Eid Mubarak

Taqabbala Allahu minna wa minkum
May Allah accept it (our fasts) from me and from you.

Allah Created Earth lapbook

This is Ia's latest lapbook! It is in pizza book style. We used the biggest square cut folder I had and cut a disc from it. Then we folded it into quarters and made one cut so that it could be folded and unfolded one section at a time.

On the first page inside is a picture of the earth, as a globe, with the words "Allah made the heavens and Earth". On the next page are a sun, planet, moon and stars, to represent the heavens. On the last two pages are pictures of trees, fruit, animals, mountains, to represent all that is on the earth. Above those pictures are the words "Allah made everything on Earth".

Auntie Z helped a lot with the design and presentation of this book, alhamdulillah. She had the idea of making a second pizza shape inside the large one, using the scraps of card left from the folder. The inner section also opens out one piece at a time. On each piece we stuck a verse of the Quran.

On the earth page: "Say oh Muhammad "Do you verily disbelieve in him who created the earth in two days?"" (41:9)

On the heavens page: "Then He completed and finished from their creation as seven heavens in two Days and He made in each heaven its affair." (41:12)

On the other pages: "Allah it is He who has created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them in six Days." (32:4)

"He placed therein (the earth) firm mountains from above it, and he blessed it, and measured therein its sustenance (for its dwellers) in four Days equal, for all those who ask. (41:10)

Of course Ia cannot read those verses herself yet, but we discussed the meanings of them. I think, inshAllah that it is good to establish the principal of the Quran being our source of knowledge early on, even if the child cannot read the words herself.

Lapbook on Surah Al Qadr

This lapbook is based around the printout for Surah Al Qadr from Raising Muslims. If you click on the link you need to scroll down to find it as it forms part of the Ramadhan lapbook.

The printout is the surah in Arabic, followed by the meaning, which you can cut out and have the children glue into the correct places. May Allah reward the sister for posting this material.

On the two sides of the lapbook we have:

1. Simple fold with the dua for Laylatul Qadr, "Oh Allah verily, you are the Oft Forgiving, you love to forgive, so forgive me."

2. "1000" cutout repeating the information that the night of al Qadr is better than a thousand months, and then the maths problem to show that 100 months is just over 83 years.

3. Fold on Quran, explaining that the Quran was sent down on Laylatul Qadr.

4. Fold on hadith on reward, concerning the reward of spending the night of Qadr in worship.

5. Sun fold, describing the appearance of the sun when it rises following Laylatul Qadr.

6. When? fold, containing the hadith about which nights in Ramadan Laylatul Qadr should be sought on.

Weekend

This weekend the focus was on getting the children outside as much as possible into the warm sunshine, as at this time of year you always wonder whether that will be the last of the mild sunshine. So, there was lots of running about in parks and gardens, the boys played football, and both boys and girls visited friends.
There was also play doh, drawing with chalk,

and baking. (Sorry about the fuzzy image.... too late to take another one now!)

I planted spring bulbs in the garden, and tried to tidy up some of the neglect which occured during my summer of poor health!

There was also time to make the most of Ramadan, with some time for reading and listening to talks. Alhamdulillah. And now we are beginning the last full "school week" of Ramadan, inshAllah. Must get on and make sure that we finish our Ramadan projects in time, inshAllah!

Useful links

I've been using links found on the Muslim Homeschool in America blog. Lots of useful stuff. Do visit.
Look in the old blog too, for lots more links in the arkive.

Busy, and a printer!

We've been busy! Really busy, alhamdulillah. The time is flying, subhanAllah. H bought me a new printer! And I hadn't even asked for it! Straight away I went to Yemen Links and printed out part of the Arabic learning train. You can see part of it above. I printed it in black and white and got Ia to colour it in. We'll complete it as we continue through the alphabet, inshAllah.
Then I thought that U could benefit from having some alphabet on the walls too, so I made display cards for the three letters below.

I also made flashcards for the letters. Two of each letter, so she can match them up. I got that idea from Yemen Links too.

Today the girls really enjoyed playing with their flashcards. I placed the cards around the room, ABC for U, Arabic letters for Ia, then asked them to find particular letters. They loved all the running about. You can see the B flashcards are already looking a bit battered! The fully equipped home edder would have a laminator I suppose. Well, I just got a printer, alhamdulillah!

Then we played the same game with numbers, U numbers 1 to 10, Ia with numbers 11 to 20.

This morning I also subscribed to Enchanted Learning. There are lots of things to colour on there, and Ia likes to learn through colouring. There is U learning the letter A again. I'll add letters one by one. There is no rush!

Below, more learning through colouring.

The boys have been busy too, but I won't go through all the details today!

Yesterday they enjoyed having a friend over to play, then R made pizza for iftar and J made a chocolate cake.

Minibook on Surah Al-Mulk

The boys have been working on these mini books for the last couple of weeks. Today we put them together.

Page 1: Copied out the hadith on the virtues of Surah Al-Mulk.

Pages 2,3,4: On these pages the boys found the Names of Allah which occur in this surah, copied them out and noted their meanings.

Page 5: On this page the boys used silver pen on black paper to note what this surah mentions about the seven heavens and the stars.

Pages 6 and 7: These pages are about the description of Hellfire and those who will enter it.

Pages 8 and 9: To cover the rest of the tafsir of the surah I wrote some comprehension style questions and the boys wrote out the answers. The questions and their answers covered these two pages.

The whole project was studied from the tafsir by Ibn Kathir.

More on keeping busy

Ia's day:

Played with model playground made yesterday

Played imaginative games with U

Jigsaw puzzles

Recited some short surahs

two phonics exercises

reading book

swimming lesson

joined in tarawih prayers (at home)

U's day

Played imaginative games with Ia

Used iboard website, and others

jigsaw puzzles

listened to some short surahs



R and J's day

Listened to me read aloud (book on fasting and book on sahabah)

Read for themselves from "Tell me about the Prophet Yusuf (as)" and " Stories from Islamic history"

Multiplied decimals

Rolled about and tussled with each other

Recited Surah Mulk, and other surahs of their choice

listened to me finish reading the tafsir of Surah Mulk

computer games

tarawih prayers (at home)

Keeping them busy all day

Just before Ramadan, during a phone call with a sister with whom I had not spoken in a long time, the topic of keeping home educated children busy came up. The sister commented that when home education is going well the children should be busy all day long. I do agree with this. I don't think this means their every last second has to be planned and organised for them, I don't think that is what the other sister meant either, but it means that most of the day should be spent in useful, meaningful and stimulating activities. That could mean all sorts of things, from structured academic work, sports or outdoor play, the children's own projects. But it shouldn't be the same old every day.
What is the ideal? A household where the children dutifully complete their textbook type work in the mornings, then go off and do chemistry experiments, make model battery powered vehicles, produce beautiful pieces of artwork. All busy, busy with amazing projects and not a computer screen in sight (unless it goes with a computer they built themselves of course.)
If those households exist, I congratulate them.
As for the house of Always Learning.... Well, I do try. I really want them to be busy all day long. I'm certainly busy all day long. I really don't like to see any child waiting around for what to do next, or drifting off and messing about. If they go off and do something else productive, that is fine. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
I'm frustratingly slow in the mornings. The first hour after waking is very non-productive for me. My brain does not seem ready to go. In Ramadan we get up later, having gone back to sleep after Fajr. Alhamdulillah, my energy levels rise throughout the day of fasting, so I try to make up for lost time in the afternoon. However I should be doing more to keep everyone productive. (Don't worry, I think imaginative play for under sevens is very productive.)
This morning Ia wanted to make a playground model. (Kitchen foil type box supported by toilet roll tubes for the slide, roundabout from half a toilet roll tube supporting a disc of card with a lolly stick through it. etc) Then I got her through some workbooks before the boys got up. And so it goes on, throughout the day, completing the lists. Now it is shortly before Iftar time and Ia still needs to do her reading. The other evening she read to J, while I was praying, maashAllah.
And today everyone has got sweets as Ia, R and J all memorised a surah they had not known before. Alhamdulillah. R and J have not had their sweets yet, they have managed to keep most of the fasts so far, alhamdulillah.

Books we've been using today

U gets out a big pile of these kind of books every day. If she asks me to read to her, this is about how many books she will present to me with her request. MaashAllah. How many she actually uses each day, I can't say.

Filling in details

"Oh you who believe fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you so that you may learn Taqwa" (English meaning of Quran 2:183)

When it comes to Ramadan I feel a continual sense of urgency. I should be working harder, doing as much as I can to make the most out of the time. I apply this to home education of course. If I'm teaching my children for the sake of Allah there is no way I could take a break now is there? Also I want my children to learn to work hard during Ramadan, so that they will, inshAllah, be ready to make the most of the Ramadans of their adulthood, inshAllah.
I have noticed around on other blogs that Ramadan will be set aside for a home ed focus on Quran reading and memorising. When I read this I'm eagar for more detail! How much time would be spent per day on Quran for a seven year old, nine year old or eleven year old I'm wondering? My boys struggle to manage about half an hour a day each. It seems very little to me, as they are capable of more (I think). Exactly how busy are other sisters keeping their children, and with what! Nosy? But I always doubt that I'm doing enough. And when I read about another child's achievements I point them out to my children. It gives a context. I don't expect them to match up to what others are doing, but it helps to view ones self within a landscape of similar experiences, in my opinion.
So we began today by reading about the details of performing sujood correctly. Then we went on to finish reading about Khalid bin Waleed from another collection of biographies of the sahabah. Although we have read different books on the sahabah I do find that each one focuses on events in a different way, and brings a freshness to the history so that is never repetitive.
Then the boys did their own reading from the list of Islamic books I've made for them.
I've also got them using "My Ramadan Fun Book" workbook from Goodwordkids. This is surprisingly age appropriate. It doesn't ask for much from each page, but they do need to go look things up, so it is keeps a bit of challenge. I'm thinking about getting the other workbooks in the series later on, inshAllah.
Also today we have made a small start on a mini book on the tafsir of Surah Mulk. When it is eventually finished, inshAllah, I'll post its description.
And we have restarted with the maths. Some dismay has been expressed that the course book now requires two pages of work per day rather than the one page from last year. I point out that in schools it is done in the numeracy HOUR. This doesn't help much in the case of people who have had enough after the numeracy 20 minutes.
Ia has been making good progress with her reading, maashAllah. The exercises on Education City have been very useful. I get her to repeat them, especially those which teach reading vocabulary.
Yesterday I sought out some video aids for learning Arabic letters on UTube. Just enter "Arabic alphabet" or "Alif baa taa". There are some useful ones out there and plenty not so good ones too! Unfortunately the best one I found (in terms of presenting the sounds) went on to become very musical, so wan't the best after all! Just got to keep on trying! Anyway I did flashcards with Ia today, and she remembered quite well, alhamdulillah.

Getting things clear

I need to keep working on my goals for Ia's learning. That is establishing them, getting them in the right order and then achieving them, inshAllah.
Maths: reading the number words to twenty (making good progress on this)
Knowing the number bonds to ten by heart. Get this thoroughly sorted before place value.
English: Get more fluent in reading. Do this by reading more and using phonic and wordbuilding workbooks. Currently we are using Letts Phonics, stage 3, Schofield and Sims Sound Practice 3, Learning Rewards, Spelling Practice age 5-7.
All three of the bigger ones need to try to memorise some more Quran. The trouble is their patience is so little. The boys especially expect to finish tasks very speedily, and memorisation of anything is a slow process. Time for a tweaking of tactics tomorrow, inshAllah.

Ramadan Mubarak

Ramadan begins! We seem to have ended August in a rush of unexpected activities. Now it is time to quieten down and refocus on our studies.
Taking inspiration from the sister at We Love Home Ed 2 I made a list of all the Islamic books we have that the boys can read by themselves. It turns out that we have 28 such books, alhamdulillh. Some of these books are very brief and easy to read, while others are more substantial. I have made a list for them and asked them to read through the books, whenever they want, in whatever order they want, just as long as they get this done within Ramadan. They began this today. They also have extra Quran reading to do each day, but again I have given them some responsibility with this. I have set them a certain amount to do and then said they should add to that with whatever they can.
Ia began today reading a phonics reader. She is slowly getting better with blending the sounds, alhamdulillah. She is also more willing to have a go with new words. She has also used Education City and iboard, done some spelling workbook, maths workbook, handwriting practice, used the computer for Quran and restarted with Arabic letters. I had paused on Arabic letters as she was struggling with the English letters,and just let her learn Quran by memory instead. Now I'll try to reintroduce the Arabic alphabet, inshAllah.