Last few days

So, we didn't get into much of a timetable this week. Alhamdulillah it was good to get this last summery week. On Thursday we went to the library and surprisingly the boys found quite a few books they wanted to borrow. I also tried to get some Eid clothes for Ia. I really can't stand going in clothes shops, I dislike the noise, the crowded displays, the way that the size you need is rarely available and I really hate that they have music. So I didn't buy anything, and will now need to allow about three months to forget about how awful shops are before I foolishly go there again.
Today I have been gardening. Getting things done that I won't want to be doing in Ramadan.

On Friday the boys were off for another football day. They won prizes.

Bathroom Rescue

Today my sister visited, with her two children and her new baby. I had bought "happy you've got a new baby sister" presents for the children, and I got my lot to make some wrapping paper. Cartoon faces and cars for the two year old boy, flowers, boats, hearts and swirls for the girl!

The finished parcels.

The girls had the most fun with their little cousins. And there was a spot of drama when my two year old nephew locked himself in the bathroom and H had to get the stepladder and hoist himself through the bathroom window to get him out. ( The stepladder is not actually high enough to fully reach the window, he had to grab the sill and scramble.)

Getting ready

It feels like I have a lot of getting ready to do. September, Ramadan, new academic year, all from next week, inshAllah. This evening I have been going through J's old file of Year 1 work, taking out the workbooks and getting them ready for Ia to use this year, inshAllah. Neither of the boys liked colouring much, so I can just rub out the pencil marks and make most of the pages reusable.
Today Ia made the Ramadan calender above. The glitter got quite liberal use as usual, and it was a good excuse to practise writing out the numbers to 30. I'm concentrating on counting , ordering numbers and learning to read the number words at the moment for maths. I've been rubbing out on relevant workbook pages and writing the number words into her handwriting notebook for copy work tomorrow, inshAllah.
The boys have been learning more fiqh of prayer today, and revising about ways of avoiding distraction in the prayer, such as not having pictures or designs which may distract, avoiding praying while needing to go to the toilet, and avoiding praying while food is served and you feel hungry. I've also been going through my Ramadan plans with them, no complaints so far, alhamdulillah.

Since I last

blogged we've been having lots of social times with friends, and in between I've been mostly doing household chores. Not much to report on really! I seem to be in a declutter mode as well, although as this does not extend to the rest of the family I have to content myself with small areas, such as kitchen drawer full of batteries and kitchen cupboard full of old receipts.
I'll be back when something more educational happens, inshAllah.

What am I waiting for?

The lone survivor sunflower. MaashAllah.

After a lovely day out visiting friends yesterday I decided to make a start on the Ramadan timetable right away. Not the full timetable, but a start on it. This way I don't need to feel inbetween!

The boys are working on memorising the dua of Yunus (as). Yes, it is only short, but memorisation is a struggle for us. I also started to read "The Prophets Prayer Described" to them as our morning read. They are coming up to the age of ten, inshAllah, so I thought that salaat would be a focus topic for this Ramadan. Of course they know how to pray, but they should be working on improving their prayer and on understanding its detail.

I have also been looking for some simple topics delivered on audio or video on line for them to watch/listen to. This would be good for them, and make things easier for me in Ramadan. Save me having to do more reading aloud/talking. They can only manage simple topics of course, but I'll be searching around using links posted up by helpful sisters on the Homeeducators and UK Muslims Yahoo Group. (Click on the Home educators and UK Muslims WebRing link in the sidebar to take you there.) Any other suggestions from you, Dear Reader, will be most welcome!

Ia has just been doing some workbook type stuff today, aside from hours of playing with U, reading together in the garden and so on. Ramadan activities will not be as different for her workwise. Her Ramadan work will be based more around some colouring sheets I have, and some crafts maybe. Otherwise she'll be learning through practical experience, inshAllah!

Towards the end of August

Feeling very inbetween at the moment. I'd like to get started with more subjects, start refilling the timetable again, but with less than two weeks to Ramadan, inshAllah, it doesn't make sense to start on things, only to suspend them over the Ramadan period. The Ramadan timetable for the boys will include a lot of individual reading, inshAllah, individual recitation and some workbook stuff they can do at their own pace. There will be other things too, inshAllah, but I thought a focus on self study would be useful. Ramadan is a time for reviewing ourselves and thinking how we use our time. As Muslims we have to become responsible for our own actions, our own ibaadah. We need to be able to impose discipline on ourselves to make sure we get up to pray on time, make sure we allow time for studying the deen and so on. So, I will be setting some goals and allowing J and R to manage their achievement, inshAllah.
But in the meantime we've been popping out between the showers of rain to visit some gardens, and H has taken the boys out cycling. Ia has been collaging and usingthe Puzzle Sums. Today she cut out shapes from folded paper and used mirrors to explore the symmetry.
The boys had a quick look through some recycling information, but didn't find much new. (!) I'm always rather dubious about the idea of recycling household items by making puppets/models from them. Ia does enjoy that sort of thing, but I can't possibly keep all that stuff, so it only delays the journey to the bin. Also, once a piece of card or whatever has been contaminated by sticky tape, or paint or whatever, doesn't it make it more complicated to recycle?

How not to do English

This is what they did to the living room this morning. This "tent" had "rooms". One for each boy and one for the girls. Before that I had read the history of Prophet Yunus (as) to the boys and they had done their daily Quran.
Later on we looked into the history of Ninevah, the town to which Yunus (as) was sent. This was just brief as there is nothing to connect a time period with Yunus (as), but it is interesting to know a little more.
After lunch the boys worked through an activity pack on the Cutty Sark. Why??? Two reasons. The first is that we have been learning a bit about ships, and will continue to do so when we resume the English textbook, so it kind of fits in. The other, more important reason is that its a good extended reading comprehension exercise. The text covered 4 sides of A4 and there were 20 questions to answer. They didn't want to bother with the colouring in, or the cutting out, or the game. But they did the 20 questions, and knew the answers to the word search. So, they must have used reading skills, followed by scanning skills. An English lesson by stealth. Because we are not actually "doing" English in the "holiday".
In the garden I discussed living and non-living things with Ia. Seems she is pretty clear on that.
Later on I was doing some garden work (still working on the rockery) and I found this tiny creature under some old planks of wood.

To have an idea of how tiny, those leaves are from privet hedge clippings.

Being thankful

For the four weeks before this week I was feeling really off colour. I seemed to be constantly tired and falling asleep in the afternoons. After lots of dua, alhamdulillah Allah has restored my energy to me. This could only happen by the will of Allah. Everything seems so hard when you lack energy to get things done, and once the chores and so on start to slide, it seems even harder to get back on top of things. All the thanks is due to Allah, we have nothing at all except what He gives, and health is so important.
For the last two days the boys have been out at a football funday. Running around in the sunshine and showers. They really enjoyed themselves, and keep talking and talking about it!
They took packed lunches with them, and I have to admit I did succumb to buying them some ready made bread for the occasion. They are used to the questions they get from other kids (do you really not go to school? how do you learn?), but I thought that a packed lunch of home made bread, home made cake, fruit and cucumber might be a step too far. So I bought bread, and even biscuits! Don't worry, two loaves and a cake being baked as I write, back to normal food tomorrow.
While the boys were out I got through Ia's workbook stuff, she did some painting and some drawing with stencils. Then I used googled images of mountains and we talked about mountains, what they look like and so on. Both girls had to pretend to be mountains. They were small rounded mountains, and sharp pointy ones. This was still related to the Al-Khaliq theme we are on, so I discussed with Ia how, if He wills Allah can knock over a mountain as easily as she can knock over a sandcastle.
The weather was dry whilst the football was on today, I cut the grass too. But this evening we've had heavy downpours, followed by sunshine, leaving the garden looking fresh, green and bright. MaashAllah.

Ia's day

Today I read poems to Ia and then we wrote a few lines ourselves. Can't exactly call it a poem, and Ia didn't want to copy it all out, so the photo is of the shortened version.
We also made these.

Playtime

Lots of reading today. The boys started reading to themselves at breakfast, then I read to them afterwards.
Ia completed a picture showing the appearance of a tree around the seasons. There is so much to learn just from the garden, alhamdulillah. This year Ia has planted nastursium seeds and seen them grow and flower. She has repotted seedlings, seen the snails demolish the sunflowers (not to mention various other plants) and watched the tomatoes ripen. There is one sunflower survivor which seems to be on the verge of flowering, inshAllah, and the pompom asters I grew from seed are starting to flower too. My neighbour has an old apple tree, right next to our back fence. This is a blessing too, alhamdulillah, as it illustrates so beautifully the changing tree through the seasons. Right now its branches are full of apples. So many real learning opportunities, alhamdulillh.
Later in the afternoon we had friends over to play. There was rather a lot of over excitement, U almost had a nap straight afterwards, but we ended up disturbing her! One young visitor asked me why J and R's room is so messy. A very good question, but so hard to find an answer to... He actually offered to tidy it up, which was a kind offer, and somewhat brave.
Alhamdulillah, the day has felt full, even if the HE timetable was light, and full days are what is needed to keep us all going.

Castle, garden,triop

So, as decided it was back to some sort of HE shedule. I read to the boys after breakfast and they did their daily Quran. I also got them to do some ICT and some individual reading. On our last library visit I found a new book
"Castle Challenge, Help the king's army capture a castle", by Julia Bruce.
I do recommend this book for any children interested in castles as it is written in such an interesting style. Rather than just describing the features this book places the reader in the scenario, I quote "Remember, it is not just brute force that will secure success. There are other actions you can take before you attack that are equally effective. These include....."
Maybe it is the influence of computer games,forcing the publishers to be more creative with their presentation! All the usual facts are in there, with interesting illustrations.
You may wonder what the relevance of studying the history of British castles is. We are not studying any other part of British medieval history, although the boys do tend to look into these things themselves from time to time. The link for us comes with learning about the Crusades and the computer games the boys play linked with this type of castle history. When we read the history of Salahuddin Auybbi last year the background knowledge about castles, how they were used, defended and attacked was very helpful in understanding the historical events we were reading about.
Also today Ia was learning about trees, how we use them, what they give us,the importance of looking after them and so on. This is in connection with the theme of work based around learning that Allah is Al-Khaliq, The Creator.
In the afternoon we went into the garden. I finished clipping the hedge and digging over the new rockery area. This is to replace the old rockery, which I have not liked since a friend said it reminded her of graves in Pakistan.
Finally, the triop died today. It had lived out its expected lifespan, almost!

Day out

A day out! Finally a day without sports shedules. I'm not really complaining. The sports activities are really important for many members of this household. Yesterday was a day of shuttling between one sports activity and another, and after last week's swimming...well, I was happy to have a day with nothing planned. So I was up late the night before, baking muffins and up early this morning...baking muffins, because muffins are important for a picnic. The weather was good for it too, alhamdulillah! The children had fun, running around and exploring somewhere new.

The almost total HE holiday is starting to wear thin with the boys now. They have satisfied their need for a break, have done everything they want to do and are willing to start back to something tomorrow. What that something will be remains unclear...looks like I'll be improvising in the morning.

Quote

This week has been dominated by the swimming course. Well, it's over now! I think the boys benefited from it. They spent time with their friends every day and learnt some useful water skills. The girls got some time in the park on the days when it wasn't raining. And now it is Friday, the house is a mess and the garden neglected.

On page 47 of "1001 Inventions Muslim Heritage in our World" I noticed this quote:
"If he (the teacher) is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind." (Khalil Gibran)
Much more inspiring than the prospect of a SAT test, don't you think?

Reading and swimming

Ia has begun to find books she can read, and then read them to herself. We have lots of different early reader type books at home and from these she has chosen some Read-it-Yourself Ladybird books and some very battered old Ladybird books, which no longer have their covers, and are called "The Zoo" and " The Farm". These last two are so old that the zoo animals in the pictures are contained in tiny, concrete compounds, and the farmer has a waistcoat, britches and pipe. This is what she has chosen to read, over the gaudy cartoons of modern phonic readers. And there is something reassuringly reliable about the Ladybird's large, rounded font and repetitive vocabulary.
This morning both girls arranged a large audience of soft toys on their beds and then read to them. U gives out plastic snacks to her toys, as there is nothing better than stories and food together.
This week the boys are enrolled on a swimming course. Today they learned how to help someone in difficulties in the water.

Weekend

Auntie Z helped the girls to make mini-books of their names in Arabic, in collage. Each page is one letter, with their names written properly in joined-up writing on the cover.

I've been noticing a flurry of pre-Ramadan activity on other blogs. May Allah reward those sisters for the reminders, my brain is starting to gear up too now! It is that slow, back of the mind planning process I mentioned in my planning post, together with lots of trawling around for other people's great ideas!! It is hard to think of ideas when working in isolation, but when there are sisters willing to share online it is like being in conversation, subhanAllah, it does make all the difference.

The boys had their last cricket session of the season today. The season ends early for the youngsters due to so many taking holidays. Alhamdulillah the rain held back for those couple of hours. And who says HE kids never get to taste a bit of school style socialisation? My son received a "happy slap" at cricket today, as the older boy giving it out described it. Should I note that down on a checklist of school equivlalent experiences, in case anyone asks?

No real harm done, by the way, the rest of the boys criticised the bully for his unsporting behaviour, and R didn't let himself feel humiliated. We have nothing to fear when we put our trust in Allah.