Off Shedule

So, after a busy Eid of receiving and being guests we are having a week off shedule. The weather is not suitable for doing much outside, so I'm having a clearout day. I've been rearranging the boys room, trying again to maximise their space, again!
Their wardrobe is falling to bits...really should get them a replacement.
That's about as interesting as it gets at the moment!

Finishing off for the holidays

We've been busy wrapping up our sheduled home ed week. We'll now take a break for the rest of this week and next week, inshAllah.
The girls have both been using Education City, Ia has continued with her Quran reading lessons, and with reading Little Animal Ark books. Ia has also started a Nelson Thornes handwriting book, learning some writing joins. In maths she has begun multiplication and division (in the form of doubles and halves) and both girls have made a small start on a weather project. I should get them started on a weather journal, but I can just backfill the last couple of weeks with "wet and windy" in case they tire of keeping it too quickly. They have also both been doing lots of drawing and colouring in their doodle books, maashAllah.
The boys have begun long multiplication, which is not hard but you need to be careful not to make a small slip somewhere which goes on to mess up the whole answer. Can cause some frustration. They've also continued their ecology study, completing a quiz on food chains and food webs today. In Islamic studies we followed learning about the days of Duhl Hijjr with TJ's excellent Duas unit, maashAllah.
Other daily bits and bobs, reading, Quran etc and evening sports activities have also continued, alhamdulillah

Decopatch

Over the weekend I took the girls to a decopatch workshop. I wasn't expecting much, but it was more interesting than I expected. I knew nothing about this craft before, basically sticking torn patches of paper onto an object to decorate it. The workshop used animals, but they were ready made, we did not have to sculpt them, we just had to cover them with paper. At bit like 3D colouring in. Covering little boxes would be even better! I like making this type of thing, but I don't like decorative clutter. What to do with stuff you make?? Of course these animals can't go on display, so into the cupboard with them.

Finishing off a couple of projects

Today Ia has finished off a couple of projects she has been working on for a while, maashAllah.
The one in the picture is the simple "Where I live" project that I mentioned I would do some time back. It is just done on A4 in a very simple plastic binder.
It consists of:
- our address written out neatly with the parts of it labelled (door number, street name etc)
- a map of the UK with the different countries labelled and shaded in different colours and our town and London marked on
- a drawing of our street and a short description of what it looks like
- photocopies of street maps of our area with our home, friends homes and places we go to (eg swimming pool) marked on it

Ia also finished off her lapbook on dinosaurs today. It was a printed out lapbook I got as a Currclick freebie. U still needs to stick hers together, inshAllah.

The last few days

Tuesday was the best weather day for a while, and alhamdulillah we took a trip out into the contryside that day. The colours were shining, golds and blues. Really beautiful, subhanAllah. I certainly felt better for having a walk in the fresh air.

On Wednesday everyone worked hard on the usual things. Ia is enjoying the Little Animal Ark stories more and more, and now wants to read several chapters to me in a day, maashAllah. I've suggested she could just read them to herself, as she does with other books, but she likes to read them to me in case she does not know a word. She really does not want to miss a thing in those stories!

Today Ia's friend came over and together they worked on the poster above, on a treasure boxof kind words. This is an Islamic studies connected piece of work, linked to the hadith that says "a kind word is charity". The treasure box is filled with kind words we can say to one another, as kind words are precious.

I took the activity from here, where it is activity 5. We have been working on the other activities too, and aim to complete the project, inshAllah.

We've also been learning about the virtues of the first 10 days of Duhl Hijr, and I've started to read the "Tell Me About Hajj" book to the girls. We also watched part of a DVD showing us the Eid ul Adhar celebrations in Mali. The girls did not previously understand the concept of sacrificing a sheep for Eid. The film showed nothing graphic, but sheep before, and cooked meat after, so the message got through, alhamdulillah!

Monday

Another Monday. All pretty much the usual today alhamdulillah. Not finishing off any projects at the moment and I haven't taken any photos in ages!!!
I am currently reading aloud "Oliver Twist" to the boys, so that is going to take a while! Yes, it is that Victorian social history again. And how about use of entertainment media (remember it was initially serialised) in expressing social or political messages? Victorian social history, always relevant. As I frequently point out.
In science the current theme is ecology, as it seems to have been since before the summer....
I'm using the Galore Park textbook, "So You Really Want to Learn Science book 1" as a backbone text, guiding the topic area, but we have gone off in so many further explorations along the way that after a full year we are only just a third of the way through it, maashAllah! InshAllah we'll be moving onto the second third soon after Eid.
Geography this year is another very slow moving topic, using the Trail Guide at a very gradual pace. We couldn't possibly do all of what she suggests in a week in a week, unless we were hardly doing anything else.
Slow and steady is how we are doing at the moment, alhamdulillah.

Enjoying the weather?

Today the girls and I set out in the wind and rain, off to an art workshop in the town, and of course to visit the library. It was a day for being fully kitted out in waterproofs, and we were, alhamdulillah. Even the library book bag got a waterproof jacket made out of a large carrier bag.
The workshop was OK. It was about puppet making. The actual tasks were very simple, and nothing more than what we have done at home before (sock puppets, finger puppets). While I was there I was trying to weigh up whether or not it was worth attending, especially considering the weather and the fact that H had to pick us up afterwards in order that I could get home in time for Asr.
Ia certainly enjoyed the session, she can't get enough of that type of thing, wherever the location, maashAllah. U enjoyed it for the first hour, but then she got fed up again, as she usually does. She is not as interested in art/craft as Ia.
The main advantage is that they are in a group environment and taking instructions from someone else. The leader of this session was very well organised and clear in her presentation. Of course they get something like this every week in swimming and gym classes, and whenever we are able to attend other one off workshops or events, but today's workshop forms part of that picture, and for that reason is probably worth it. Alhamdulillah.

Story Writing

Story writing. Never mind the kids, this is MY favourite activity for them to be doing!!!
Why? Because they are quietly engaged with an activity for a long time without my involvement!!!
And I think that they learn a lot more from this activity than they do from certain other English language learning. Also, when I see them writing (or typing as it was today) I can see that the best way for them to learn how to write well is simply to read well written books. I can see the direct relationship between the books they are reading and the writing they produce, maashAllah. Sentence structure, characters, plot structure are all learnt about through reading, I've found. The only thing it doesn't seem to work for is punctuation, probably because the punctuation marks are so small that a reader ceases to consciously register them, although you certainly do notice when they've been left out!! (Enough said.)
So, lots of typing done today! Even Ia typed up a story she had handwritten, maashAllah.

Paint

Do you know what programmes are on your computer? I must confess that I don't know all the features that are on mine. For example, I only recently came to know of the Microsoft Paint programme, which is really old. In fact I think it is so old that I remember using it (or something very similar)in the handful of computer lessons I had at school. (I went to school before the ICT age!!!)
Anyway, I know it is there now, buried somewhere because I have to use the search box to find it, and when I open it it takes long enough for me to go make a cup of tea before it comes up. But maybe that is just my computer!
So, today everyone had a go at using Paint, and for the girls that can go down as ICT. Probably considered a bit "keystage 1" for the boys, but they still enjoyed it. For their ICT I could probably jot down that they worked out how to send each other messages with Bluetooth using the old phones H has let them have, and that they enjoy taking photos and turning them into the background on my phone.

Workbook Fun (!)

You know the rule, workbooks are dull and boring, practical activities are much better for younger learners.
When I started out on home ed with the boys I was especially keen on the practical activity approach, especially for maths. I'd read a lot about it. The written work they did in the reception year was mostly about learning to write the numbers. I worked hard on making lists of practical maths activities and games to cover areas of counting, pre-addition and shape. The next year these activities were further worked on with some other children and eventually I typed up the lists into a set of activities sufficient to occupy the whole reception year. I worked through these activities with Ia when she was aged 4-5. Now it is U's turn.
Today I had ready a pre-addition activity involving sticking pieces of ribbon of two colours into sets to show different ways of making 5. Yesterday I had ready an activity to show the distribution of 5 spots over a butterfly's wings, using a cut out and cubes. Does U want to do these activities? No. She wants to do a workbook. She wants a workbook for maths.
As for letter forms and alphabet, this morning, maashAllah, as she came downstairs still half asleep she was saying something about "that workbook with the snake on...". The Fun With Letter Forms book, which she wants to do everyday. How about all those activities for learning the alphabet and letters, the cutting out and sticking, the lap n note. Thankfully I didn't go and buy aCD rom for this as well, because U does not want to do jigsaws, colouring, cutting or sticking to learn about letters. She wants to do a workbook. Oh, yes, Education City is acceptable too.
Alhamdulillah, I am not complaining, because it doesn't matter which way she learns as long as she enjoys it. It is just so surprising though!

General Knowledge

There are so many decisions to be taken over what to learn, how and when. There are so many different ways of going about learning. Now that the boys are 10 they are learning about topics in more depth than they were at say, 7, so it takes a lot longer to go through a topic. This is a good thing as I certainly don't have the worry that their learning is superficial, but on the other hand spending longer on one topic leaves less time for something else and this leads to the wondering about when we will do "something else"?
That home educator doubt...the "Could we be doing better.?".....I don't think it ever goes away. There are really no good solutions for this except for just giving up on the wondering, worrying and indecision, and I'm not likely to do that! The reality is that noone can cover everything, and why would anyone want to?
To compensate for all this, and to offer some comfort is General Knowledge. Because if you are sampling some general knowledge here and there you are surely learning all sorts of everything, and that has to help.
At the moment General Knowledge is coming from www.brainpop.co.uk which the boys are using regularly, and to which the girls listen in. Sometimes J has decided to explain something to me and I find myself asking, "Did you learn that on Brain Pop?" Even when the answer is "no" I'm sure some credit has to go there for the manner of explaining something, which J seems to have picked up, alhamdulillah.

Quiet

The last couple of days have been pretty quiet in learning terms, due to some of us taking turns to come down with a bad cold.

The girls were feeling creative again on Thursay, maashAllah, when they decided to make their own library by copying out books. They made a small start with a few pages. Ia has also been using Hama beads again.

The picture is of a few books the girls enjoy having from the library. Ia has reread Baker Cat so many times, yet she still borows it again. The story is about an abused, overworked cat helped by mice to drive out its owners. We can at least still read whilst feeling unwell, alhamdulillah!

Work and play

So, continuing on from the last post. Ia's typical day is very similar to U's but with a few more "work sessions" inserted here and there. Both girls very much drift between structured activities and their own play. Their days are still very fluid because I allow them to make time for their own activities. This is because their play is still very meaningful and needs space to happen. This seems contradictory to the fact that I also use a task list to cover structured activities for Ia, but somehow the two do seem to work together, alhamdulillah.
Today they were playing at "school work"!!!! U wrote several lines of squiggles about her family. Ia wrote out a series of additions for herself, then worked them out. They wrote on paper attached to clipboards. Ia also used a ruler to draw some shapes. They did this in the living room, which they had set up with tables and various other specially designed corners which, to the untrained eye, would appear to be a lot of junk heaped on the floor. MaashAllah.

U's typical day

Today has been a typical at home day for U, aged 4 and a half.
This morning she began playing with toys, but when Ia got ready to do her spelling work U asked for her letter forms workbook. She did two pages and coloured a picture. Ia then wanted to do some colouring, so U joined in with that too.
Later they both decided to do some junk modelling. U covered the base of a chocolate box with torn off bits of patterned paper. She made several layers. Later in the day she and Ia turned this into a mini dolls house, furnished with bits of toys and other junk. Right now they are playing with that.
She has also spent plenty of today in her room reading library books. She can't read, but she talks to herself about the story, if she knows it, or the pictures if she doesn't know the story or if it is a non-fiction book. She has also spent lots of time playing with Ia.
U has also used Education City today, and listened along to Ia's Quran practice.
Again when it was time for Ia to do maths U did a couple of pages of a workbook that required counting numbers of objects. When Ia did another section of their dinosaur lapbook U prefered to build with interlocking cubes, so she did that instead.
We have not done art and craft today, but the junk modelling and colouring fills that slot.
Later, inshAllah I will read aloud to them both a story book and an Islamic story book.
And that is about it. Very typical day for her at the moment.