetable. It is time to get back into things fully again now though!
The kids were given a gingerbread house kit to make. The list of ingredients looks as if a knowledge of chemistry is required to understand it. It was fun to make though. There were more candies and icing to go on but the thing was about to collapse, so they stopped. Shortly after the photo it all caved in. Today I shall have to negotiate how much of it I will actually allow them to eat.

Muddy Carpets

A consequence of lots of outdoor play in a muddy February garden. Lots of muddy trousers to launder too.
Ia's maths activity for today was as follows: I drew a 6x6 grid on 1cm squared paper. In the first line she shaded one square in one colour, and the other 5 squares in another colour. On the next line she shaded two, and four, the third line three and three. By this time she understood the pattern. The last line was coloured in one colour only. This coloured grid represented number bonds for 6. Then, next to each line she wrote out the matching calculation (1+5=6, etc). This done she used cusinaire rods to place over the coloured squares, thereby representing the number bonds once again.
Later we went to the park with friends. It was very busy, because of school holidays. There were seven children in our party today. I love to see them race ahead into the park, together. But they made me think of the other children we have enjoyed park visits with in the past, in other parks. It is really such a privilage to share our lives with children. Alhamdulillah.

New Links

Sometimes I end the home educating day feeling a little disappointed at not having achieved what I set out to that day. At these times it can help to look back at what the children achieved, regardless of my role in it.
U: Today U achieved her ambition to just dig in soil. Usually there are so many little plants around that I don't let her wield a trowel randomly, but in the newly dug, empty bit of ground she can dig all she likes. As she dug she sang a little song "I diggin, I diggin", much as Winnie The Pooh might have sung had he done any digging, except he would have probably had more verses.
Ia: Spent a large part of the day on the computer. With the help of the excellent iboard she added up the values on coins, and found totals less than 10. Her brothers have often teased her with "You don't know what one plus one is", but now she does.
Boys: Listened to a brief history of Zaid ibn Thabit, the great scholar, scribe and translator for the Prophet Muhammed (saw), and compiler of the Quran. They also enjoyed the last two chapters of the "Treasure Seekers", (I have the sequal), did other bits of maths, English, Quran, baked a chocolate cake, played in the garden, did science stuff online.

Actually, when I look at it like that it doesn't seem so bad after all!
I was looking for more stuff about our current science topic and found some new useful links. I've put them in the sidebar. The Institute for Physics does not seem like a place for primary education, but if you look in the activities section you can find some ideas suitable for primary level. The other sites have a range of resources to explore.

Always a work in progress

Following on from dissolving. Each glass contains water as near saturated with salt as we could get. Between the glasses is a cotton thread. By capillary action the water moves along the thread, then evaporates, leaving salt crystals behind. We have observed the salt left behind from where the water splashes evaporated from the outside of the glass. There is also salt on the thread. The experiment book says leave it for a day or two, and the saucer is in case enough salt gathers to drop down. I kind of doubt that will happen! The instructions said use a thread, but will enough water travel along a thread? Would something thicker be better as more absorbent? Maybe we can try this later. Today I wanted the boys to set up the experiment from the book themselves, as they need the practice at reading and following instructions. They can be so eagar to get a result that they mess it up by not checking what they are supposed to be doing. They also did another experiment holding a cold, dry spoon over hot coffee and finding that the droplets collected were not coffee flavoured.

Also today we read the tafsir from Ibn Kathir on Surah Al-Kawther, following up work from a week ago.Then they wrote a paragraph in their own words on what they had learnt.

Ia spent the day largely on the computer. I refound my iboard subscription and arranged for its renewal. I really would recommend that site, or "online club" as they call it, for children aged 4 to 7. Ia happily returns to those activities again and again. There is lots of room for narrative exploration, and whatever the teaching objective is it is clearly and effectively met, in my opinion. The home use subscription rate is very reasonable, and you can use a free trial first.

I was hoping to get more time in the garden today, but after the days outside the kids seemed to be missing their indoor games, and I only got a little weeding done. A garden is always a work in progress, as they say on "Gardeners World" (TV programme), but then once you think about it almost everything is a work in progress (never finished), housework, learning, improving imaan and remembering Allah better.

Is it really February?

We've spent a large part of the weekend in the garden. Coats were left in the cupboard and we ate ice cream in the garden, lunch in the garden, had tea in the garden. The boys were very helpful as I cleared more grass and other debris. They swept up and dug over the soil.
This morning there is a crispy frost, but later the sunshine will creep from the back of the garden, inshAllah, and we can go back outside.

February Sunshine

Another flower emerges, subhanAllah. Again, I have no idea what it is yet. It closes up its petals as the sun goes down.

This afternoon the weather was so lovely, maashAllah, that we abandoned work to play in the garden. I clipped the conifer hedge and began digging up and relocating some edging bricks along the path. I'm trying to eliminate small patches of grass which are awkward to mow.

All in all in these past few days there have been people to see, phone calls to make and resources to research, so less organised education going on. I do like structure, because I love to plan, research and so on, but I don't feel the need to implement the structure over us as if it were a burden. Sometimes plans don't work out, but then I just adapt them! Since we finished the mountains topic we have not done any geography, except some research into the Dead Sea one day. I'm trying to find another topic to go with. My method for this is to just look around at possible topic ideas and wait for one to stand out as interesting, then I check that there are materials to back it up. I quite like the idea of looking at food and farming, where food is grown, how it is transported and so on. Once I've settled on that I think about how to present our findings, should it be Powerpoint, scrapbook, folder? One project each, or a joint effort? Joint effort is good but often results in one person doing one section , while the other pays no attention until it is time to read it back. I think to myself, what skills will be used to organise and present this work?

I just do think this way. As a child I was one of those who arranged her bookshelves in alphabetical order (outsize books separately), and then set myself the challenge of reading through the whole lot in order, whether I enjoyed the story or not. Later I made out a numbering system, and index list for all books. I also organised holiday task schemes for my sister and friend. Not that we ever finished them.

Alhamdulillah. Please make dua for anyone you know who is in difficulty right now.

Things done in a day

Another leisurely morning. Things are getting way too slow in the mornings. But this only matters if stuff gets pushed back till 8pm.
U fell asleep before dinner yesterday, after proving to herself that she can walk to and back from a place about 10 minutes from home. How nice to be able to go without the buggy, even if it is just very local. Anyway, she was up early after that, so I spent some time with her before cleaning the bathroom. I also trimmed her hair. She was sure it would hurt. So they’ve all had haircuts in the past few days. The boys went to the barber, but got such a terrible cut that I had to go over it with the clippers afterwards. After Ia woke up the girls had baths. This is how time slips away.
One bonus of having a compost heap at the bottom of the garden is that you have to go out to it every day to dispose of the fruit and veg bits. If I didn’t have to do this I might not go into the garden some days, and what a lot I would miss. This is when I spot new plants emerging from the ground, it’s when l look at the flowers. It’s usually a morning task in winter.
Meantime the boys and girls were playing in their rooms, only coming down when they were hungry enough. Once they were at the table I could take the chance to read to them. This morning we read the history of Rabi’ah ibn Ka’b, from “The Loyal Ansar” by Noura Durkee. R loved the bit where Rabi’ah has a dispute with Abu Bakr. In anger Abu Bakr said something hurtful to Rabi’ah, which he immediately apologised for. Abu Bakr told Rabi’ah to say something hurtful to him in return, and when Rabi’ah refused to do so Abu Bakr went to the Prophet (saw) to complain about that. Rabi’ah was so afraid that Abu Bakr would be angry with him, making the Prophet (saw) angry, making Allah (swt) angry. Lessons for us in our conduct.
After that we read two chapters of the “Treasure Seekers”, then the boys disappeared to their room again. Funny how they said they liked their room to be messy, but since I gave it a thorough clean over the weekend they’ve been spending a lot more time in it. Ia and U played, coloured and before I knew it the morning had gone and it was time to make lunch.
Today I started Ia using the computer recitation programme. Not in an organised way of course, but you can set a surah on loop, so she can sit by the computer and copy along with the qari. She sees the boys using it, so I hope she’ll take it on board, inshAllah. In this way she can focus on what she is hearing, rather than listen to a longer recording. After our focus on Surah Masad a few weeks ago U loves to say “bat yadd”, maashAllah. She babble recites, and I can tell that she has picked up the general tone and intonation of the recitation she hears, maashAllah. Some children her age probably know several short surahs off by heart already, their parents are amazing, I think!
The boys dashed through their maths (word problems), English (sentence work) and science today. U had a nap (unusually), so I had some quiet time to sit with Ia, as she completed an alphabet workbook, and write out the Arabic flashcards for some vocabulary work. Alhamdulillah the boys have Arabic lessons with a kind sister, and she sets homework. I do try to supplement this if I can with some additional work on the vocabulary from the lesson. This week they’ve been covering household vocab, so I copied out the words and got them to stick the word onto the appropriate item. This is a nice, active, thing to do, but it takes me ages to copy the words out!!!

Craft. Sort of.

This morning I needed to do some mending. Almost as soon as I had the sewing things out R wanted to try some of his own. In the end he and Ia made the bookmarks above. They didn't want to try a design. It was enough just to handle the needle and thread.

Continuing to enjoy reading the "Treasure Seekers", lots of laughs to be had.

Creative mess

There has been a creative mood going on in the last couple of days. Sticking, painting, making twisty things out of pipe cleaners and feathers, colouring, playdohing. The boys have been writing stories in their secret notebooks again. There are various ways of obtaining silence from the boys. Have them write an adventure story, have them do a page of not too challenging sums, have them read! Which reminds me that we need to make another trip to the library. Right now they are doing their Arabic homework, which is keeping them quiet too!
Creative moods lead to mess, it would appear. I must have suffered a lapse in housework concentration, or mess blindness, because it seems that one minute it was all under control, and now it absolutely isn’t! Things need a good sort out. Again.

Ia has been working on her counting to 20, while I work on erasing R’s work from the next Heinemann book.

Today the boys have been studying the tafsir of Surah Kawther, again using the Iqra workbooks. They got started with this rather late, as they've been occupied with doing their own thing most of the day. So, once again, it looks like we'll be working in the evening. Not ideal (for me) with cooking, baking, washing up and ironing needing doing. Evenings are peak housework hours for me.
Anyway, yesterday we did lots of science. Looking at melting and freezing, how things can be melted and so on. The boys looked up the melting points and uses of various metals, using Wikipedia. Then they made use of the related activities available from BBC schools. I also made use of more materials from Primary Resources for this topic, so we spent ages on it. All of that combined with Ia’s evening swimming lesson meant that we ended up still having some of the day’s work to complete at around 8pm. Looks like a habit is developing.

Alhamdulillah, tomorrow is the weekend, and it all gets reorganised again!