Spider Diagram

Sometimes I feel like I'm a spider diagram, it is me in the middle, with all the lines coming out as the things I'm trying to do.
So, I think I'm on the verge of some more re-organisation, alhamdulillah. There is just so much we could all be doing. I could fill each day for the boys, and each day for the girls. Doing this for all of them all at once is the problem!
I want us to be going for outings, going out for walks, visiting the library, meeting friends, reading aloud, doing art and craft, learning through projects and textbooks and wider reading and documentaries and so on and on and on.
I didn't mention baking ...or sports, or fitting in the daily Islamic duties.
I really need the boys to be doing more independent projects. It is good for them, and will help me to find more time for the girls and more variety for everyone. I was planning to make some changes next academic year, but as usual I can't wait.
This morning I asked the boys to choose from a whole range of unit studies on all kinds of topics. It doesn't matter what they learn (pretty much), just that they develop study skills through the process. R chose a topic on Aztecs and J chose Vikings. They wanted to get started on it today.
Also today Ia's friend came over and the three girls made the Lil Muslimah cut out dolls from Umm Abdul Basir's blog, and played with them for ages, maashAllah. If you have young girls do go check the dolls! I think everyone is making them!

Tuesday Summary

I rounded off the volume and capacity work with the girls today by making our own calibrated measure with a jam jar and small cupsof beans. We poured a cupful of beans into the jam jar and marked the level, and so on. Then we checked it back by filling the jar up to the one cup mark, then pouring it back into the cup again.
Ia also wrote her second story today! I printed out another sheet of the same piece of paper for her to write on. I think notebook pages might suit her, she can't stand the sight of an exercise book, (except the project style ones). This story was about our cat. I'm letting her make spelling mistakes, as I don't want to put her off trying to write independently. She asks me for some spellings too.
The boys finished reading the play of Wind in the Willows and did a piece of written work on it. I asked them to write a bit of playscript in the style of the play. They enjoyed doing this, and captured the style well I think, maashAllah.
This morning all three bigger ones watched a documentary on BBC iplayer about man eating tigers in Bangladesh! It was not as gory as it sounds, but showed the serious problems some villagers were having with tigers coming into the village. It was in the natural world category, but it showed strategies the villagers were using, so that includes geography - right!

Monday summary

After days of sunshine the rain came down today, alhamdulillah, and we got back into the home ed routines.
Today Ia moved onto Peter and Jane book 10. At level 9 I only had one of the two books, and this level 10 book we picked up in a charity shop last week. She really wants to read all the way to the last level, level 12. We only have one book per level for levels 11 and 12, and it is not worth getting the others as by now there is so much more she can choose from, alhamdulillah. She just wants that completed feeling with the Peter and Jane books. She is reading other things by herself now too, for example a lovely Usborne lift-the-flap book on sharks we found in the library at the weekend.
Both girls did some more volume and capacity work today, finding out how many cupfuls of water fit in the teapot, and comparing that with the capacity of saucepans, bowls etc. I'm not using any other standard units of measurement with them, just estimating and comparing with cupfuls. They also tried out measuring with cupfuls of dried beans.
We began the morning by all watching some clips from a farming documentary featuring the dairy farm from where our milk comes. It was great to be able to see the actual farm and actual cows whose milk we drink! We didn't watch the whole programme, just the highlights for us!
Later the girls watched some short videos on a pet care site recommended by a sister on the Ihsan forum (link in side bar). They were amazed to see a cat having its teeth brushed. Can't imagine our cat tolerating that!!!
The girls have also played with their new toy kitchen, and with the old and rarely used lego pieces, Ia did her daily bits of work and U decided to do a few pages of a maths workbook.
The boys are brushing up on the Wind in the Willows play we read some weeks back, so that we can do some further work on it. Somehow I couldn't make time for it any sooner. They also continued with the usual stuff, and began a new topic on classification in science.

Flowers and a goat

I took the girls to an art workshop today, where they spent an hour and a half making these flower sculptures. First they painted the pots, then they designed their flowers, threaded them onto wire and stuck them in oasis in the pots.
The boys are now back from their days away on the canal, operating locks, keeping a log book and enjoying the sunshine. Whilst they were away the girls enjoyed lots of playtime and seeing friends. I also disguised some maths as playing with water, and we did some volume and capacity work. They also had the chance to touch a newly hatched chick, and U had her elbow nibbled by a goat.

Lots More Fish

No time for lapbooks today, as I took the girls to the aquarium, to follow up their recent Nemo/reef project.
London Aquarium has recently been changed about a bit, and seems more geared towards younger visitors now, so just right for my girls!

2nd Heron Spotting Post

Out and about in the beautiful sunshine today, alhamdulillah, investigating canals, locks and spotting a heron. (Can you?)

Tigers

Ia and U have finished their Tiger Lapbooks. They have spent about a week learning about tigers, but for me the actual tiger information is not the main point. More importantly they have been doing language work through the medium of the tiger project, and they have been learning about learning.
Much of this project was based around a Homeschool Highlights project pack, available from Currclick. JazakAllahkhair to Umm Adam, who sometimes comments here, for the encouragement to investigate Currclick further. I had been to the site before, but the huge volume of items on there, and the difficulty of knowing what could be useful and what not put me off at first.
Anyway, it turned out that this pack had some activities that were too easy for Ia but good for U and plenty of others that were just right for Ia, so she enjoyed herself! She was also able to read through the information booklet by herself, which was a bonus.


There was lots of colouring. There were several poems, but we just did one, as that part was a little harder. The types of tigers and tiger diets bits were from Homeschool Share.

U had less to do. But she made up for this with extra cutting out.

I liked that this project had pages for filling in missing letters, copywork and a wordsearch, all focussing on a small group of vocabulary items. This is a good idea to take into our own lapbooks.

The lines for the copywork were too wide for Ia. She prefers to write a little smaller.

Red cabbage indicator - home ed classic!

Over the last couple of days the boys have been doing that home ed classic, making PH indicator paper with a red cabbage. First we boiled the cabbage in purified water, then dropped a little of the purple water onto cut up coffee filters and let it dry.

Then we used it to test various liquids to see if they were acid or base. It worked well, alhamdulillah and we got some strong colour changes.

Ia's first story!

Alhamdulillah, I'm so excited that Ia wrote her first story today, (above)! she didn't think she could write a story but working on a tiger lapbook study made her believe it at last! Lapbooking really is an excellent tool for Ia.

She worked on the tiger unit all morning, one of the things she did was this habitat box. U is also doing a few tiger activities, maashAllah.

The boys put their plant lapbooks together today.

Tulip time!

Tulips, the confectionary of the spring garden, maashAllah.

It is a public holiday, so we are not doing a "normal" day. The boys have been out at cricket practice and the girls have been continuing with their tiger project, and cutting out games. We've been reading the big cat book above, and Ia has discovered that she can read books in the Usborne Beginners range, such as the dino one above, maashAllah.

Fish

Yesterday was all about fish for the girls. They spent the whole day working on these lapbooks. (We had begun them earlier in the week). These are Hands of a Child lapbooks on the cartoon film "Finding Nemo". Now, you might think that a lapbook based on a film is a total waste of time, but actually the girls have learnt a lot about the sea creatures of the Great Barrier Reef. In between making the mini books they ran away to play - fish games. I could hear them using the vocabulary they had been learning, talking about habitats, prey, having some fish being aware of predators, etc. So, in one way or another their whole day was spent on this topic.
For this lapbook Ia was able to do the reading in the mini books, so I just needed to tell her which bits to cut round, then she could assemble the books by herself. U needed more help of course, but she really improved her cutting out skills during this project, maashAllah.
This morning they did the colouring for the front covers.

Ia's above, U's below.

So, do you think that is all over now, time for a rest?

No. The glue had barely dried on the covers when I was being asked what the next lapbook could be about. In search of inspiration we popped out to the library, but didn't find a topic there. And NO books on fish of the coral reef, or any other fish. Hmm.

So back home I followed Umm Adam's tip about visiting Currclick, and they chose something on tigers, which they got started on right away.

Laid back week

It has been a laid back week so far, although today lots of work got done despite of that. Yesterday was devoted to meeting up with old friends, and today got off to a slow start, when another friend popped in briefly, alhamdulillah!
The boys have been getting on with some creative writing and reading, reading, reading as usual, alhamdulillah. We've been doing some more chemistry from the Gravitas book. They enjoy using that book, it presents things in just the right way, to be interesting without being overwhelming.
Ia and U have been continuing a game of making characters and their homes/furniture/clubhouses out of paper cut outs. There are snippets of paper everywhere. As soon as I clear it, more falls. In between installments of this epic saga Ia has fitted in her daily basics, developed a keen interest in fish and worked on a new lapbook project. U has taken to writing her own daily task list on the spaces on the sheet. She decides what it is and she ticks it off when it is done. Suits me!

Reading Aloud

Umm Omar recently commented on reading aloud and how kids enjoy it. Since then I've had a few thoughts on reading aloud!
A lot of people think reading aloud is just for little kids, who cannot read fluently themselves yet. Little kids do love it, but so do big kids, and adults too! What are audio books for? There are lots of audio books for adults in the library. How about on the radio, there are programmes just for reading aloud novels.
When I was studying A level literature, (so about 17 years old) we had two teachers for the course. One teacher would always arrive carrying only his bunch of keys and the book we were reading. He would sweep in, sit down and read aloud to us for 40 minutes with full dramatic style, then sweep out again. The poems of Byron seemed to be his favourites. I don't remember anything else happening in lessons, mostly just him reading aloud. The other teacher was a bit more flexible and let the students do the reading aloud in her lessons. We even got some discussion too!
So what I'm saying is I don't think reading aloud ever has to stop, as long as it remains enjoyable for listener and reader alike. My grandfather used to read aloud to my grandmother as she did her embroidery in the afternoons. That is more companionable than TV, isn't it.

Starting the Week

After a weekend spent doing lots of outdoor stuff there is colour back in the childrens' cheeks, alhamdulillah. The pallor of weeks of illness blown away in the breeze, inshAllah.
Back into a home ed day today. I feel I should point something out about the structure we have in our home ed. The structured bit only takes up part of the day. In between my structured bits is plenty of time for other stuff, which all the children get on with automatically in their own way, so when sisters describe their unschooling activities, I can recognise that in our days too. I just add some other structured activities on top, or in between. The unstructured days of last week were not really so different.
Before falling ill last week I finished the reflection project with the girls and wrote it up on Always Learning Resources at the weekend.
Today the boys have finished their latest Islamic Studies project, based completely around the book "Knowing Allah" by Muhammad al-Jibaly. I plan to write that up next, inshAllah.
The girls want to learn about fish of the Great Barrier Reef, so we started looking into that today, reading, watching video clips and colouring.

Something more refreshing

Still on Pause!

It has taken until today for me to stop feeling dizzy. This week has been so unstructured. H takes the boys out for sports in the evenings, and the weather has been good for playing outside, alhamdulillah.
Looking forward to getting back to normal soon, inshAllah.

Technical Hitch

After a week being in the house with sneezing, spluttering, feverish kids it was finally my turn, alhamdulillah.
Ia busied herself with her cut out and colour books and I was impressed with the boys getting on with their maths, Pashto and Quran by themselves.
InshAllah I'm recovering now.
Next to deal with the small matter of the trail of mess left behind by my being out of action for 24 hours.