Something neat!!!

I've been making a habit of studying the life of Musa (as) on Thursdays with the boys. As I mentioned some posts back I decided to do this very long project in a notebook style. Printing out the pages is not the most economical way of working. An ordinary exercise book, or ordinary A4 lined paper would do the job just as well. But, somehow, the printed pages, and the fancy ex-tourist board book to put them in brings out a far better standard of handwriting and presentation in the writers. (free pages from Notebooking Pages)
I've added another post to Always Learning Resources. This time it is a literacy lapbook, beautifully presented, maashAllah, by a friend's son.

Senses Lapbook

Ia finished this off today. Once again I used some ready mades, from Enchanted Learning and Primary resources. This started off as a science project, but it became a piece of language work too, when I decided to make pockets of words for each of the senses. Those are the red pockets, inside are yellow cards with sound words (quiet, loud...), taste words (sour, sweet...) and so on.

What looks like plain papers on the left are folded worksheets (printed from Enchanted Learning).

I tried to give the project an Islamic side too, by including ways in which we use our senses aspart of Islam. This was easy for hearing, (azaan, salaam, Quran), and for sight, (reading Quran, Islamic books), but kind of tricky for smell...I only came up with attar! But at least it got us thinking about it!

I could have extended the project further to include thankfulness to Allah for the use of our senses, but I'm planning another project which will include that theme, so I left it out this time.

Patterns

Yesterday evening Ia decided to get these things out and copy patterns. She continued this morning.

U got this out, but R made a pattern.

R has a bad cold today, so I let them take it easier. I read to the boys, they watched a documentary from Teacher's tv, did one sheet of maths and Quran. They also finished reading a book about the heart, and did their own reading too.
Ia had a friend to play, and they did some lapbook work together too.

Calm on Monday

Much as I would like to be bringing you something zingy and new today, the reality is that outside it is very cold and we are at home, getting on with things.
Actually, today has been very calm, alhamdulillah. Yesterday evening I cleared away some of the clutter from the top of the filing cabinets, and cleared the floor in the room in which we work. (Technically it is called the dining room, but this is not an accurate description of how it is actually used.)
I am generally quite good at clutter, as in not having it. Yes, there are toys about, but clutter to me means useless things, so toys don't necessarily count. But it is hard to draw the line at what is no longer needed when it comes to old work. And by now we have a lot of old work. Lots of old work is kept in a pile of box files on one of the filing cabinets. Some of it is definately useful, like old workbooks that can be rubbed out and rewritten in. Other items can revive ideas that I may otherwise forget about. It is also useful to look back at what the boys were doing age 5, and compare that to what I'm doing with Ia. But I can't keep everything, and reducing the amount is a good exercise to go through from time to time. A long work in progress.
Over on Always Learning Resources I have posted a picture of a great table manners poster, made by a friend and her family. A really nice activity to do with younger children.
(I should make an effort to take a picture which does not feature Ia's hand holding a pen.)

Over the weekend

U has said that she would like to be a "libraryer"when she is bigger. She has mentioned that it will be hard to find a library to live in, and that stamping the books will be the best part. Ia and U decided to play at having a library, but as I disapproved the idea of them stamping marks all over the real books, they decided to make books for the game.
Also this weekend R has found out that he can bowl at 37 mph, and J at 40 mph.
I have found out that I can make Dundee cake.

Flustered on Friday

Some days are like this, for no identifiable reason they just don't work out as expected. Today felt very end of weekish to me. Maybe the mess in our work room was just too off putting! The children were co-operative, so I can't blame them at all! The boys got through their morning work. I've gone back to doing a bit of French with them again. I bought a text book from Galore Park, to give me a bit of reassuring structure. I would like for them to learn Arabic, but this is not realistic in present circumstances. French we can do, so French it is then.

Ia and U mostly played and drew. Ia got a bit concerned that she hadn't done any work! The boys did four day weeks when they were her age, but she likes to keep up! It really does help, maashAllah, that she has taken up this attitude. Helps me to keep on top of everything, inshAllah.

In the afternoon we went out to visit friends and I'm sure a couple of hours of playing outside did the boys lots of good, alhamdulillah.

Time for a weekend recharge I think.

Quick round up

Ia has started work on place value.

We've also been working on the topic of the 5 senses, today making use of some interactive resources found here.

The boys have been working on perimeter in maths. In English it is back to the textbook, after our literature project and today they were happy to do their favourite educational activity, writing an imaginative story. Funny how I can see the Enid Blytonisms coming out, especially in dialogue...Meg chimed in .....etc.

Ia and U have both been producing plenty more pictures, maashAllah. Today they drew, then cut out and stuck into a scene.

Heron

At about half past seven, as I was looking out of the patio window thinking about how we don't see many small birds in this garden, I saw a heron. I know it is a tiny image, but a heron has a distinctive shape, I hope you can make it out!

Another lapbook, done!

We finally finished the "Tamburlaine's Elephants" project, alhamdulillah! This time the boys did a lapbook each, rather than making one together as we've done in the past.

I've written up a full description of the project on Always Learning Resources.

Today Ia started work on an Elmer book. More elephants! I was going to keep it to a quick few activities, but she wants to make a whole lapbook on it. So, it looks like we'll have to do work about elephants, colours....

About organising

R was man of the match in football today. He did well, maashAllah! And he loves fruit loaf.

This post is meant to be about organising. I never used to be well organised at all. I would get my HE activity planning done, but at the expense of everything else! House stuff, meals and so on would all be done in a mad catch up, covering the basics only. But recently I started to do weekly meal planning. I shocked myself with that one! I would never have seen myself doing that. I'm not much interested in cooking, baking I like, but not the daily meal cooking.

I felt moved to it from reading the advice on Towards an Orderly Muslim Household. The idea of an orderly house seems such an attractive aspiration!

Well, begrudgingly I have to admit that it does make things easier. After a few weeks practice I am now able to come up with meals for the weekly list fairly painlessly. However, I do tend to shove unlikely concoctions down towards the end of the week, so when I get there I think...what is that?? But overall it is an improvement, alhamdulillah, and makes sure that if I need to defrost something I do actually do it in time, instead of realising at the last minute when it is too late.

Being able to plan and organise better I think is the result of not having any under threes in the house anymore. The under threes are certainly very cute and have many endearing ways, but they sure do make a lot of mess and demand a lot of attention. Nowadays I wash up straight after a meal, that was unthinkable a year ago! U would always be needing my immediate attention back then. Now she and Ia play together a lot, U reads, draws and does puzzles independently. MaashAllah. Things always move and change. Make the most of your under threes while thay last!

U's day

At last U has completed her lapbook! I say at last, that being her opinion on the matter. Most of it was printed from Homeschool Share.

U also did her own Humpty picture, and Auntie Z made the clever fold down Humpty. U likes to see everyone involved in making her lapbook.

Today everyone got their work lists done nice and early, alhamdulillah, so we had a relaxing afternoon with friends over to play.

U helped me make a sponge cake, at the assembly stage. She doesn't like the electric whisk.

Ia has been enjoying reading books from a set of synthetic phonics readers. She is bringing them to me to hear her read, maashAllah!

Rushing to fill every moment!

It has been a busy couple of days. We managed to get out and about for the time between Asr and Maghrib. Yesterday we went to the library, today to the park.
The boys have been learning about food groups, planning routes using transport maps and kushoo (concentration) in prayer. Ia has been doing phonics work and more work towards a senses lapbook.

There has been lots of reading. The books above are a few of those the boys have recently read, or reread. My brain is feeling drained! Hopefully, inshAllah, I'll recover a bit and be back with something more interesting to post!

Owl Babies

Doing this lapbook was completely Ia's own choice, and I printed almost the whole thing from Homeschool Share.
The little bits I added myself were ideas borrowed from looking through the Look Inside pages at Scholastic.

Where resources are free make use of them I say!

Resources can be really old too. I've seen books from this edition of the series in the town museum.

Making the most of the weekend

I get frustrated when I find weekends being swallowed up by cooking and cleaning. Surely I can be more productive than that I think to myself. I do realise that whatever I do, it will never be good enough to meet the standards I set myself.
The boys enjoyed sports this morning, coming back coated with mud.
Meanwhile the girls and I had been engaged in the much cleaner pursuits of bead threading and baking.

This evening I hope to continue with the Big Clean Out of the boys room, and do some HE planning, inshAllah.

Islamic History of Timbuktoo.

This morning we watched this interesting video about the history of Timbuktoo.

Picture unrelated to post

Today was one of those days, subhanAllah!

Maybe it was because I got delayed doing the (online) grocery shopping first thing, but things just didn't gel well. More triangle work in maths didn't help. The boys find that kind of work so frustrating. They do not want to discover for themselves which kinds of triangles have lines of symmetry, through activities involving drawing and cutting out. No. They would rather just have a table of information to read. Hmm. Why do we care what triangles have what symmetry they ask. (Because we are not intending a career in architecture, engineering......ed.)

Then I spent ages wondering how to present the next phase of the study of Musa (as). Last week the boys finished their context setting presentation on the ancient Egyptians. Next we will go through the story of Musa (as) step by step, inshAllah. I considered a lapbook, but then thought that the whole story is too long and complex for that. There will be too much writing, and I don't want to have to think about more folds! We currently have four lapbooks on the go. Five if you count U's effort I use to assure her she is getting the same treatment as everyone else. Hers is more of a "I know it is there" lapbook, than an "i'm actually working on it" lapbook, if you see what I mean.

So, finally I decided to try a notebooking style. A couple of years ago my father gave me a couple of old tourist board books. The sort with thick, padded plastic covers and plastic sleeves inside, in which to put your sheets of A4. I don't know where he got these from, I'm assuming it was a charity shop. So, I removed the aged information on places to visit in North Somerset, and there you go. A good home for our Musa (as) notebooking style project. For good measure I printed off some free lined papers from here (look in free resources), just to help improve my sons' presentation skills.

I did feel calmer after all that. There were some other mess ups during the day, but I'll just forget about that now.

Anyway, Ia enjoyed having a friend over to play.

Learning Together

The boys got their work done early today, alhamdulillah. They wrote a book report, did a couple of maths sheets and wrote about the time when the Prophet (saw) received the command for the number of daily prayers and how he was advised by Musa (as) to get the number reduced, from 50, eventually to 5. Musa (as) advised him (saw) to ask for a further reduction, but the Prophet (saw) was too shy to do that.

They also learnt a bit about scurvy, as well as Quran, reading and audio. I also do daily spelling with them. I have a book, which belonged to my sister, which lists spellings which should be known at certain ages. It is a list, as good as any other I suppose, so I test them from the list for nine year olds, doing between 4 and 8 a day. They actually know them all already, but when eventually they get one wrong I'll stick it on the wall for a week then retest them.

In the afternoon we all joined in to help Ia enjoy learning about the 5 senses. The only non-blurred photo I got was the one above of her filling in the booklet (sourced from Primary Resources)! The boys were sent off to prepare the taste test, sounds test, smells test and feely bag. Ia tasted jam, cake, butter and a pumpkin seed (amongst other things). She smelt vinegar, soap, toothpaste and orange juice. She identified the sound of an electric toothbrush, scissors and pencil tin (!). All of this with her eyes shut of course. U joined in too, but it was hard to stop her shouting out the answer, which she had worked out using her sense of sight! Her favourite bit was the cake tasting part. MaashAllah.

Ongoing Projects

Today the boys have been learning about different types of triangles. We started here.
Then, also from Primary Resources, I printed off a fact sheet on triangles, and then a set of shape vocabulary posters. So, the walls have had a change around, and now we are loudly faced with SCALENE, ISOSCELES and so on.
Also today the boys have been continuing with their projects on Tamburlaine's Elephants, and on Salaah. Online they are listening to the history of Musa (as). All of these are ongoing projects.
Not to be outdone, I have a new ongoing project! I find that I benefit so much from the shared home ed materials that are available online, I'm really in favour of every home edder sharing as much as possible! Hovever I know that amongst my own friends not everyone has time to get online and share their work, so I thought that I'd share it for them! (With their permission, of course.)
So, I've set up a new blog that is just for sharing resources and ideas, my own and those of friends. There is not much on there yet, but, inshAllah, I have loads I want to post there, I just need the time ......!
And, as if all that is not enough, today the bathroom sink tap snapped off, and this evening I have had the boys bunk beds dismantled and split into two singles, leaving their room in a jumbled chaos. I also need to bake bread, bath the girls...dinner? But I feel calm, because the day's HE is sorted. The rest will get by, inshAllah.