Creative Afternoon

With the boys out playing football the girls spent the afternoon doing arty things. Ia made this picture from tissue paper. (Idea from Deep Space Sparkle again).

They both coloured in sheets that we had picked up from the museum some time ago. Ia decided to trace and reproduce the flower sheet, and all that tracing took her ages, maashallah!

U wanted to do some writing around hers. She then decided that she wanted to copy out some writing from one of Ia's old lapbooks. She works on this in her own way. She has also started to spell out printed words to me, maashAllah.

World Map

A couple of weeks ago, while I was waiting for the girls at their gym class, one of the other mums offered me some large pieces of card which she had received for free but had no use for. I was happy to take the card, of course, as it had been offered. I felt that I somehow needed to show that I would be putting it to good use, so I just said the first thing that came into my head,
" We could trace a world map poster onto that!".
And so the world map tracing project began.
We have a simple world map poster on the wall at home. I took it down and we used tracing paper, attached with blu-tak, to trace it all out. Ia andthe boys all had a turn.
Then we transfered it onto the large sheet of white card.
This fits in with our Geography Trail Guide theme, and is a really useful way to properly study the shape of the continents and countries. It is easy to overlook the many islands at the far north of North America, or the many islands of the Pacific, but once you have traced them, gone over the tracing, transfered the tracing and gone round the whole outline again to make it show up - it is much, much harder to forget all those places!!!
We decided to shade the oceans, to make the distinction between the land and the water, but not to colour the countries because this would obscure the labels, and I didn't feel it would add much to the learning objective. It would just get the boys fed up with colouring!
So, here is the finished map project!

I used some of the other card for lapbook covers, and still have more left for other projects, alhamdulillah!

Days out

These are the souvenirs we brought back from yesterday's trip. U also insisted on bringing back a number of sticks, as she was planning to build a stick castle. I think she was imagining a version of Eyore's house, from the way she was trying to prop them up.
From today's trip to a nature reserve we mostly brought back mud, but the girls had done a couple more apple pictures too.
I think we can really say that we are seeing Autumn this year, with its mists, its drizzles, its mud, its sunshine, its autumn colours and its apples. Alhamdulillah, Al-Khaliq.

Busy

We've been out a lot for the last few days. Lots of the usual football, library,visiting friends, and today off to a local museum and park, with a couple of extra kids in tow, off for the half term.
This morning was a little stressful, trying to get everything organised, receiving a supermarket delivery, and U deciding that this was an ideal time to practise handwriting skills, just as her brothers attempted a new geometry chapter, with lots of new work in it.

In the autumn sunshine

This is what the girls did with the leaf print idea I saw on Deep Space Sparkle
There has been warm autumnal sunshine for the last couple of days. Yesterday we were out all day enjoying the company of friends and fellow home edders, alhamdulillah. I always feel satisfied to see the children playing for hours outside!
Today we were out walking again and the girls collected lots of different fallen leaves. U said she'd be making an autumn picture with them. In the end they are still on the table, as she has so many other ideas she wants to get on with first, maashAllah!

Plans, and adjusting plans

Although I do make plans before the beginning of a school year, listing topics to cover and textbooks or resources to use, these plans are never fixed. I'm always finding reasons to adjust my plans. Maybe the child has developed and moved on in their learning quicker than I expected, maybe their interests have changed, and anyway, I'm always finding something new!
Due to U's enthusiasm for lapbooks we are now going to have a running lapbook project for both girls to enjoy. it can be on any toipc, whatever they like. U enjoys this work but she just likes to do a little at a time. Ia would gladly do more, but she is kept at U's pace for this session.
So, Ia will also have a topic running at the same time, aimed just at her level (currently it is the "Where I live" geography project). This means Ia may do a little on two projects in a day. This will allow me to introduce topics in science and Islamic studies which would be too much for U at the moment. But this is not what I planned, I thought that U would tag along with bits of Ia's projects, as she did last year, but instead she needs something specific to her as well.
Other things crop up too. A dear friend recently used my Education City tell a friend code when she subscribed for her children. I was surprised to find that this reactivated my son's account, which hadn't been used for several years, alhamdulillah! I had not bothered to subscribe to Education City for the boys as they do not enjoy the style of it too much (the girls like it though), but now we have it for free we may as well make use of bits of it!
Things like this happen constantly. Just because I have made a plan it does not mean that I sit back and stop investigating other options, and neither does it mean that I believe in following that plan to the letter. Change and growth, that's what it's all about!

At last a lapbook!

Ia finished working on the frontcover for this quick-dash lapbook yesterday. Having made all the fuss about doing a lapbook U, of course, has not yet got round to her cover! Some of the bits inside are free from www.homeschoolshare.com and the other bits we did ourselves. It is very basic, just the names of months, days and seasons and the number of each. The photos are of Ia's work. U decided she wanted to include pictures of an octopus and a jellyfish in hers. I know it is off-theme, but I didn't stop her.

I took this photo on Friday, as they stuck it together. Lapbooks are very enjoyable for them, alhamdulillah. Ia wanted to get started on another one at 9pm last night, but it was bedtime, so I had to make her wait.

No plan today

Home education is much more a state of mind than a stated timetable. I am just as happy to observe informal learning as the more organised stuff.
Today the boys have been out playing football. They had a match and some training with H. A friend of theirs has come over and in between all that they listened to a radio play version of "Emil and the Detectives" on Radio 4.
I had thought of taking the girls out somewhere, but the weather was grey and suddenly colder than of late, and so in the end we didn't go. Instead, the Blue Planet DVDs I had ordered arrived and we watched a couple of episodes. I bought these mainly for U. Although I realise that most of the commentary will go over her head she will love just watching the fish and other creatures. I don't quite understand why she is so fascinated with ocean life, but I know that it all began from "Finding Nemo", which goes to show that there can be a hidden value in watching a Disney cartoon. (Not that I'd recommend wasting time on other Disney titles!!) And, no, she is not disappointed that the real fish in Blue Planet don't talk.
Ia has been doing some private writing, working on her lapbook cover and tracing a map.
All informal, unplanned and happy!

Currently reading...

I thought I'd mention a few books my sons have been enjoying this week. First I must state that I've NOT read the books myself, so I cannot guarantee anything about their contents.

My sons generally like funny books and they've enjoyed reading "The Amazing Adventures of Charlie Small" these are quick, easy, fun reads.

R found "Cosmic" by Frank Cotrell Boyce hilarious. Basically it is about a very tall boy who can fool people into thinking he is an adult, and who somehow ends up in space. It is written in a very informal, conversational style.

"Toby Alone" is a totally different book, but it seems to have an interesting, complex plot centering around motives for conflicts, as far as I can gather.

They also read Allan Ahlberg's "The Boyhood of Burglar Bill" which is about boys getting together a football team, in a tough area in the 1950s. This is not their usual type of read.

I'm trying to encourage the boys to read books outside of their usual "comfort zone", of silly hilarity, or boys adventure detectives. I put it to them that unless they read books that step outside of their favourite genres they won't be able to develop skills of criticism. How can they expect to make judgements concerning what makes a good plot, strong characters etc, if they haven't experienced a wider range? I read to them outside of these limits, of course, but they need to be able to do this themselves too. (Why do they "need" to do this? Well, they like reading anyway, and if they don't broaden their range they'll just have to reread books all the time.)

As for Ia, she is currently reading the Little Animal Ark seies by Lucy Daniels, a simpler version of the popular Animal Ark series. She is also reading the Thomas the Tank Engine My Story Library series.

Midweek busy

Another busy day, alhamdulillah! It is that time again when the days seem to flash by in a blur.

What did we do?

We had a late start as H's colleague came over for breakfast before they travelled off for some out of town business. The boys were doing some word problems, and then they went onto the Mathletics site they are now subscribed to. This site really is useful, alhamdulillah. Regular readers may recall that my sons are not keen on maths, but they are happily going onto this site everyday, alhamdullilah, which means that the time we spend on maths has increased, without complaint! The site is cleverly designed with a system of earning credits which can be used for buying accessories for your character image. It also allows you to compete in mental arithmetic races with other children online. My sons like this competitive element. The online races are the bit they like best.
As well as maths today they have read Quran, done a reading comprehension, found out about how birds navigate during migration, spent time on BrainPop , and practised their Pashto. They also followed up some internet links from a library book called "How did your locality change in Victorian times?", which led them to the BBC History trails, which offer an interesting interactive approach to a few history topics.
For the girls I hastily downloaded a months of the year lapbook from http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ and they started work on it. They seem happy with the subject matter - right now any lapbook will do! Ia also made an autumn vegetables collage using the textured papers painted at the weekend. I copied the idea from this excellent art lesson blog I've recently come across.
Ia also had a Quran lesson today.
And there was more..... but I think that's enough for one post and the washing up, laundry, ironing, kids to bed routine awaits.

Lapbooks?

We haven't done lapbooks for a while, except for the one on the Prophet Isa (as) the boys did in Ramadan.
We had a break for the summer, then from Ramadan and until now Ia's work has had a focus on practical Islam and getting her properly started on learning to read Quran. Also last year many of Ia's lapbooks were done in sessions with a friend of hers. For this year those sessions are taking an independent writing approach, to encourage the girls to develop their skills at putting their own words into writing, inshAllah. Ia and her friend associate lapbooking with brief writing of words or phrases, so we are doing this year's work in exercise books for now. There is no reason why lapbooks can't contain paragraphs of writing, but for now they seem happier writing paragraphs in an exercise book!!!
I'm missing lapbooking though! There is something very satisfying about turning out a lapbook! And I'm not the only one feeling this way. Today, out of the blue, U demanded to do a lapbook. She didn't specify a subject, just that a lapbook should be done right away. It was not a good time for me, I was finishing off the morning work, and getting lunch ready as we were having guests this afternoon. Seeing that I was not providing anything U resorted to making her own lapbook. She took some papers and folded them in to a book shape. Then she drew some pictures, cut them out and stuck them into her booklet. The theme? Well, it has to be dinosaurs or fish with U, today it was fish. Specifically sharks.
I really need to get back to lapbooking, inshAllah.

Apples and Art

Apple day craft activities. I'm not sure how much the girls learnt about the many varieties of English apple, but they certainly enjoyed themselves. I wouldn't let them print with apples at home as I'm not sure about using food in that way. The twigs were already on the page, they printed on the colour. I like the effect.

The coloured pieces are being stuck onto clear sticky film, the type used to cover books. Clever idea! To finish it off another piece of film was used to cover the other side, sandwiching the outline and coloured papers between the sheets of film.

But art at home is also good! These textured papers are for use later, inshAllah. We also did some experiments with colour mixing.

And lastly! One of the many uses for Cusinaire rods.

Just because.

Library Finds/ History

For me history is just a part of everyday life. It is just THERE. A few books I found on our last library trip are helping me share my sense of the presence of history in read aloud time with the boys.
Victorian social history is especially relevant to us, as so many aspects of what we consider to be part of normal life got started in that era, (libraries, museums, rail transport, seaside holidays, reading material for the masses and, of course, compulsory education!!!).
Not only that, people living in British cities and large towns are surrounded by Victorian buildings, and this is what these books point out so well. I think it is wonderful to read a book that shows you a tiled front path and Victorian front door that looks just like the home of a friend; that shows you pictures of buildings such as the old board schools, that are so much a familiar part of our daily landscape. History from buildings.
In the same way that I'd like my children to recognise an oak or a beech tree when in the woods, or to know the names of the birds I'd like them to be able to recognise the features of their built environment, and be able to name and explain them. Just as there is bird spotting, there is Victorian architecture spotting.
The book on the top of the pile is a real little gem. History through poetry. What a brilliant concept! The contents page reads like a treasure trove, society, sport, education, science, housing and more all addressed through a poem from the time, with contextual explanation.
Victorian social history is not a closed chapter, it reaches deep into the here and now around us. Fascinating.

Ummmm....

I hardly seem to know where the last couple of days have gone!
It has been busy, but the kind of busy that seems to leave my memory blank!
The boys have done this Islamic studies activity.
Ia has produced a couple of short pieces of writing. She seems to be inhibited by not knowing how to spell everything she wants to write. I'm trying to encourage her not to worry about the spelling right now, but to think about the sentences she wants to write down.
A friend was here today and she commented on U's letters. She noticed that U can form some letters correctly and asked if we've been working on that. (Sigh of relief), it is good to know that the scatty bits and pieces of writing U has been doing are amounting to something noticeable. U is gradually doing a little more regularly, although she is not yet doing both maths and English activities everyday with me. And whatever I do with her is kept short. However, when you consider her computer use, her reading habits, games, crafts and so on she is developing her skills all the time, maashAllah. I think of this year as a crossover year, a transition from the total free play of younger years, to the more organised learning style we use. The transition is for me and for her!

A little art

I resolved to do more art with the girls, because they enjoy it. I don't have ideas for it myself, so I do my usual copying. This evening we did these Matisse-inspired collages I learnt about at TeachkidsArt.
Yes, I did one too! I think the girls much prefer it when I join in with these kinds of activities. As you can see, I'm not very good, so they find the sight of mine encouraging, when compared with their own!
We don't usually do activities in the evening but we are moving at the pace of life, subhanAllah. A couple of the children have been ill this week, so we've needed to adapt! Having said that, it actually seemed a nice time for some fun art work!

Games

Today I made a big, long numberline for U to learn with. I have some of that old computer printer paper, the one with strips of punched holes down the side and joined with perforations. I took 10 sheets and wrote the numbers 1 to 10. I put it on the floor and U responded to questions such as "What number comes between 5 and 7?" by jumping onto the number.
Of course Ia wanted to join in, so I gave her simple additions and subtractions. A number line to twenty would have been better for her.
After that I played a couple of maths games with them, ones which mainly involve counting on and back. To avoid using dice we select from numbercards. This usually means that the games end sooner than the designers intended, but that is a good thing I think. Later still we played phonic lotto. U is still at the stage of getting cross when she doesn't win, but phonic lotto seemed to generate less tension, maashAllah! I remember using the phonic lotto set with Ia at the same age and what a struggle she had with initial sounds. It is a good reminder when I see how easy it is for her now that she is a reader, Alhamdulillah! Sometimes I may feel that learning is not going well, or going too slowly, but it is good to be reminded that we get there in the end! Alhamdulillah.

It's working....

Ia's geography studies must be sinking in, maashAllah. It hasn't been much, just shading and labelling some continent maps. I don't get her to label everywhere, just key countries she has already heard of. For Africa, for example, this includes Algeria, Egypt, Somalia and South Africa because she knows people who have either visited or lived there or come from there.

Anyway, this evening she decided to draw her own map, refering to the map in the book for feature ideas. While she drew she talked with U, using lots of geographical terms as she did so, showing that she has understood and remembered them, maashAllah. She was also able to point places out on the map and talk about their climate. U also drew a map of her own.

Alhamdulillah, it is so heart warming when things like this happen!

Drawing

The boys found out that drawing is harder than it looks, so they opted for tracing. Perseverance and practice, inshAllah.

Some of today

The geography studies are going well, maashAllah. Using the Trail Guide is really working for us. It is not one of those resources which looks great on the outside but which turns out to be very fiddly and preparation intensive when you start it. I don't like resources which tell me exactly what I "have to" do, I like those that offer space to explore and the Guide does that. We are still at the beginning, of course, studying the composition of the earth, continents, oceans etc. Today the boys went onto Wikipedia to look up the Pacific Ring of Fire, then they went to BBC news to read about the current earthquakes in Sumatra. From that they wrote up a paragraph on this latest earthquake.
Ia has also been writing today. This morning both girls wrote a letter to their grandmother. U's letter was mostly a showcase of letters she can form.
Later in the day we did an Islamic studies writing activity, based on an activity a friend had done with the boys years earlier.
We started by revising the meaning of the following Names of Allah:
As-Sami, The All Hearing,
Al-Basir, The All Seeing,
Al-Alim, The All Knowing.
Next I read to them the story that J had written in 2005. It was about a boy who was about to do several bad deeds but who stopped himself when he realised that Allah could see and hear him and know what he was doing or about to do. In the original lesson the children had listened to a story like this and then had been asked to write their own similar story including each of the Names of Allah somewhere in their story. (Actually the original activity included two more names as well, but I simplified it to three.)
So, this time Ia listened to J's story, then wrote her own version.
U did not want to be left out so she traced over the Names of Allah written out for her in a book. Then she made up a story (not at all related to the activity) by drawing a series of pictures and explaining the story at great length. Of course it did involve thunderbolts and Tana-roar-u-ses (spelt as said).