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.