Planning...

Ia and U have been busy with painting, drawings for the scrapbook, puzzles, computer ed, helping make biscuits and play. Ia has also been doing some subtraction work and she made a rods staircase and copied it onto squared paper. Ia works best in the morning, so it is nice when she wakes first and we get some work done together quietly before U gets up.
As for the boys, well, we finished our lapbook project on the Prophet Yusuf (as). I will blog a proper description of it before long, inshAllah. We've also finished reading "The Wheel On the School". There is just so much to discuss and think about in connection to that book that I spent today's English session studying the main characters and their roles in the story. This was a way of looking at the function of characters in moving the plot forward. I will continue to study the book in our English sessions until I'm satisfied we've covered it. Before I began reading the book I was planning to go with the lapbook project laid out in the Lapbook Handbook, but now that I have read the book through I don't want to be limited to that plan, there is just so much more to gain from the text. Anyway this makes me realise that I'm really not the sort of person who should go spending money on ready made curricula, I'll only need to change it all the time. (Exception to this is maths). I should just continue to do what I usually do, look through the layouts other people put forward then DIY the rest.
For our daily reading I've now moved to "Those Promised Paradise", another in Noura Durkee's series on the Sahabah. I do have that short story "Oranges in No Mans Land" waiting in the wings, but one fiction at a time I think, to keep the mind clear. Well, my planning mind anyway, the boys read one story book after another anyway, they read in the morning, at mealtimes, when they should be going to bed....alhamdulillah.

Lightbulb Moments

Reading with purpose

The days have whizzed by, alhamdulillah. Some days run smoothly and others do not. Sometimes there is no way of explaining it.
At the end of last week we came to the poem "Night Mail" by W H Auden, in the English textbook. It is a good poem for reading aloud, as there are distinct sounds and rhythms within it. There are also two distinct landscape descriptions, which gave me the idea of taking a different comprehension approach. Today I asked the boys to divide a piece of paper into two sections and draw landscapes as described in the two verses of the poem. This made them look at the text carefully, in order that all the details should be included. It also provided a context for the discussion of what is meant by, for example, "a glade of cranes".
I do feel a shift in my English approach with them at the moment. Learning to use and understand one's own language is a craft best learnt from reading I think. But not just any reading, reading for vocabulary enrichment, for absorbing style, for working out the hidden meanings. Reading for fun is one type of reading, but reading for enrichment is another. How does this square with prioritising the deen of Islam in our lives? I hope, inshAllah, it can be compatible if the outcome is articulate, literate young people, able to express themselves in the service of Allah's deen.

Today's Geography Task

We've been doing a lot of discussion type ed on our farming topic recently, discussing the food crisis, where our food comes from and so on. I feel that this is a topic that the boys have spent some time thinking about, so suitable for use when the English textbook asks us to write a letter to a newspaper about an issue that we feel strongly about. Well, not sure about the strong feelings from them, but at least they know a little info.
The letter was to be about factory farming. The boys began the task by reading some further information around this topic from the internet. I found them pages on factory farming, (written from a pro animal welfare perspective) and I found some information on what is said in Islam about the correct treatment of animals. As Muslims our opinions on these matters should be moulded by what we have been instructed to believe through the Quran and Sunnah, not just by what we may feel about something. I wanted the boys to be able to address the issue with an Islamic perspective. We read about how a man who denied a sheep a drink of water on its way to slaughter was punished by Umar bin Al-Khattab (ra) for cruelty. Also we noted that animals to be slaughtered for meat should not be kept waiting and animals should not be slaughtered in sight of other animals. Indeed Islam requires high standards of animal welfare.
So the gist of what they wrote was that however animals are to be farmed their welfare should be a priority and factory farming usually (according to our sources) produces hardship for animals. Actually, I have not yet found anything written in favour of factory farming with which to offer a sense of balance. I have to assume it is just mass production for meat hungry populations and greater profits that fuel the industry.
Anyway, they wrote out the letter (it was a joint effort) using a letter template on the computer.

Spring Pictures

Subhanallah, how the sunflower seedlings have grown.

I've decided it is about time I started reading chapter story books to Ia. I started with the boys when they were about five. I read to the girls from picture story books, but without the pictures a little more concentration is needed. We sat on the patio to read today. Ia wanted to read a phonic reader herself. She got on well with help from me. Then we read the first chapter of "Ponder and William", another old childhood book of mine. It is so battered I've put it in one of those plastic jackets to stop it falling to bits, inshAllah. The boys loved "Ponder and William", they laughed and laughed when Ponder (a pyjama case panda) fell into a currant cake mixture. I hope Ia likes it too. U listened as well.

Ia did some more phonic work today, using Education City, a workbook, and copying cvc words into a handwriting book. She is happy with all this, as long as I don't ask her to read anything.

For maths work today she counted out 15 cubes, made shapes from them and drew round the shapes. She also used the 100 chart. I removed some numbers from the plastic pockets, and she had to put them back in the right places.

As for the boys, we've just been continuing with works in progress really. I also began the electricity unit for science, just a bit of theory today, making use of some of the resources on Primary Resources (link in side bar).

Right now they've gone for haircuts. Hope they don't come back in need of a recut like last time.

Am I being fussy?

A city buildings model the girls made with a friend.

The boys have reached a unit of their English textbook where they have a passage about the riches of the rainforest. The passage is written in a brief, breeze through magazine style, with lots of extravagant adjectives to make up for lack of depth. Doing a comprehension on this is fine,doing some adjective related work is fine, but later in the unit the writing task is to prepare an argument to persuade others of the need to stop the destruction of the rainforest. This strikes me as a bit sudden. Asking a child to prepare a persuasive argument on something he knows very little about, something he has only read a few colourfully sensationalised facts about a couple of days ago, does it make sense? Writing an argument like that should come at the end of several weeks study of the topic at least, surely? It can't be good precedent to encourage argument without understanding. In the next exercise they are asking for a poster design to make clear why destruction of the rainforest is an "international disaster". I'm not suggesting that it isn't a disaster by the way, I'm just suggesting that this topic needs much more depth than could be offered in the context of literacy lessons. "International disaster", big words that require serious consideration.Writing an argument is a very good skill of course, but I would think that it is best done in a cross curricular way, using a topic that can be studied in more detail.

I don't even know why I care about that textbook.

Ia was up early this morning, so I did some work with her first. Slowly but surely the phonics is coming along, alhamdulillah. Later in the day we did a little work on number bonds for 8. Colouring in a strip of 8 squares (drawn on squared paper) to match 6+2, 4+4 and so on.

The boys finished the last section of the Engineering Interact activities, did some more on the Yusuf (as) lapbook, plus their other daily activities.

It was a lovely day here, maashAllah, the boys went cycling in the evening and all the children played in the garden until almost maghrib.

Colours

If you have any tulips near you, do look inside them.

I do like to see colour in the garden. Alhamdulillah.

For a while I've been mildly concerned about not doing enough for ICT work with the boys. I say mildly because they do use the computer a lot, and they use it for various purposes, not just games. I suppose it is because I went to school before there was ICT, so I'm less sure about what is appropriate for their age. Today they did some work from a book I bought a while ago, "Letts Use ICT Year 4". It is quite a good book, in that the instructions are clear and easy for the boys to follow. However, in common with other ICT resources I've come across, it contains many pages on using expensive programmes I don't have. So, they'll just be using the practice work for Word, possibly a quarter of the book.

What else did the boys do today? They looked up, made notes on and made a lapbook fold on storks ("Wheel on the School" tie in), revised place value to thousands in maths, wrote unbiased reports from biased sources in English, listened to me read the tafsir of Surah Humazah (from Ibn Kathir), and then made a poster display of the translation.

Actually, I was pleased to find that they already knew most of the translation of the surah, from reading along with the computer recitation, alhamdulillah, they were preempting me as I read it through. The surah is a warning to those who slander, by tongue and by action, and to those who pile up wealth and count it. There is a part of the Hellfire for people guilty of these sins to be punished. That is why we have flames on the poster, and the glittery part is to represent piles of wealth.

I borrowed the idea of presenting study of tafsir in this way from another sister. I display this kind of work on the wall, so it can continue to be reminder for all of us. Keeping awareness of the meaning of the Quran at the fore front of the mind is a challenging task. The more repitition and reminders the better as far as I'm concerned.

For Ia today I finally got round to hanging up my hundred square chart. It's the type with little, clear pockets to display the numbers, so you can take them out, jumble them up and put them back in again. I don't know why it stayed in the drawer so long. So we did counting forward, backward, pointing out random numbers. Lots to do with a hundred square!

We also did a little subtraction game, using 6 rods, then hiding some, guessing how many were gone.

Meanwhile, I bought another history book last week, it is so interesting, I'm having to be very restrained, or I'll spend too much time on it per day...more of that another time.

Sunday

This morning I opened the curtains to a Novemberish fog, but having their friends over today has kept the children busy for hours and hours with practically no input from me. So, I've had time to bake, plant young perennials, clean the bathroom (properly) and write out lesson plans for the week and I still don't feel hurried in the least. Very different from usual!
A slow, relaxed weekend after what was a speedy quick week. On Friday morning even the children were saying "Is it really Friday already, last Friday seems like yesterday?"
On Saturday morning we went to the library, amongst the many books with titles such as "Silly Billy's Flying Underpants" I saw one called "Oranges in No Man's Land", by Elizabeth Laird. The story is set during the civil war in Beirut and is about a girl who ventures across the no mans land to get medicine for her grandmother. It is a very short, simply written story, only 115 pages and the plot goes little further than setting up for and describing the incident mentioned above. But within that it does contain a lot of detail about the child character's experience and lack of understanding about the war. I did find it a little odd that the child's name was Ayesha, and yet she was described as a Shia from the south of Lebanon. But maybe this was away of making an anti-sectarian point, as this was a strong theme in the book. I think I will read it to the boys, its an easy read, but they probably wouldn't read it by themselves because of the central character being a girl. They will dismiss books very superficially, pretend they don't like them, but then I'll hear them discussing the book, comparing the characters and so on. In this way I know they do actually enjoy these things! When we have tried books that really were boring for them we've stopped reading after trying a few chapters!
Anyway, this story will present lots of opportunities for discussion, and a chance for some general knowledge history. It will have to wait for a while in the queue of books waiting to be read however....

Growing

When I wrote the last post I was really too rushed to think! Then yesterday we spent a day out with friends, returning home too tired to do anything much. And now another day has passed.
I'm in a thinking about planning stage, a looking ahead stage. It's not just me though! Whenever I read about other bloggers planning, my mind will turn to reviewing my own plans. It's good to review, reassess and refresh.
My planning thoughts at the moment are not so much about what we are learning, but how it gets distributed throughout the days. For us learning seems to work best when we concentrate on a topic, get it done and move on. This doesn't apply to subjects like maths or English of course, those just tick along in the background, but other topics like the study of a Prophet, or a geography theme need our consistent attention, otherwise we lose our thread. A few months ago I was alternating history and geography week to week, but we just slipped out of that. In the end I try to look at the wider picture and aim for a good mix throughout the year, inshAllah.
So, at the moment we are in a book theme, with "The Wheel On The School", and we are working on the Yusuf (as) project. Today R traced a map (he always chooses the map), of the area where Yusuf (as) lived, and J wrote about Yusuf's (as) family members. the boys are also working through the activities on Engineering Interact, which they are getting into a bit more now. Today they did the electricity section, which they are quite interested in anyway.
Ia and U played together a lot today, and Ia chose to use some computer CDs, including her French one.
We also went into the garden for a while, although it was a little cold. The sunflower seeds are growing well, by the will of Allah. Alhamdulillah, we have seeds sprouting and bulbs emerging all over the place (it feels like). Today Ia and U helped me plant some nasturtium seeds, into the ground this time. I have probably gone a little over board with the seeds!!! But, inshAllah I'll fit them all in somewhere.

Not much to say...

In the Lapbook Handbook I recently bought there is a project based on the children's novel, "The Wheel on the School". I have a copy of that book, from when I was a child, so I got it out and decided to make use of a ready made project. Its not so often that I get to do one of those.
I've been reading the book for a few days in the mornings. Today we did the first piece of work for the project. We looked at pictures of the area where the book is set, then J did a drawing of one of the landscape pictures. R traced a map of the area from an atlas. There was plenty to discuss about the area, especially as I visited it on a school trip years ago (I probably still have that project somewhere in the loft).

Another day

Another day of sunshine and heavy showers. It's good spring weather for the plants, plenty of water and plenty of sunshine. Not so good for humans in the garden though, so I just look at it and wait....
Until we moved here I home educated cooperatively with friends. Since they were four years old the boys got used to meeting up and working with other children. This means that now they are used to the idea of me coming up with things for them to do. I give them flexibility of when they do things, and I don't force them to do stuff they hate (they accept maths like its a necessary burden). But in the end they look to me for the structure.
I wonder if Ia will be different. We make a separation between the weekend and weekdays. They know there is a routine to weekdays, and they will be doing learning stuff. I noticed today how Ia uses her own time differently on weekdays. Today she wanted to cut out more spring bird and flower pictures, stick them in her scrapbook, then label them (with my help). Later she wanted to use some educational software. Maybe her different experiences will make her more of a self directed learner from an earlier age. It's nice to be able to observe this, alhamdulillah.
Bit of a slow day today really. The boys did another section of Engineering Interact, their normal maths, English and Quran and began planning for a lapbook on Yusuf (as). I gave them the book on Prophet Yusuf (as), and also showed them the page of the Lapbook Handbook which describes the different folds. Their task was to decide what information to present and the types of folds they could use. They went about this by sketching out a layout for their projects, with title notes. Between them they had a good variety of ideas for us to get started with in days to come, maashAllah.
I've not been very good at keeping to a regular timetable recently. There are so many projects to do and as usual I want to do them all at once. But this is not possible. The geography is on hold just now, while we concentrate on learning about the lapbooks, but I will get back to it over time inshAllah. If anything the topic of food and farming is even more relevant at the moment, what with the food crisis in many countries. So much to do...so much to learn....

Rhymes

Looking through my old file of notes from about four or five years ago I found some silly rhymes to practice rhyme with Ia.
I started by reading some rhyme poems to her, and talking about the rhymes. Then we filled in the missing rhymes in this:
Little Boy Blue has lost his .......
Little Boy Red, he went to.......
Little Boy Yellow is a cheeky.......
Little Boy Green has eaten a .....

Then we finished
Imagine a bee as big as a ......
Imagine a lark as green as a ......
Imagine a cat as fast as a........

Lastly,
Little Boy Blue
Lost his........
At the ......
What should he.....?
Has such a funny thing ever happened to ......?

Today has been good for cycling, gardening and blowing bubbles for the cat to chase after.

Spring Themes

Ia makes patterns, finding out about shapes which tessellate.

Patch of tulips.

Scrap of aubretia.

First attemp at a lap book. Yes, it is not as handsome as those usually seen online, but remember it is the first one. We need to improve on neatness and general presentation skills.

For this spring project we did sections on birds, butterflies, flowers and insects to spot in spring. Also sections on the life cycles of ladybirds, frogs and butterflies, list of spring months, and two names of Allah, (meanings, The Creator, and The One Who Gives Life).

The children were all quite pleased with themselves.

Look closely to see the little specks of sunflower seedlings.

Lupins.

Thoughts and day

A few days ago I was listening to a radio program which was discussing a poetry anthology which came out in the late 1960s. It was described as really engaging the teenage school goers who read it, to the extent that students would fail to return their copies at the end of the year. (I know, they're assuming love of the books here, not that the kids burnt or lost them, well we shouldn't be cynical, even if the programme maker was looking back to his/her youth with rosy tints). The poems were meant to involve, stir, connect with pupils. The poet Michael Rosen spoke on the programme, he compared the style of teaching then to now. He said that nowadays students spend 30 minutes in a classroom to achieve a learning outcome (his words as close as I remember). Then, they were expected to develop a feel for the poetry (those are my words, giving you the gist).
So, is he right? Has school education become hemmed in and outcome driven? Is the National Curriculum a prison of wrong and right answers? Are results of the tick the box type?
I'm not giving a verdict on it, I just found that Rosen's statement opened up questions for me. If the National Curriculum is really like that, then the materials produced for it's delivery must be moulded that way too. Is that why the science we've been doing recently is dull, and the English comprehension texts too shallow? Because science is not dull, and texts should be brimming with meaning.
I do not want our English comprehension lessons to take about ten minutes, because the answers are obvious and the text gives us little to ponder on. I do use lots of extra materials for science, but I need a base, to organise topics. I can think up geography topics, but not science ones, for that I need a guideline. Maybe I need to look elsewhere.

Today began with the boys having eggy toast (three slices each), followed by a pear. While they ate I read a short Islamic story (We've finished the book about Belief in the Angels), and then a chapter from "The Wheel on the School".
Next up was Quran. Ia and U did some colouring and workbook, then they sat together to do their Quran, as U has joined in too, of her own accord, she likes the Quran songs, as she calls them, and she has picked up quite a bit too, maashAllah.
Next the boys did English comprehension, and spelling. My mother gave me an old book of spelling lists, belonging to my sister. It has lists of words printed out for each age group. When I tell them that this book says that children aged nine should know this list of 544 words, they jump at the chance to prove themselves. If I say I'll give them 10 words to learn, they are bored, bored, bored, if I challenge them with the idea that boys of 9 should spell 544 words, they love it. Strange. Competitive. Would have put me right off.
Next I made lunch (only two hours after breakfast, but they were complaining of hunger), the boys read "The Bubblegum Tree" and "The Joke Machine", both by Alexander McCall Smith. Then they moved on to rereads of Enid Blyton Five Findouters.
I also sat with Ia to do some phonics on Education City in the morning.
In the afternoon the boys did maths, a little French on Education City, I read to the girls, U did puzzles.
After a break we started a dummy run on the lapbook thing. I thought I should do some try outs on a general, easy topic, rather than starting with Yusuf (as). So, we started with spring. We have some sheets with pictures of spring stuff, so we made the little booklets, each taking a group of pictures, (birds, butterflies, insects and flowers). This went well, alhamdulillah. Need to continue that.
Ia is really into it. This evening she has made two booklets using cut out pictures of animals. I have labelled the pictures lightly in pencil and she has gone over that with felt tip. She thought of most of what to say. We'll stick them in her scrapbook. I could do pictures, but have been lazy about the camera in the last few days.
Final note, R and J's sunflower seeds have begun to germinate.

Fast Forward

So today we whizzed through our sheduled day's work and finished by 3pm. This is very unusual! Have to say that I did take it rather easy. The maths and English pages we were up to turned out to be of the quick and easy sort, I finished reading the tafsir of Surah Yusuf, and even science was done on the computer and then reading through a few pages of textbook, with discussion. The questions were so pointlessly easy, even the boys can't understand why they are there. I do like the convenience of using a textbook base to organise topics, but I really don't like these wishy washy chapters. I could just skip the lot, but I will at least pay lip service to the vocabulary and smattering of facts. Maybe they'll come in useful when the topic of friction and forces gets addressed more thoroughly one day. I guess I could search for more interesting work on it right now, but I think the boys have been put off by the dreary repetition already. So, delay that for another time.
With this amazing slot of free time between 3 and 4 today I tried out the fold ideas in the lapbook book with Ia and U. I knew they'd like that sort of thing, and would be uncritical of any mess ups on my part. They both have scrapbooks to stick their work into. Even now Ia is happily colouring in more Arabic letters to decorate the scrapbook.

Something New (to me)

This morning I received a lapbook handbook, (The Ultimate Lapbook Handbook, by Duby and Regeling) I had ordered from Stimulus Learning. Its been a few years since I heard about lapbooks. I always like to look at new ideas, but I have to say that at that time I was put off by the words "fold" and manipulatives" with which the lapbooks were always described. A few years ago the idea of asking my boys to do anything remotely fiddly involving tearable materials gave me thoughts of tantrums, ripping up of work and so on. But now they are much more able with these things, and also Ia loves to make things from paper, so I thought it was time to investigate the lapbook further.
I have to say the book is very practical. The instructions are no way as alarming as an origami diagram. Thinking of assembling something called a "fold" is much simpler than the word suggests. Any one seasoned in lapbooks may be laughing at this, but seriously, to me the idea of a "folded manipulative" sounds about as appealing as instructions for flatpack furniture. It's a question of words and presentation!!!
I looked through the book, and the ideas were jumping at me! I want to try all sorts of books now! I love their idea of studying literature through project work, and I think this would work well for tafsir too, picking out the key points as notes from extended reading. I can also see the value for remembering key vocabulary and concepts in science, something that I'd been thinking about a lot earlier in the year. So, lets see what happens with this. The first subject should be the history of Prophet Yusuf (as). InshAllah we will finish reading the tafsir sometime next week, then we should go back, review and work on this lapbook thing!
Its been another good day for gardening today, alhamdulillah. Just weeding and starting to clear an overgrown, out of control area. The boys had a go with the spade, but returned to their scooters, garden hockey and football after a while.
Ia has completed all the reception level maths activities on Education City. I only subscribed for her, as I feel she would benefit most. Maths is her strong point at the moment, and she remembers science stuff too. Recently we were walking around the streets when she told me that she had just seen a nice plant which was all covered over by something else, "I don't think it can get enough water or sunlight," she said, "so I think it might die." It wasn't that she understood the idea that surprised me but that she expressed it in those terms.

Science link

I was looking around for some activities on forces and friction today when I found Engineering Interact. It seems good, plenty of information, but clear, with reasonably challenging questions. The boys complained the unit the worked through was too long, but then science isn't really their favourite anyway. They did finish it, of course!
For our history topic at the moment we are studying Yusuf (as).Having read through the Goodward "Tell Me About" book by themselves I decided that next I would read the Ibn Kathir Tafsir to them, so we will take that a little at a time, inshAllah, with simplification where necessary. I think I'm working towards some kind of review project at the end of the reading!
Ia has been looking at area today. Very simple of course. We used the palm of her hand as a unit of area, made a cut out of it, then found items with a smaller, similar and larger surface area than her hand. I made a table up for her, as I did last week with the lengths, and she recorded what she found with drawings.
Overall it has been a busy day, alhamdulillah. Giving the boys a bigger breakfast has helped with routine, in fact I use the longer time it takes them to eat it as the opportunity to read to them. Then, while the boys go upstairs to get dressed Ia and U can listen to Quran, until the boys are back for their recitation time. And after that... where does the day go?