Sowing Seeds

It seems like it has been a long day, not tiring, just everything getting drawn out into the evening.
We did lots of seed sowing today. Ia got properly involved, both with sowing seeds and with repotting the lupin seedlings I've had on the kitchen window sill. They are still on the window sill, but in pots instead of the tray. The tray has new seeds in it. I don't have much space, hence the shifting around. The boys want to have a tallest sunflower competition, they have two seeds each to compete with. U had a go with the seeds, but prefers planting stones in the empty bits of dug over soil.
Once we are outside using the garden again it seems like the winter months were so long ago, I'm hanging washing outside feeling like I've been doing so every day. Subhanallah, how quickly I forget.

Lists

We've been out in the garden for much of today, enjoying the weather, alhamdulillah.

When reading other blogs it interests me how people organise their time. Some people do not seem to organise at all, and have a totally relaxed approach, whilst others live by detailed shedules. I suppose I'm somewhere in the middle. I do use lists to help remind myself of what I should be doing, but I can't live by a detailed shedule. Indeed I think it takes considerable discipline and determination to keep to timetables. I have tried it, but as soon as something unexpected happens, or I fall behind the timetable, I find myself getting stressed about messing the plan up. So that doesn't work for me. Living without a plan is also for the brave, in my opinion. I don't have enough confidence to believe I could get things right without planning. The best I can manage is to learn from the two positions described above.

I'm certainly coming round to the idea that a degree more organisation might do me some good, and that if I make improvements in general routine, this will facilitate the home ed.

The starting point is breakfast. The boys now eat at an alarming rate. Well, its normal, inshAllah, I think! They are not at all fat, its food for growth! Mornings get interrupted by frequent snacking. No sooner do we sit down to something than someone asks for more food. So I've made a breakfast plan. I cannot think straight in the morning, so I've made a list of things to have, with variations around the days, and they will be getting a big breakfast, inshAllah, in the hope that it will keep them going a little longer!

Any suggestions for sustaining breakfasts, (apart from porridge)??

About Reading

Today felt relaxed somehow, despite the low productivity morning. But I did make these buns. Actually I made far too many, as I absent mindedly tipped in the quantity of yeast I usually use for two loaves of bread, and then had to double the flour! I could add a sugar glaze, but it is healthier not to really.

The boys began their day playing their new FiFa 08 game, and reading Famous Five books. They are having a reread phase on those books at the moment. They like to read in series, but many series only comprise between 3 and 6 books, or sometimes 8, so having a series of 21 books can at least extend reading interest a bit longer.

After breakfast, and reading, we worked through the daily Quran work. Getting everyone through their turn on each bit is rather time consuming, especially when the next person to recite is not ready when their time comes up. Anyway, I just need to keep working on mornings.

Then I let them do their own thing for a while. The boys had said they needed to organise something in their room!! After that they were ready for a more industrious afternoon.

Ia continues her slow progress towards reading. She shows flurries of interest in reading a book, then goes off it again. I'm not concerned about this, we consistently do some mild work on phonics and handwriting. She is only five, in reality there is no rush, but when you consider what school children are expected to be doing her progress is slower. Having had some conversations about this recently I realise that some people would be very concerned if she were their child. And I think, bearing in mind what is done in school, if she were my first child and I was at the beginning of home education I might be concerned too. And that is where the benefit of sharing home education experiences, both online and face to face, comes in. The boys took to reading fairly easily and quickly, alhamdulillah, once I started working on it with them when they were five. Ia is a different experience for me with my own children, but from other home educating friends and the excellent blogs that are written, I know that the experiences and ways differ, but everyone gets there in the end, inshAllah. All praise and thanks is due to Allah (swt), but I would like to acknowledge the debt owed to those friends who shared their children's learning with me, and those bloggers who do likewise, as with their help Ia will have a much more well suited (to her), relaxed journey into reading. Because I am more relaxed about it too.

When should we redo the whole thing?

We continued the farming project today using the information at Court Lodge Organics. It has a series of interesting video clips from around the farm. I wrote down a few questions based on the information there, and the boys had to look through to find the answers.
Yesterday the boys wrote a story, it was a continuation of a story in the textbook. They did ok on it, but there was obvious room for improvement. I have never actually asked them to rewrite a whole story before, for fear of putting them off. Also I don't want to give the impression that what they have done is wrong. It was not wrong, just it could be even better. But, it has to begin sometime. In fact, they surprised me. They did redo the whole thing, adding improvements, getting a much better result. There was a bit of grumbling, but I think they saw the benefit of it. And, yes, they did both need to do similar improvements. I don't just lump them together like this for convenience, they really are very, very similar.
What else? Ia did some comparison of lengths, this time with a 30cm ruler, she also filled in the gaps on a simple children's poem (copying from the original), and decorated it for display.
The girls played out in the garden, while I dug out the ground elder from under the skimmia bush. (The toad has moved on, leaving a little bowl shaped dip in the soil). There was warmth in the sun.
Sorry I'm a bit scatty here. I've had some odd conversations with different people today leaving me with the feeling....is it just me?....or...

This and That

Chromatography experiments with the pack from Ihsan. Looking at the different colours found in marker pen ink.

Continuing efforts with Ia and Arabic letters. I don't have a working printer, so I can't take advantage of all the great printables on the internet. Why don't I just get a printer? Previous experience of printers leads me to believe that after purchase the printer will work for about 2 days before rendering itself useless. Does a reliable brand exist?

Anyway, I get round it by tracing from books. I have a nice clear colouring book for Arabic letters for example and I can trace over the pages so I can use them again and again.

Anyway. Why is it that getting almost nothing done is more tiring than doing loads?

Yesterday a friend came over in the afternoon. She remarked on how tired I was looking. I was feeling rather drained, after having spent the morning getting very little done, very frustrating.

The afternoon was a busy one, alhamdulillah, and I felt much better by the end of it.

Ia, and her friend, did some work on comparing lengths with a 15cm ruler. They made up a table in three sections for objects shorter than, the same length as and longer than the ruler. They drew pictures of the objects.

That was yesterday. The weather continued gloomily today, alhamdulillah, but I just had to go into the garden, despite the sprinkling of rain. I weeded a small area, staked a falling down mallow, and discovered what looked to be a toad under the bergenia. We all had a look at the creature, which was nestled in a sitting position. However neatly it sat, (like a little stone ornament) it did not appear to be breathing...so I'll have another look in a few days! (There is no way I was going to poke it, it was either dead or about to jump.)

U made a stone family in the garden by lining up stones she found in the flower bed.

The bigger three have spent too much time on screen games today, as H got them some new ones, including Brain Academy, which I heard recently is being used in some Scottish schools. Apparantly they get the children to use the game for about 10 minutes before lessons start, and find that it improves concentration. (Actually, not sure if it is Brain Academy or something similar.)

Aside from that, I started reading "Knowing the Angels", by Muhammad al-Jibaly to the boys in the mornings, and today they did a wall display of the translation of Surah Al-Ma'un, which we read the tafsir of yesterday.

After the Fish

After spending last week out and about it was back to normal today. Well, a slow return to normal I should say. All the children were eagar to begin the morning with things they hadn't done for a few days (such as role play games). Even I seemed to share this catching up feeling, as I baked bread, buns and scones, a work rate I rarely achieve, (but always hope to).

Finally we got down to our usual learning. I finished reading "Hearts Have Changed" (stories of the sahabah) to the boys, and need to find the next book. They went through their daily Quran practice, did a bit of French, English comprehension, maths numberwork page and a brief exercise on Surah Al Ma'un. All very routine.

U spent a long time working through a "Maisy" jigsaw book today. She completed most of the pages, only asking for my input very occasionally. I nearly got rid of that jigsaw book a few weeks ago as I was annoyed to keep finding the pieces spread around everywhere, and having to put it back myself or just shove it untidily somewhere. Today all the pieces were back and the book shut after U had finished with it. She also tidied up herself before I would let her play with her sand this evening. She will soon be three, inshAllah, maybe she is changing a little. Alhamdulillah.

As for Ia, she spent lots of time on the computer today, in between rushing off to play with the boys. When she recently saw her (same age) cousin reading I noticed that she was pretending to read along too. If she thought she ought to at that moment she doesn't seem too worried about it now! I have a feeling she will be one of those who teaches herself, giving me a surprise one day!

And I'm feeling so impatient about doing something to the garden! I have plants and seeds to plant, weeds to get out, especially the ground elder that is already reappearing where I weeded it a few weeks ago. But I really can't go crawling under soggy shrubs while it intermittently snows. So it looks like the ground elder will be getting ahead of me again.

Spring Things

There is nothing like a brisk spring morning for a walk in the woods to look at badger tracks and rabbit holes, even if the wind is blowing hard enough to buffet you back home again afterwards.
A sunny spring morning is also good for going to a garden centre, to see all the little plants lined up like sweets with their jewel drop flowers sparkling confusingly, making it almost impossible to choose.
If the garden centre has bunnies this is even better for Ia and U, especially when the bunnies are fluffy and young, big brown eyes in a bundle of fluff. The fish can be interesting too, and the birds, even the hamsters. Frogspawn should also be seen, even if it doesn't do much, because at least you know that it is there. Just like it is interesting to know that a macaw can really sometimes say "hello", it's not only in stories.
A sprinkling of variety is like hundreds and thousands on a cup cake, it just tops things off.

Press Here to Start

Today we had a trip to one of those hands on science centres. Everyone enjoys those types of places, rushing about trying things out, pressing buttons, pulling ropes and levers, looking at optical illusions. I do wonder how much science they really take away from it though. My children don't usually hang about to find out why and how. But they do take away with them some different experiences, possibly the beginnings of ideas they may draw on later. Even U found a few things to interest her (and she can be hard to please).

The price of milk

When you are looking carefully at what children are learning, (and you don't need to be home educating to do that) you can see all the different types of learning that go on all the time.
This time last year I was always rushing around. We had lots of activities to attend, in different places, at different times, some for us all, some for only the boys, or only Ia. That was one way of living, it was busy, fun, tiring, almost non-stop!
Now things are different. In some ways better, in some ways not so good, alhamdulillah, it doesn't matter, things always change and move on. But one interesting difference is that now the children have more time to learn about daily life than before. Does it seem strange? Maybe it is me. Before I felt so busy that I had no time to let them share in the day to day running of things. You just assume they pick things up, the names of vegetables, the way we order meat in the butcher's shop, how things are cooked. But I was reminded recently of how this isn't always the case. If you feel too busy or tired to let them participate in these things they may miss out on what is under their noses! My children were missing out on that, and yet I was home educating them.
Now I know that the boys know the prices of various foodstuffs, they know the different ways in which meat is bought, they know how bread and cakes are made. They know it takes time! And there are other things too, but somehow I'm only remembering the food related examples this evening! The difference is that now I have time to let them look around at all this.
Some children are excellent in these life skills. If I have trouble with my internet connection one day I know a couple of ten year olds I can call on for help. Alhamdulillah.

The one and only Monday 17th March, 2008

Yesterday the boys spent hours playing Wii Sports with a friend, and the girls and I enjoyed going out visiting too. In fact I came home wanting to do everything better again, full of enthusiasm for just getting on and doing more. As usual my hopes exceeded my capabilities!
Home-ed wise today was quite straight forward. We all got Quran study done first. (But this does not mean at Fajr, we aren't up to that standard yet! It just means before other work of the day!) Then the boys did a science revision unit, some English grammar and made a list of advantages and disadvantages of intensive poultry farming and of organic free range poultry farming. Meanwhile Ia was using Education City (I really like that they have modern languages on there), and U was doing a floor puzzle and other things..... I really should know better what U does! I can't forget about the puzzles as they are still all over the floor.
Later on Ia did some workbook stuff, and the boys attempted some maths. It was a page of puzzles, and not their sort of thing at all. Next time I see a family member with an interest in puzzles I'll ask them to have another look at that page with the boys. I can be enthusiastic about almost anything, but maths puzzles are a stretch too far for me.
Overall we got the day's work over quite quickly, but the rest of the day got lost into "invisible housework". (That is the kind of housework that takes ages but leaves no obvious trace of it ever having been done.)
So, another evening draws in and the girls are doing role play with little play figures way past their bedtime, the boys are listening to a Famous Five CD upstairs, the bread is cooling on the rack, the washing up is on pause, the bins need doing, as does the ironing. It looks like the puzzle pieces will still be on the floor in the morning. Alhamdulillah, before you know children will grow up, inshAllah. I'll surely miss the mess.

Loudness of excited children drowns out thoughts

Lots of sociable activity in the last couple of days has tired the girls out, so an early night for them today, as we have more time with friends to look forward to tomorrow, inshAllah.
The dampness of the weather has kept me out of the garden, although U and her friend briefly helped me to dig out a small weedy spot behind the shed. I have lots of seeds I should start sowing, maybe on Monday, inshAllah. I am growing lupin seedings on the kitchen windowsill, just watching the way they stretch out from under the soil and reach their leaves toward the light teaches you a lot. And it is kind of the same with children really.

Learning to Learn

Its been a self-ed sort of day. My role was mostly to check over work once it was done. The boys have read a lot, including "Tell Me About Yusuf (as)". For the story of Yusuf (as) I am going to try a different study approach, inshAllah, beginning with them reading the book for themselves. "Tell Me About Yusuf (as)" is one of the Goodword series, by Saniyasnain Khan. I like the way it contextualises the information, presenting it in history format, rather than story format as other books sometimes do. Not that story formats can't be good too, it just depends how you are approaching the topic.
The boys also continued with their science revision, wrote a story, (their favourite sort of English work), and did a couple of pages of number work. I had to do a quick explanation for the maths, but it wasn't exactly hard work! Quran work and reading also got done in the morning. (We have finished The Wouldbegoods" by the way)
Ia did mostly workbook and computer based stuff today, and U did puzzles, drawing and fuzzy felts.
So I should have had lots of time to clean up and bake cakes and....But it doesn't seem to work that way for me!

Art, maths and poultry

For maths today Ia did some tasks using the cusinaire rods. First she made a shape with 4 equal rods (all touching each other). Then she drew round the shape. Then she repeated this, making different shapes with the same 4 rods.

Next I held up various rods and Ia had to estimate their length by drawing a line of similar length on paper. Accuracy soon developed on that task, maashAllah.

Then, Ia drew round her hand and we measured the width and length of her hand using red rods. After that we went on to measure other small items in "red rods".

The boys did a half termly assessment paper for maths today. This is their favourite type of maths, they actually look forward to the test!? But best of all today the one who got a few marks less than his brother today did not throw a tantrum. Indeed the whole issue of corrections and minor discrepancy in marks passed by quietly today. Alhamdulillah, that is excellent progress!

Amongst other bits and bobs we also,continued with geography today. We looked at an organic poultry farm and used the information we found to make comparisons between intensive and organic free range. I think that next session I should get them to make a table of advantages and disadvantages for each method.

Ordinary Day

Ia was feeling creative today. I've started using reward stickers for the girls, not that Ia ever complains about doing things, but the stickers make her happy. U hasn't quite grasped the concept.

The usual things got done today. The boys are gradually becoming better at just getting on with tasks by themselves. This is especially true of reading comprehension, although sometimes their answers are not full enough. This doesn't mean I can just leave them to it and go to another room, it just means I can attend to other tasks nearby. Using the Education City trial and reading library books also kept them occupied today.

Tomorrow I really must clean up.

Why is home education like gardening?

Witnessing the unfurling of beauty, (even during stormy conditions).
May Allah (swt) give us the strength, health, and imaan for this home educating journey, and give us the best in this world and the next.

A chinchilla

Yesterday, whilst in the garden, U made an interesting observation. She said that milk makes people smaller, and water makes people bigger. She came to this conclusion after observing that children usually drink milk, (and the smaller they are the more milk they tend to drink) whilst adults usually drink water. Tell that to the home education doubters.


The highlight of Ia's day today was having a chinchilla on her head. She loved it, and R loved having the chinchilla in his hat too. We attended a local event today, in addition to the chinchilla there were various reptiles. The boys steered clear of having a snake round their necks, but were up to touching a large tortoise.
They also did some pond dipping. There was much excitement when another boy caught a frog, but our nets caught weeds, gravel and some tiny, tiny creatures, but mostly weeds.

I've noticed that Education City is quite a popular learning website, so I've registered the bigger three for a free ten day trial. Well, if it is free, why not?

Allah is Ar Raheem

We find this kind of maths fiddly and frustrating. Folding and cutting paper to form symmetrical shapes. It took ages to do. I found it a strain on the brain too. Words are much easier to deal with!

Displaying Ia and U's recent productions.

Allah is Ar Raheem. If you are patient with an issue, something will come up. I do worry about my children's learning of Quran. I know a child who has memorised so much, maashAllah, and he's the same age as Ia. May Allah make him hafiz by the age of 10. So much credit should go to his mother, may Allah reward her, for getting him to that madrassah come what may. And its not like she doesn't have a busy life, she absolutely does! Some people are extraordinary, maashAllah.

Anyway, a couple of evenings ago I received a call from another sister, and in the course of the conversation we mentioned this topic and she explained how her son is quite similar to mine in these matters, and then she described her strategy for dealing with Quran study at home. Somehow this was just what I needed, alhamdulillah. Although I've seen how various families manage this over the years I couldn't really match their families to mine, although basically the method is the same. Read the surah, listen to a recitation of it, work as a group, all of you together, have a target that is manageable to you, review what is known as a group or individually with an mp3 (or similar). Little and often. Obvious isn't it? And I knew that before, but I think that it was the fact that I know her son, and I know that if he can do it like that then my sons can too. The sister and I don't speak that often on the phone, but at a time when these thoughts were uppermost in my mind she called and spoke about it. Everything occurs only by the will of Allah (swt).

Tag response

Yesterday was busy, busy again. We began with Quran again, then reading about Salman al-Farisi.
Another of Ia's friends came over and I got them to do counting activities, including finding different shapes that can be made by shading 13 squares. After that they cut up flower catalogues and stuck the pictures down, then wrote "Allah made all the flowers".
By about 4 o'clock I was feeling really stuffy and we seemed to have been stuck in one room for hours and hours, plus the girls had been bickering a bit. So we went into the garden and felt much better, alhamdulillah. The girls helped me weed by digging bits of ground which only has unwanted grass. The boys played with a ball. What a difference it made!

Now to answer that popular tag.....
Book selection, bit of a cheat really. First book I selected had only a few words on page 123 as it was the end of a chapter. So I'll turn to the book of Sahabah biographies I'm reading in the mornings, "Hearts Have Changed" adapted by Noura Durkee.
The third sentence on page 123 reads, "Yet somehow he had come out the door and walked past them without one of them seeing him"
Any guesses? Which part of the seerah are we talking about here?
Let's continue:
"How? All night, they had guarded the figure wrapped in a cloak who slept within the home of Rasulullah (saw) (You've got it now- right?) In the beginning of the night, this figure had indeed been that of Rasulullah (saw). But at dawn, they had seen the figure rise from his bed and come to the door. It was Ali (ra), not Muhammad (saw)"

Yes, these sentences refer to the night that the Prophet (saw) set off on the Hijrah, avoiding, by the will of Allah, the assassins waiting for him outside.

As for tagging others, I just can't stick to the rules, feel free to take it or leave it as you wish.

Happily Busy

Today I tweaked a bit with routine. I had some writing to do on the computer first thing, then once the children woke up I made pancakes. That done the three older ones did their Quran work for the day. Next I read the boys a short biography of Nu’man ibn Muqarrin al-Muzani. Meanwhile Ia had done some colouring of an Arabic letter and U had done some colouring too. Next a short break (I get washing machine on, wash some dishes, read to U). Break over the boys write a traditional style story and Ia does some handwriting practice and then uses the French CDrom on the computer.
I’ve recently decided to do a review in science, to make sure that all the vocabulary is soaking in. The boys do not find science hard, but I feel that they may be a little careless with remembering the details, so I bought workbooks for them to revise over units they covered last year and so far this year. As I made lunch they got on with the next unit.
After I’d cleared up from lunch a surprise visitor arrived for an English lesson. Just a misunderstanding over the days, probably my fault for not being clear. Anyway, alhamdulillah, I took a quick look in the diary of lessons kept from the boy’s time in Reception/Year one and got something ready. This allowed the boys a rather long break! They played on the computer, but then got on with their maths lesson in their room.
Meanwhile Ia and her friend drew a picture of a bedroom and labelled it using words taken from the book “Carlo Loves Reading”. It is one of those books with illustrations labelled with nouns. After that I wrote out words from the book on flashcards and asked them to find the word and read it using the pictures in the book to help. U kept auntie busy with chat, chat, chat.
Later, before going swimming, the boys did some geography work, studying a dairy farm, and answering some questions on it. Before bed they want me to read some more “Wouldbe goods”. Its been a busy home educating day. The way it should be, Alhamdulillah.
Today’s failings? Ia has done no maths today. The floor of the room where we do our work is covered with Hama beads as U thought it would impress her friend if she scattered them, and Ia thought it would impress her more if she rolled in them. No one wants to impress me by picking them up. But we can’t have everything can we!

About Time

In the mornings I want to do so much of everything in the day. Give everyone a rounded set of educational activities, improve on the garden, housework, feed the kids with healthy home made food, check out what is online, prepare lessons, do some studying myself, keep in touch with friends. I'm so over ambitious about what can be done in a day.
Anyway today began with Ia keen to use the CDrom "Jump Ahead French", which we got yesterday. She's been playing on it lots today, the boys had their turns too. It seems very useful for learning vocabulary and simple listening comprehension skills. Its only downfall is the irritating background music.
We are using the garden most days at the moment, alhamdulillah, giving me plenty of chances to observe the huge amount of work that needs doing out there. Today U wanted to dig for worms. Fluffy worms. But she was gonna put those worms back after.
And now it is gone 10pm, and I must resolve again to get more done tomorrow, inshAllah. In the morning the day seems to stretch ahead with time for everything, and by bedtime you wonder what did I do with my day???

All Praise and Thanks is due to Allah

Friendship is important. For the children and the adults. Sometimes when home educating finding friendships takes more effort and more patience. You learn to treasure it more.
On Friday Allah made it possible for me to meet a fellow home educating blogger. What a happy meeting! Its great to share and support each other.
Then today a visit from old friends. Always a treat.
Dear reader, Allah can make anything happen if He wills. Make dua, be patient and persevere. I thank Allah for the friendships Allah has made possible for me. AllahuAkbar.